Atharvaveda

अथर्ववेद

Also written: atharvaveda · atharva veda · vedic medicine · ayurveda origin

The Atharvaveda is the Veda closest to the ground. Where the other three serve the great sacrifice, this one serves the household: healing a fever, setting a bone, protecting a field, blessing a marriage, steadying a kingdom. It is also the Veda of the brahmā priest, who oversees the whole rite in silence.

Theme	Examples
Bhaiṣajya — healing	Hymns to herbs and waters; fevers, wounds, poisons, jaundice, snake-bite. The direct root of Āyurveda
Āyuṣya — long life	Blessings for lifespan, vitality and recovery
Gṛhya — household	Marriage, childbirth, building a house, agriculture, cattle
Rājya — kingship	Consecration of a king, unity of the assembly, the duties of rule
Pauṣṭika and rakṣā	Prosperity and protection
Adhyātma — metaphysics	The Skambha hymn, the Kāla (Time) hymns, the Pṛthivī Sūkta to the Earth

The hymn to the Earth

The Pṛthivī Sūkta opens by naming what actually holds the earth up, and the list contains no physical force whatever.

सत्यं बृहदृतमुग्रं दीक्षा तपो ब्रह्म यज्ञः पृथिवीं धारयन्ति। सा नो भूतस्य भव्यस्य पत्न्युरुं लोकं पृथिवी नः कृणोतु॥

satyaṁ bṛhad ṛtam ugraṁ dīkṣā tapo brahma yajñaḥ pṛthivīṁ dhārayanti sā no bhūtasya bhavyasya patny uruṁ lokaṁ pṛthivī naḥ kṛṇotu

Truth, greatness, the mighty cosmic order, consecration, austerity, sacred utterance and sacrifice — these uphold the earth. May she, mistress of what has been and what shall be, make wide space for us.

— Atharvaveda 12.1.1 (Pṛthivī Sūkta)

Dhārayanti — 'they uphold' — is the same root, dhṛ, from which dharma is formed. The hymn is therefore stating that what holds the earth is a set of moral and ritual acts: truth, ṛta, consecration, austerity, sacred speech and offering. Read that as poetry if you like; read it as a claim and it is the tradition's oldest statement that the habitability of the world depends on human conduct. That is the frame within which the rest of the sixty-three verses ask for restraint.

माता भूमिः पुत्रोऽहं पृथिव्याः।

mātā bhūmiḥ putro'haṁ pṛthivyāḥ

The Earth is my mother; I am the son of the Earth.

— Atharvaveda 12.1.12 (Pṛthivī Sūkta)

The Pṛthivī Sūkta, 63 verses long, is the oldest ecological text in any language: it asks that what is dug from the earth be replaced, that her waters and forests not be injured, and that she bear no wound from her children. The kinship term is doing real work — a son may take from his mother and must not injure her, which is a materially different relationship from ownership, and it is the relationship the hymn names.

The hymn of concord

The Atharvaveda's social hymns are as practical as its medical ones. The Sāmmanasya Sūkta is a charm for a household or an assembly that is quarrelling, and the image it chooses to end on is domestic rather than political.

सहृदयं सांमनस्यमविद्वेषं कृणोमि वः। अन्यो अन्यमभि हर्यत वत्सं जातमिवाघ्न्या॥

sahṛdayaṁ sāṁmanasyam avidveṣaṁ kṛṇomi vaḥ anyo anyam abhi haryata vatsaṁ jātam ivāghnyā

I make you of one heart, of one mind, without hatred. Love one another as the cow, never to be slain, loves her newborn calf.

— Atharvaveda 3.30.1

Aghnyā — 'she who is not to be killed' — is the ordinary Vedic word for cow, and it is a passive gerundive built into the noun itself: the animal is named by the prohibition. The comparison therefore carries two things at once. The affection asked for is the most involuntary kind known, a mother's for a newborn; and the being held up as its model is one the same corpus has already placed under protection. The Atharvaveda's remedy for a divided household is not adjudication but a change in what the members are to each other.

Atharvaveda

Contents

The hymn to the Earth

The hymn of concord

The sources of knowledge in Sanātana Dharma

Śruti — that which was heard

Smṛti — that which was remembered

Nigama and Āgama — the two revealed streams

The four Vedas

Ṛgveda