The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s4.1

c9.s4.1

For certain purposes we may go so far as to say that there are virtually not more than two *Veda Saṁhitās*, the *Rig* and the *Atharva*. To the *Rig* belong as a matter of course the *Sāma* and the *Yajus*. This Rigvedic complex may be taken to be the embodiment, as suggested above, of the "culture-lore" in contrast with the *Atharva Saṁhitā* which embodies, say, the "folk-lore." Some of the popular, mass, democratic, and secular, worldly or materialistic elements of Vedic life and thought are by all means to be found in the Rigvedic complex. But it is in the *Atharva Saṁhitā* that we are to look for them in specialized or concentrated forms, although of course the presence of "culture-lore" in this *Saṁhitā* is not entirely to be denied. To one dealing with Hindu positivism of the Vedic period the *Atharva* is therefore bound to loom large.