A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s3.13

v1.c8.s3.13

And just as the brahmanizing of the ancient magic poetry indicates a later period of the collection, so the part which the Vedic gods play in the Atharvaveda points to a later origin for the Saṁhitā. We here meet the same gods as in the Ṛgveda: Agni, Indra and so on; but their character had quite faded, they hardly differ from each other, their original signification as natural beings is, for the greater part, forgotten, and as the magic songs deal mostly with the banishment and destruction of demons—the gods being invoked only for this purpose—they have all become demon-killers. Finally, also those hymns of the Atharvaveda which contain theosophical and cosmogonic speculations indicate a later period. We already find in these hymns a fairly developed philosophical terminology, and a development of pantheism standing on a level with the philosophy of the Upaniṣads. The fact that even these philosophical hymns themselves are used for magic purposes, that, for instance, a philosophical conception such as *Asat*, "the non-existent," is employed as a means of destroying enemies, demons, and magicians,¹ shews that here already we have before us an artificial and very modern development of ancient witchcraft.