If the Ṛgveda is the Veda of praise, the Atharvaveda is the Veda of life as it is actually lived: fevers and family quarrels, crops and coughs, marriages, houses, enemies and the earth itself. It is the most human of the four Vedas, and for that reason one of the most revealing.
The Text
The Atharvaveda survives in two recensions: the Śaunaka, with 20 books (kāṇḍas) of about 730 hymns and some 6,000 verses, and the Paippalāda, rediscovered in Kashmir and Odisha manuscripts. Its name honours two ancient seer families, the Atharvans and the Āṅgirasas, and the text was once called the Atharvāṅgirasa. The Atharvans were associated with healing and blessing, the Āṅgirasas with counter-magic.
The Atharvaveda was sometimes treated as less prestigious than the other three, but tradition also recognised its importance. The royal priest (purohita) was often expected to know it, and Āyurveda considers itself an upaveda (auxiliary Veda) of the Atharvaveda.
Medicine in Mantra
Many hymns concern healing. There are hymns against takman, a fever that scholars often identify with malaria, against coughs, wounds and worms, and for the healing power of plants and water. One hymn praises the herbs: "the plants that are brown, that are white, that are red and speckled... I call them all" (8.7.1). Here we see early Indian medicine at the meeting of observation and prayer, centuries before the classical Āyurvedic texts. Kenneth Zysk has shown how these hymns preserve real knowledge of symptoms, seasons and plants, wrapped in ritual.
Harmony at Home
Among the most beautiful hymns is the Sāṃmanasya Sūkta, a prayer for concord:
"I make you of one heart and one mind, free from hatred. Love one another as a cow loves her newborn calf." (sahṛdayaṃ sāṃmanasyam avidveṣaṃ kṛṇomi vaḥ, 3.30.1)
It continues by asking that son follow father, that wife speak sweet words to husband, and that brother not hate brother, nor sister sister (3.30.2–3). Anyone who has hosted a family wedding will appreciate why such a hymn was considered necessary.
The Hymn to the Earth
The Atharvaveda's most celebrated composition is the Bhūmi Sūkta (12.1), 63 verses to the Earth, among the oldest ecological poems in the world.
"The Earth is my mother, and I am her son." (mātā bhūmiḥ putro'haṃ pṛthivyāḥ, 12.1.12)
The poet asks forgiveness for digging into the earth: "Whatever I dig from you, O Earth, may it quickly grow again. May I not strike your vital points or your heart" (12.1.35). The hymn celebrates the earth as home to "people of different speech and different customs" (12.1.45), a strikingly pluralist vision. Rarely has resource extraction been preceded by such a sincere apology.
Philosophy in the Atharvaveda
The text is not only practical. It contains profound cosmological hymns, such as those on Kāla, Time, as the source of all things (19.53–54), and on the Skambha, the cosmic pillar supporting the universe (10.7). Several major Upaniṣads, including the Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍūkya and Praśna, belong to the Atharvaveda tradition. The Māṇḍūkya's analysis of Om and the four states of consciousness is among the most influential texts in Vedānta.
Reading It Today
The Atharvaveda also contains spells against rivals and enemies that modern readers may find uncomfortable. Honest reading accepts the text in full: an ancient community seeking protection, healing and harmony with the tools it had. Its enduring gifts are its care for the body, its desire for concord and its reverence for the earth.
For Every Reader
- For children: the Earth is like a mother who feeds us. What is one way you can say thank you to her today?
- For adults: read 3.30 aloud at a family gathering, then watch who looks guilty.
- For organisations: the Bhūmi Sūkta's principle, take only what can regrow, is a working definition of sustainability.
References
- Atharvaveda Saṃhitā (Śaunaka), trans. W. D. Whitney, rev. C. R. Lanman, Harvard Oriental Series 7–8 (Harvard University Press, 1905).
- M. Bloomfield, Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, Sacred Books of the East 42 (Clarendon Press, 1897).
- K. G. Zysk, Religious Medicine: The History and Evolution of Indian Medicine (Transaction, 1993).
- J. Gonda, Vedic Literature (Harrassowitz, 1975).