A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s3.22

v1.c8.s3.22

But even though it is certain that our *version* of the Atharvaveda-*Saṃhitā* is later than that of the Ṛgveda-*Saṃhitā*, yet it by no means follows from this that the *hymns* themselves are later than the Ṛgveda hymns. It only follows that the latest hymns of the Atharvaveda are later than the latest hymns of the Ṛgveda. However, certain as it is that among the hymns of the Atharvaveda there are many which are later than the great majority of Ṛgveda hymns, it is equally certain that the magic poetry of the Atharvaveda is in itself at least as old as, if not older than, the sacrificial poetry of the Ṛgveda, that numerous pieces of the Atharvaveda date back into the same dim prehistoric times as the oldest songs of the Ṛgveda. It will not do at all to speak of a "period of the Atharvaveda." Like the Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā, so too the collection of the Atharvaveda contains pieces which are separated from each other by centuries. Only of the later parts of the Atharvaveda-Saṃhitā it can be said that many of them were only composed after the pattern of the Ṛgveda-hymns. I consider as erroneous the opinion of Oldenberg,[^1) that the oldest form of magic formulas in India was the prose form, and that the whole literature of magic verses and magic songs was only created after the "pattern of its elder sister, the poetry of the sacrificial hymns."