Atharva Veda (Sanskrit Text, English Translation and Explanaotry Notes) (Set of 6 Volumes)

Dr. R.L. Kashyap
Dr. R.L. Kashyap is Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana in USA. He had his Master's degree from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and obtained Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is the recipient of many International awards. In 2003 he has received Vadanga Vidvan award instituted by Maharshi Sandrpani Vedavidya Pratishtan (Ujjain), an autonomous body of HRD Govt. of India and 'Karnataka Rajyotsava Award' in the year 2012.

He has authored more than 350 research articles of which 220 are published in scholarly journals and the rest were presented at conferences. He has guided over 50 doctoral students.

He has written extensively on Veda. Some of his widely read books on Veda are Krishna Yajur Veda Taittiriya Samhita (4 Volumes) Rig Veda Samhita (12 volumes) Atharva Veda (6 volumes.) Sarna Veda (2 Volumes.) Why Read Rig Veda Rudra mantras Essentials of Rig Veda Essentials of Yajur Veda Essentials of Sarna Veda Essentials of Atharva Veda Work Enjoyment & Progress

He is the Founder and the Honorary Director of Sri Aurobindo Kapali Sastry Institute of Vedic Culture, Bangalore.

Welcome to this book giving the text and translation of all the 914 mantra-s contained in 142 sukta-s of the first four Kanda-s of Atharva Veda Samhita. With this book, our plan to translate all the 5987 mantra-s of A V in six volumes has been completed with the grace of Veda Purusha. Thus this book will be labelled as Volume I and all other five books labelled accordingly.

Traditionally, the first volume must contain some introductory essays. I felt that translating all the mantra-s of A V would give me a better grasp to write the introductory essays. Thus these four Kanda-s were translated at the end.

Even at a first glance, the variety of topics III it draws our attention. This idea is expanded in the essay (iv], 'The Overview of the entire A V'. The topics can be conveniently labeled as belonging to at least eight categories, titled as: (1) Spiritual, dealing with Brahman, Atman, Primeval Creation, the support of all this manifestation, (2) The cosmic powers, Gods and Goddesses such as Agni, Indra, Aditi, (3) Education, (4) Family, Love, Marriage, Children, Home, Food, Guests and associated topics, (5) Longevity, Health and healing, Herbs for curing diseases, antidotes to poison, worms, and the use of the protective devices, professions, (6) Polity, the establishment and reestablishment of a king, battles, foes, the nonphysical hostile forces, (7) Happiness, fearlessness, overcoming sin, (8) other topics such as Time, Yajna, Cows and their symbolism. The basic idea in all of them is their interconnection. All the aspects of universe including human beings, animals, cosmic powers are regarded as being connected by a web, the web of truth or yajna, (Rtasya tantu). The web is supervised as it were by the Supreme being who has become everything. Recall the saying of Upanishad, 'Everything is Brahman

For most Hindu-s, only Upanishads are the sources of the wisdom. There are at least 108 Upanishads, among which 12 or 13 are called as major Upanishads. If we bound them in a single book, it will be half the size of Rig Veda or less. In these books, which appeared much later than the Veda-s, the aim of human life was regarded as the realization of the highest spiritual idea, Brahman or atrnan. One should not spend much time on the worldly things. A barrier was set up between the so called worldly life and spiritual life.

The four Veda books were viewed as dealing with only ritual acts known as outer yajna (as contrasted with the inner yajna). The Atharva Veda was censured as being, "most worldly' 'dealing with black magic'. We do not go here about how these views originated or how they became entrenched. Thus to get some benefit from the Atharva Veda, we have to understand the fundamental axioms or ideas on which it is based. These basic axioms are explored in the essay [iii], 'How to read the Atharva Veda', P. x. There are several commentaries in Sanskrit on the four Veda-s, and several English translations of all the four veda-s, some done in the twentieth century. I have discussed them in some detail in the appendix entitled, 'The other commentaries and Translations', 111 the Sakshi book, 'Rig Veda Samhita Tenth Mandala

