Descriptions General
Encyclopedia of Hinduism
The Atharva Veda became part of the greater tradition somewhat later. It consists primarily of spells and charms used to ward off diseases or influence events. This text is considered the source document for Indian medicine (AYURVEDA). It also contains a number of cosmogonic hymns that show the development of the notion of divine unity in the tradition. A priest of the Atharva Veda was later included in all public rituals. From that time tradition spoke of four Vedas rather than three.
Dasgupta. A history of Indian philosophy
The fourth collection, the Atharva-Veda, probably attained its present form considerably later than the Rg-Veda. In spirit, howev-er, as Professor Macdonell says, “It is not only entirely different from the Rigveda but represents a much more primitive stage of thought. While the Rigveda deals almost exclusively with the higher gods as conceived by a comparatively advanced and refined sacerdotal class, the Atharva-Veda is, in the main a book of spells and incantations appealing to the demon world, and teems with notions about witchcraft current among the lower grades of the population, and derived from an immemorial antiquity. These two, thus complementary to each other in contents are obviously the most important of the four Vedas.”
Wikipedia
The Atharvaveda is a sacred text of Hinduism, and one of the four Vedas, often called the “fourth Veda”.
It is clear that the core text of the Atharvaveda is not particularly recent in the Vedic Saṃhitā tradition, and falls within the classical Mantra period of Vedic Sanskrit at the end of 2nd millennium BCE - roughly contemporary with the Yajurveda mantras, the Rigve-dic Khilani, and the Sāmaveda.
The Atharvaveda is also the first Indic text to mention Iron (as śyāma ayas, literally “black metal”), so that scholarly consensus dates the bulk of the Atharvaveda hymns to the early Indian Iron Age, corresponding to the 12th to 10th centuries BC or the early Kuru kingdom.
During its oral tradition, however, the text has been corrupted considerably more than some other Vedas, and it is only from com-parative philology of the two surviving recensions that we may hope to arrive at an approximation of the original reading.
Narayana Guru tradition
Nitya. Brhadaranyaka Upanisad
Atharva Veda, which is often treated as a heretical Veda, not respectable enough to be counted along with the other three Vedas, has appended to it the cream of the Upanisads, which give the substance of Advaita Vedānta. They are thirty one in number, the most significant are: Praśna, Muṇdaka and Māndūkya. In the Madhu Brāhmaṇa of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad itself, there is an attempt to cover up the identity of Aṭharvan to whom the Atharva Veda is attributed.
Relations of Vedas to their objects, four elements, etc.
Diagram: Summary of Vedic literature Synopsis
General
Wikipedia
The Shaunakiya text is clearly divided into four parts: Kāṇḍas 1-7 deal with healing and general black and white magic that is to be applied in all situations of life, from the first tooth of a baby to regaining kingship. Kandas 8-12 constitute early speculation on the nature of the universe and of humans as well as on ritual, and are thus predecessors of the Upanishads. They continue the speculative tradition of some Rigvedic poets. Kandas 13-18 deal with issues of a householder’s life, such as marriage, death and female rivalry, as well as with the ambiguous Vratyas on the fringes of society and with the Rohita sun as an embodiment of roy-al power. Kandas 19 is an addition and Kanda 20 is a very late addition containing Rgvedic hymns for the use of the Atharvanic Brahmanacchamsin priest as well as for the enigmatic Kuntapa ritual of the Kuru kingdom of Parikshit. The Paippalada text has a similar arrangement into four parts (Kandas 1-15, 16-17, 18, 19-20) with roughly the same contents.
The AV is the first Indic text dealing with medicine. It identifies the causes of disease as living causative agents such as the yatud-hāna, the kimīdin, the krimi or kṛmi and the durṇāma. The Atharvans seek to kill them with a variety of incantations or plant based drugs in order to counter the disease (see XIX.34.9). This approach to disease is quite different compared to the trihumoral theory of Ayurveda.
The Atharvaveda also informs about warfare. A variety of devices such as an arrow with a duct for poison (apāskambha) and castor bean poison, poisoned net and hook traps, use of disease spreading insects and smoke screens find a place in the Athar-vaveda saṃhita (eg. hymns IX .9, IX.10, the trisaṃdi and nyārbudi hymns). These references to military practices and associated Kṣatriya rites were what gave the Atharvaveda its reputation.
