The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.18

c8.18

³ It need not be said that inside the Vedic schools, in the various “branches” (Śākhā), it has been possible to arrange, retouch, even enrich the texts a long time after their composition. If the hymn of praise to Parīkṣit of the Atharvaveda goes back, in all probability, to the time of Parīkṣit, it has been possible to put beside it other hymns which were comparatively recent. The scrupulous faith with which the texts have been passed on to our time does, in no case, favour the hypothesis of a long period of the re-editing of the texts. Once the concurrent Śākhās had been constituted, the texts had to be fixed definitely.