XX HYMNS OF THE ATHARVA-VEDA.
word angirasa the fact that the Vish;m-pura;/a (Wilson's translation, V, 383) and the Bhavishya-pura;/a count the Angirasa as one of the four Vedas of the Parsis (Maga), the other three, Vada, Vi^yvavada, and Vidut, also conveying thinly veiled disparagement of the religious books of an exotic religion ; cf. Wilson in Reinaud's Memoire sur I'lnde, p. 394; Ind. Stud. I, 292, note; Weber, Ind. Lit.^, p. 164, note. We may then regard it as certain that the words angiras and angirasa are reflected by the ceremonial literature in the sense of abhi/-ara and abhi/arika. Far more important is the evidence of certain texts of greater antiquity, and higher dignity, which have occasion to mention the Atharvan inci- dentally, and enunciate clearly this twofold character of the Veda. They make the very same distinction between atharvan and angiras that appeared above in the ritualistic passage, Vait. Su. 5, 10 (Gop. Br. I, 2, 18). At 5ahkh. Sr. XVI, 2, I ff., on the occasion of the horse-sacrifice, recita- tions are made from the ordinary Vedic classes of literature, the Hka/i, ya^uwshi, samani, and also the remoter literary categories which the Brahma;/as and Sutras report, with great unanimity and considerable variety, as having been in existence in their time : the itihasa (akhyana), pura;/a, sarpavidya, &c.^ The Atharvan figures immediately after the Rik and Saman, and that too twice, in its double character as Atharvan and Angiras, and, what is more im- portant, bhesha^am, i.e. remedial charms, are recited from the Atharvan; ghoram, i.e. sorcery, abhi/('arikam, from the Angiras -. The commentator regards bhesha^am and ghoram as distinct works, bhesha^agranthasya^tharva/^i- kanam . . . ghoram atharvawo grantha/^. The same subject
A
is treated in almost identical terms in Asv. St. X, 7, i fif. : again atharva//o veda/i and ahgiraso veda// are treated indi- vidually, and again the former is correlated with bhesha^am, the latter with ghoram ". Once more this theme is handled
��* Cf. Max Miiller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 40 ff.
2 atliarvavedo veda// soxyam iti bhesha^w nigadet . . . arigiraso vedo veda/i so I yam iti ghoraw nigadet.
^ Scholiast, ghoram iti abhiHradipiatipddakam ity artha//. Cf. RV. X, 34, 14, m{( no ghore«a /^arataibhi dhr/shwu.
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