Several regular and special rituals of the Aryans are a major concern of the Atharvaveda, just as in the three other Vedas. The major rituals covered by the AV are marriage in kāṃḍa - XIV and the funeral in kāṃḍa - XVIII. There are also hymns that are spe-cific to rituals of the bhṛgu- aṅgirasas, vrātyas and kṣatriyas. One peculiar rite is the Viṣāsahi Vrata, performed with the mantras of the XVII kāṃḍa in a spell against female rivals. ... Finally, there are some rituals aimed at the destruction of the enemies (Abhicāri-ka hymns and rites), particularly found in chapters 1-7. While these support traditional negative views on the AV, in content they are mirrored by several other hymns from the Rig as well as the Yajuṣes. Moreover, Abhicārika rites were an integral part of Vedic culture, as is amply attested in the brāhmaṇa literature. Thus the Atharvaveda is fully within the classic Vedic fold, though it was more specific to certain Brahmán clans of priests...
Philosophical excursions are found in books 8-12. One of the most spectacular expressions of philosophical thought is seen in the hymn XII.I, the Hymn to goddess Earth or the Pṛthivī Sūkta used in the Āgrayana rite. The foundations of Vaiṣeśika Darśana is ex-pressed in the mantra XII.1.26 in which the ‘atoms’ (Pāṃsu) are described forming the stone, the stones agglutinating to form the rocks and the rocks held together to form the Earth. Early pantheistic thought is seen in the hymn X.7 that describes the common thread running through all manifest and non- manifest existence as the skaṃbha. ...The hymn also describes a pantheistic nature of the Vedic gods (X.7.38): skaṃbha is the heat (tapaḥ) that spreads through the universe (Bhuvana) as waves of water; the units of this spreading entity are the gods even as branches of one tree. This theme is repeatedly presented in various interpretations in later Hindu philosophies.
Publications Translations
The Shaunakiya text. Translations into English were made by Ralph Griffith (2 vols, Benares 1897), D. Whitney (revised by Lan-man, 2 vols, Cambridge, Mass. 1905), and M. Bloomfield (SBE Vol XLII); also see Bloomfield, “The Atharvaveda” in “Grundriss der Indoarischen Philologie”, II (Strasburg, 1899).
The Paippalāda text. Book 2 was edited and translated by Thomas Zehnder (1999) and book 5 by Alexander Lubotsky (2002), and books 6-7 by Arlo Griffiths (2004).
Bloomfield, Maurice, trans. and ed. Hymns of the Atharva-Veda. Delhi, 1964. Reprint of “Sacred Books of the East,” vol. 42 (Ox-ford, 1897). Translations and interpretations of the most important incantations and hymns of the fourth Veda from ancient India by one of the outstanding American Sanskritists of the nineteenth century.
Related words
Mahavakya: Ayamatma- Brahma Mandukya Upanishad
Mundaka Upanishad Prashna Upanishad Veda
Atman
Variant spellings
atmaatman ātman
Definitions General
Dictionary - Grimes
Ātman —... the inner Self
1. The Reality which is the substrate of the individual and identical with the Absolute (Brahman), according to Advaita Vedānta.
It cannot be doubted, for it is the basis of all experience. It cannot be known by thought, as the knower cannot be the known. Yet there is no experience without it. It is the basis of all proofs, yet cannot be proved itself, though it can be experienced.
2. Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika call it the substratum in which cognition inheres. It is of two kinds: supreme Soul and individual soul. It is a substance which is revealed in one’s inner perceptual experience arising through the inner sense of mind, independently of the external senses.
3. Sāñkhya and Yoga define it as an unrelated, attributeless, self-luminous, omnipresent entity which is identical with conscious-ness.
4. The Upaniṣads say that it denotes the ultimate essence of the universe as well as the vital breath in human beings.
5. It is the unseen basis which is the reality within the five sheaths. It is the spark of the Divine within. It is the reality behind the ap-pearance, and universal and immanent in every entity. It is not bom nor does it die. It is imperishable, according to the Upaniṣads.
6. In the Indian philosophical systems, the Self is said to be of one of three sizes: Dvaita Vedānta and Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta call it atomic (aṇu-parimāṇa); Advaita Vedānta and Sānkhya call it all-pervasive (vibhuparimāṇa); Jainism calls it neither atomic nor all-pervasive but of medium size (madhyama-parimāṇa).