The commentary of Sayana Acharya (1315-1387 CE) has been very helpful in my work. I have highlighted its contribution in the above mentioned book. The shortcomings of the Sayana work has been well documented in the works of Sri Aurobindo and T.V.K; however T.V.K. has great regard for Sayana's work. The books of translation of A V hymns in Kannada done by Sesha Navarathna has been useful to me as mentioned in the section, 'Acknowledgement

Recall that Veda-s have a great hold on Indian mind. There is a book on the so called black magic known Kaushika Sutra-s which quotes the use of the A V mantra-s in some of these occult acts Sayan a Acharya in his A V commentary mentions that some A V mantra-so are mentioned in these Kaushika sutra-s. Sayana does not say that A V mantra-s mention black magic. The western translators of Atharva Veda of nineteenth century focused entirely on these ideas and magnified them declaring that Atharva Veda ,is full of black magic. For more details, see the essay in appendix 3 of this book, Are Sorcery and Witchcraft mentioned in Atharva Veda (p. 290).

The possibilities of translating some hymns or Sukta’s from all the Veda’s from the spiritual" and psychological view has been On my mind for more than three decades. The publishing work of these translations in handwritten form started in 1987 with the establishment of the SAKSI Charitable Trust Following Sri Aurobindo and Kapali Sastry, I believe that the ideas of Veda are clarified by the Veda itself.Afterall the total number of verses in the four Veda’s is more than 20,000. Again all books we know such as Purana-s, are much later than Veda-s by thousands of years. My work does not refer to the Purana’s or Brahmans books whose sanctity I do not deny. I have been posed with questions again and again about how I started these translations. I am not a professional Sanskrit person. I have been a Professor and Researcher in the field of Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision for 3 decades at Purdue university (USA). So how did I learn Sanskrit or Veda? For many orthodox persons, study of Veda can be done only after initiation.

Spirituality is not a high intellectuality, not idealism, not an ethical turn of mind or moral purity and austerity, not religiosity or an ardent and exalted emotional fervor, not even a compound of all these excellent things Spirituality is in its essence an awakening to the inner reality of our being, to a spirit, self, soul which is other than our mind, life and body, an inner aspiration to know, to feel, to be that, to enter into contact with the greater Reality beyond and pervading the universe which inhabits also our own being. (SA)

How was I initiated? I answer all these questions and related topics in the essay Sakshi Bhashya on the four Veda-s (Background, Challenges and my contributions} This essay is the Appendix 1 in this book, p. 268-283. All the appreciative Forewords written to the various volumes and also the reviews done by eminent scholars are reprinted in the book [21].

The translation follows the same format used by us in the Rig Veda translations namely recognizing the four Padas (or quarters) in each mantra and translating each Padas separately. The primary aim of our books is to make the translation understandable to all lovers of Veda in all walks of life, not limited to academics or experts in English language, or those who know Sanskrit. For more details on the assumptions behind my translation, see the essay in appendix 3 of the SAKSHI book, 'Rig Veda Samhita Tenth Mandala', (with the text, translation and notes) 2007 Second Edition, 2012.

It is needless to say that the meanings of many words in the mantra-s, assigned by Sri Aurobindo are quite different from those found in the commentary of the great scholar Sayana or the translations of Enologists. Sri Aurobindo made a deep study of the Sanskrit of the Veda mantra-s which is quite different from the classical Sanskrit. This study coupled with his intuition regarding the secrets in the Veda helped him to reveal the correct meanings of some of words in Rig Veda. For more on this topic of assignment of meanings for the Sanskrit words, one may consult the SAKSHI book, Semantics of Rig Veda' [10] Appendix 4 has the meanings of some of some important words in the mantra-s (p. 293).

