A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s3.5

v1.c8.s3.5

Now the Atharvaveda-Saṃhitā, usually called simply "the Atharvaveda," is a collection of seven hundred and thirty-one hymns, which contain about six thousand verses, in the recension which is best preserved.² It is divided into twenty books.¹ The twentieth book was added quite late, and the nineteenth book, too, did not originally belong to the Saṃhitā. The twentieth book is almost entirely composed of hymns which have been taken literally from the Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā. Besides this, about one-seventh of the Atharvaveda-Saṃhitā is taken from the Ṛgveda; moreover, more than half of the verses which the Atharvaveda has in common with the Ṛgveda, are to be found in the tenth book, most of the remaining verses in the first and the eighth book of the Ṛgveda. The arrangement of the hymns in the eighteen genuine books is according to a definite plan, and shows fairly careful editorial activity. The first seven books consist of numerous *short* hymns, the hymns in Book I having, as a rule, four verses, in Book II five, in Book III six, in Book IV seven. The hymns of Book V have a minimum of eight and a maximum of eighteen verses. Book VI consists of one hundred and forty-two hymns mostly of three verses each, and the seventh Book consists of one hundred and eighteen hymns, most of which contain only one or two verses. Books VIII-XIV, XVII and XVIII consist throughout of very *long* hymns, the shortest hymn (twenty-one verses) being at the beginning of this series (VIII, 1) and the longest (eighty-nine verses) at the end (XVIII, 4). Book XV and the greater part of Book XVI, which interrupt the series, are composed in prose, and are similar in style and language to the Brāhmaṇas. Although in this arrangement something quite external—the number of verses—has been considered first, yet some consideration is also given to the contents. Two, three, four, and even more hymns, which deal with the same subject frequently stand side by side. Occasionally the first hymn of a book is placed at the beginning on account of its contents; thus Books II, IV, V and VII, begin with theosophical hymns, which, no doubt, is intentional. On the whole we can say thus:¹ the first section of the Saṃhitā (Books I to VII) contains the short hymns of miscellaneous contents, the second section (Books VIII to XII) the long hymns of miscellaneous contents, while Books XIII to XVIII are almost entirely uniform as to their contents. Thus Book XIV contains only marriage prayers and Book XVIII only funeral hymns.