7. Buddhism denies any reality to the Self altogether. (See anātman.)
Dictionary - Monier-Williams
ātman -the breath;
the soul, principle of life and sensation;
the individual soul, self, abstract individual;
essence, nature, character, peculiarity;
the person or whole body considered as one and opposed to the separate members of the body;
the body;
the understanding, intellect, mind;
the highest personal principle of life, Brahma;
effort;
firmness;
the sun;
fire;
a son
Encyclopedia of Hinduism
The atman is the self or soul. The word is derived either from the root at (to move) or the root an (to breathe). It is used both for the individual self or soul and for the transcendent “Self” or “All- soul,” which is all reality. Often the individual self is referred to as the jivatman, “the life self,” and the transcendent Self is referred to as the paramatman, or “Ultimate Self.”
Deussen. Outlines of Indian Philosophy
... Atman, which properly is the exact equivalent of the english “Self”. Thus Atman means that which remains if we take away from our person all that is Non-self, foreign, all that comes and passes away; it means “the changeless, inseparable essence of our own Self”, and on the other hand the essence of the Self of the whole world.
Wikipedia
The Ātman is a philosophical term used within Hinduism and Vedanta to identify the soul. It is one’s true self (hence generally translated into English as ‘Self’) beyond identification with the phenomenal reality of worldly existence.
Narayana Guru tradition
Prasad. The philosophy of Narayana Guru
Atma (Atman): The self (from the root “at”, meaning “to prevade”). The invisible reality or stuff that prevades any visible form. Often confused with jiva, the soul. Used in slightly altered senses according to the context. The simplest meaning of the word is “I” or
“oneself”.
Descriptions General
Encyclopedia of Hinduism
The Upanishads and Vedanta philosophy focus on realizing the unity between the individual self and the ultimate Self, by means of various practices. When one realizes (not just intellectually knows) the unity of individual self and Ultimate Self, one breaks the bonds of KARMA and escapes from further rebirth.
Some sort of meditation or contemplation is always necessary to realize the unity of Ultimate Self and individual self. Some Indian paths emphasize “knowledge,” or transcendental realization; some paths emphasize devotion; some look to combine devotion and action, or knowledge, action, and devotion, to reach this final goal. Though ADVAITA (non-dual) Vedanta emphasizes a total iden-tity between the individual atman and the large atman, other Indian traditions understand that there are an infinite number of totally distinct individual selves or atmans that never merge into each other at the highest level. VAISHNAVISM generally holds this view, as does SHAIVA SIDDHANTA.
Muller. The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy
... The next word we have to examine is Atman. It is next in importance to Brahman only, and the two together may be called the two pillars on which rests nearly the whole of the edifice of Indian philosophy, more particularly of the Vedanta and Samkhya sys-tems.
... Whenever we come across such words as Atman and Brahman we suspect Vedantic influences, whereas Purusha and PrakHti at once remind us of Sawkhya doctrines. But Atman is by no means unknown to early Samkhya philosophers, nor is Purusha en-tirely outside the Vedantic horizon.
... All these [Upadhis, i.e. the Manas, the central organ of perception, the Indriyas, the five senses, etc.] are not the Atman, and it is only through Avidya that the Atman has become identified with them.
... That there is in man something that can be called Atman or Self requires no proof, but if a proof were wanted it would be found in the fact that no one can say, ‘ I am not ‘ (I being the disguised Atman), for he who would say so, would himself be not, or would not be. The question then is What is really I or what is there real behind the I. It cannot be the body as influenced by our objective environment, for that body is perishable ; it cannot be the Indriyas or the Manas or the Mukhyaprima, for all these have a begin-ning, a growth, and therefore an end. All these, called the Upadhis, conditions, are to be treated as Not-self; arid if it be asked why they should ever have been treated as Self, the only possible answer is that it was through Nescience or Avidya, but through a Nescience that is not only casual or individual, but universal. What in our common language we call the Ego or Ahamkara is but a product of the Manas and quite as unsubstantial in reality as the Manas itself, the senses and the whole body.
Wikipedia
Philosophical schools such as Advaita (monism) see the soul within each living entity as being fully identical with Brahman - the all- pervading soul of the universe, whereas other schools such as Dvaita (dualism) differentiate between the individual atma in living beings, and the Supreme atma (Paramatma) as being at least partially separate beings. Thus atman refers to the individual soul or the observer.
