The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c20.s3.31

v1.c20.s3.31

The Atharvaveda,¹² which combines theosophy with magic in the most curious way, is fond of inventing new expressions for the supreme deity. Thus it looks upon Kāla,¹ ‘time’, as the one existing thing in the universe, and again it invents Skambha,² ‘support’, as the necessary substratum on which the structure of the universe must rest, and exalts it to the position of a supreme god. Prāṇa,³ ‘the breath’, is also deified and identified with Prajāpati. Another god, Rohita,⁴ is doubtless really an epithet of the sun as ‘ruddy’, but it becomes identified by the Atharvaveda with Prajāpati: the alternative theory presented by Bloomfield⁵ that it is the development of the abstraction of red as advantageous for all those suffering from jaundice is not indeed inconceivable, but it is not necessary and, therefore, should not be preferred to the more obvious explanation which presents itself.⁶ Even in that text the Vrātya,⁷ who is the un-brahmanical Aryan when induced to enter the Brahmanical fold by a performance of some complication, the Vrātya Stomas, is celebrated as a universal god, a fact which has erroneously been interpreted as an allusion to the worship of the god Çiva by a special section of the population. The remains of the sacrificial offering⁸ are also celebrated as being the supreme god, and naturally so also the Brahmacārin or Brahman student,⁹ as well as other figures. To these aberrations of the Atharvaveda no attention is paid subsequently.