AtharvaVeda

Atharvaveda, one of the four Vedas in Hinduism, is a collection of hymns, prayers, spells, and charms for daily life, healing, protection, and domestic rites. The name means "knowledge of the Atharvas" and the text is linked to the Atharvan sages rather than the ritual specialists of the other Vedas. Its contents include invocations and magical formulas intended to secure health, prosperity, safety, and success, as well as rites for weather, cattle, and household matters.

Traditionally it is organized into 20 books (mandalas) and about 730 hymns. The Atharvaveda exists in two principal recensions, the Paippalada and the Saunakiya, with variations in manuscript transmission. While it shares some deities with the other Vedas (Indra, Varuna, Agni, Soma), it also invokes local or folk figures and features charms, spells, and incantations aimed at everyday concerns such as healing, exorcism, fertility, protection on travel, and agricultural success. The text thus preserves a blend of Vedic ritual and popular practice.

Scholars date the core composition to the late second to early first millennium BCE, with redaction continuing into later centuries. In Hindu tradition it is regarded as a Veda, though it emphasizes domestic and magical knowledge more than the sacrificial rite focus of the other Vedas. The Atharvaveda has influenced later ritual practice, early Indian medicine, and regional literature, and some of its hymns appear in later Hindu and Buddhist texts.