Within Advaita Vedanta philosophy the Atman is the universal life- principle, the animator of all organisms, and the world- soul.
This view is of a sort of panentheism (not pantheism) and thus is sometimes not equated with the single creator God of monothe-ism. Identification of individual living beings/souls, or jiva- atmas, with the ‘One Atman’ is the monistic Advaita Vedanta position, which is critiqued by dualistic/theistic Dvaita Vedanta. Dvaita Vedanta calls the all-pervading aspect of Brahman Paramatman quantitatively different from individual Atman and claims reality for both a God functioning as the ultimate metaphorical “soul” of the universe, and for actual individual “souls” as such. The Dvaita, dualist schools, therefore, in contrast to Advaita, advocate an exclusive monotheistic position wherein Brahman is made synonymous with Vishnu. Aspects of both philosophies are found within the schools of Vishishtadvaita Vedanta and Achintya Bheda Abheda.
In some instances both Advaita and Dvaita schools may accommodate the others’s belief as a lower form of worship or practice towards the same ultimate goal.
In the view of the Yoga school, the highest attainment does not reveal the experienced diversity of the world to be illusion. The everyday world is real. Furthermore, the highest attainment is the event of one of many individual selves discovering itself; there is no single universal self shared by all persons.
The pre-Buddhist Upanishads link the Self to the feeling “I am.” Others like the post- Buddhist Maitri Upanishad hold that only the defiled individual self, rather than the universal self, thinks “this is I” or “this is mine”.
Narayana Guru tradition
Prasad. The philosophy of Narayana Guru
Every experience, we know, involves the three basic factors called triputi. The Reality, seen from that point of view,is the one that manifests itself as the knower, the known and the act of knowing at the same time.
Every act of knowing takes place in and is inseparable from the knower. The knower, in his turn, is an integral partof the known world. Knowing really what Reality is, therefore, in essence, is the event of the knower finding himself merged with the known, through the act of knowing, with no distinction remaining finally among the three.
This Reality, in Vedanta, is known as atma or atman. A word derived from the verb root at, meaning to pervade the being of some-thing (ad vyapane), it signifies the Substance that pervades the being of all that has come into being. One such being is the know-er himself. Thknow-erefore, the word atma denotes the self or oneself as well. Its best English equivalant is “the self.”
Nitya. That alone, the core of wisdom
You won’t find the eternal by meditating on the body or the mind or any of the senses or sensory pleasures that disappear after a while.
One should turn to the pure awareness that was present even when one was in the mother’s womb as a fertilized ovum, a devel-oping fetus, and as a child who was pushing itself out through a strange kind of interaction between itself and the mother, finally to come to its own liberation. All these things are done by another awareness residing within. It is the same in the mother, the child, the father, and all the living beings all over the universe. It is a common life principle, a homogeneous principle of life, which can
remain dormant, come into a form of manifestation, and assert itself in all shades of awareness, yet it is never itself affected. It is immortal; it never dies. It is called the atman.
To meditate on it, the ancient wise ones made a formula, ayam atma brahma. It means, this atma is brahman; this self-luminous awareness that resides in all beings is the Absolute. That which is other than that which lies between the skin and all the oth-er urges, it nevoth-er poth-erishes. When we contemplate this, when we meditate on it continuously, thoth-ere comes the poth-erfection of that awareness.
Ramana Maharshi tradition
Ramana. Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
A sannyasi asked: It is said that the Self is beyond the mind and yet the realisation is with the mind. Mano na manute, Manasa na matam, and Manasaivedamaptavyam (The mind cannot think it. It cannot be thought of by the mind and the mind alone can real-ise it). How are these contradictions to be reconciled?
M.: Atman is realised with mruta manas (dead mind), i.e., mind devoid of thoughts and turned inward. Then the mind sees its own source and becomes That. It is not as the subject perceiving an object.
When the room is dark a lamp is necessary to illumine and eyes to cognise objects. But when the sun is risen there is no need of a lamp, and the objects are seen; and to see the sun no lamp is necessary, it is enough that you turn your eyes towards the
When the room is dark a lamp is necessary to illumine and eyes to cognise objects. But when the sun is risen there is no need of a lamp, and the objects are seen; and to see the sun no lamp is necessary, it is enough that you turn your eyes towards the