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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00044 Feb 2004

 
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Dear bhAgavatas,
While growing up, I encountered various myths about atharva-veda and 
for a long time, I thought they were fanciful stories. Later, I 
stumbled onto facts, which I think, upon exageration gave rise to 
those myths. 

1. The muslims took away the atharva-veda.

>From Max Mueller's introduction to upanishads:
"The Upanishads were translated from Sanskrit into Persian by, or, it 
may be, for Dârâ Shukoh, the eldest son of Shâh Jehân, an enlightened 
prince, who openly professed the liberal religious tenets of the 
great Emperor Akbar, and even wrote a book intended to reconcile the 
religious doctrines of Hindus and Mohammedans. He seems first to have 
heard of the Upanishads during his stay in Kashmir in 1640. He 
afterwards invited several Pandits from Benares to Delhi, who were to 
assist him in the work of translation. The translation was finished 
in 1657. Three years after the accomplishment of this work, in 1659, 
the prince was put to death by his brother Aurangzib 1, in reality, 
no doubt, because he was the eldest son and legitimate successor of 
Shâh Jehân, but under the pretext that he was an infidel, and 
dangerous to the established religion of the empire."

2. The Germans took away the upanishads:
It might be due to the enormous interest shown by western Indologists 
like Muller, Roth, Whitney, Bloomfield in collecting vedic 
manuscripts, critically editing it and publishing it. If I am right, 
the vaitana sutra of Atharva veda was published by Caland from the 
manuscript he obtained from Germany!

3. Atharvaveda contains engineering & technology insights. Germans 
made use of it.
Old wife's tale

4. Atharvaveda contains nothing but black-magic:
Not entirely true. The Kaushika sutra & AV parishishTas classify the 
AV mantras into lists (or gaNas) depending on viniyogas. Here is a 
sample:

shanti karmAni: rites like graha shanti, nakshatra shanti, shanti for 
certain omens etc.

bhaishajya karmANi: rites to cure diseases like takman, yakshman, 
kshEtriya, rapas etc, charms against snakebites, incantations against 
krimis (worms).

strI karmANi: rites for women - safe delivery of baby and others.

rAja karmANI: royal rites - whole set of rites for kings, to be 
performed by his atharvan purohita

abhichAra karmANi: black magic & sorcery, counter-black magic etc.

and many many more, ( a discussion of the list is beyond the scope of 
this post ). 
A corollary for this myth - other vedas do not contain "such impure 
matters" is not entirely true. The shadvimsha brAhmaNa of sAmaveda 
contains topics on sorcery. So does the first two chapters of 
chAndOgya brAhmaNa (the rest forming the famous chAndOgya upanishad). 

Then there is Rigvidhana (the authon makes a passing comment that 
similar rites are prescribed in atharvan tradition). Taittriya 
AraNyakam contains curses against enemies.

Another name of AV is brahma-veda, as it is supposed to contain 
upanishadic topics & brahman. Actually there is a study that traces 
various upanishadic concepts directly to atharva samhita. 

For example, "pUrNAt purNamudachati pUrNam purNena sivyate" in 
atharva veda immediately reminds one, the line from vAjasaneyi 
samhitopanishad (IsAvAsya) "pUrNamada: pUrNamidam pUrNAt 
pUrNamudacyate".

Regards,
Kasturi




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