For an overview of the entire A V, our book, 'Essentials of Atharva Veda second edition (2010) [9] may be useful.

Welcome to this book giving the text and translation of all the 1116 mantra-s in the three Kanda-s, five, six and seven of Atharva Veda Samhita. You may kindly recall of our plan was to publish the text and translation of all the mantra-s of Atharva .Veda Samhita in six books. The first book containing the mantra-s in Kanda-s eleven through fourteen was published in September 2010. These four Kanda-s were selected because of the importance of the topics contained in them such as the issues of environment, hymn to Earth, the ideals of student in Vedic times, the ideals of a marriage, the Sun and others.

With this book, five of the SIX books have come to light. The remaining book containing the Kanda-s one through four is in preparation and will be published before March 2012, thus completing our plan to translate all the 5987 mantra’s of Atharva Veda.

The translation follows the same format used by us in the Rig Veda translations namely recognizing the four Padas (or quarters) in each mantra and translating each Padas separately. The primary aim of our book is to make the translation understandable to all lovers of Veda in all walks of life, not limited to academics or experts in English language.

The original text of the mantra’s is Devanagari script follows the conventions used earlier. Since we had to indicate the four Padas separately, which are numbered, some Sanskrit words had to be divided into their components following the sandhi rules and the traditional Padas Patha text. Moreover every word having more than eight syllables (Akshara-s) has also been split up so as to help our readers who may not be experts in Sanskrit. Thus our Sanskrit text is a combination of the traditional samhita text and Padas Patha text; so as to be user-friendly.

It is needless to say that the meanings of several words in the mantra-s, assigned by Sri Aurobindo are quite different from those found in the commentary of the great scholar Sayana or the translations of Enologists. Sri Aurobindo made a deep study of the Sanskrit of the Veda mantra-s which is quite different from the classical Sanskrit. This study coupled with his intuition regarding the secrets in the Veda helped him to reveal the correct meanings of the words given here. For more on this topic of assignment of meanings for words, you may consult the Sakshi book, Semantics of Rig Veda'. In section (vii], we mention the meanings of some of the important words in the mantra-s

Welcome to this book giving the text and translation of all the 945 mantra-s in the three Kanda-s, 8 through 10. The translation of the 1116 mantra-s in Kanda-s 5, 6 and 7 will be published at the end of December 2011. The remaining 914 mantra-s in Kanda-s 1 through 4 will be published in April 2012, thus completing the task of translating all 5976 mantra-s of Atharva Veda, in six volumes.

The translation follows the same format used by us in the Rig Veda translations namely recognizing the four Padas (or quarters) in each mantra and translating each Padas separately. The primary aim of our book is to make the translation understandable to all lovers of Veda in all walks of life, not limited to academics or experts in English language, or those who know Sanskrit.

It is needless to say that the meanings of many words in the mantra-s, assigned by Sri Aurobindo are quite different from those found in the commentary of the great scholar Sayana or the translations of Enologists. Sri Aurobindo made a deep study of the Sanskrit of the Veda mantra-s which is quite different from the classical Sanskrit. This study coupled with his intuition regarding the secrets in the Veda helped him to reveal the correct meanings of the words given here. For more on this topic of assignment of meanings for words, you may consult the Sanskrit book, Semantics of Rig Veda'. In section (vii}, we mention the meanings of some of the important words in the mantra-s

Welcome to the first of the volumes of translations of the Atharva Veda Mantra Samhita. It has 20 Kanda-s with about 6,000 mantra-s mostly metrical Riks.

Sri Aurobindo has stated that the business of the ancient rishi was not only to know God, but also to know the world and life and to express it in a format useful and accessible to the people. The Indian idea of the World, of Nature and of existence is not physical, but psychological and spiritual. Atharva Veda is perhaps the earliest book documenting these ideas in a poetic format.

Our plan is to bring out the translation of Atharva Veda in Six volumes, each book having about 900 to 1000 mantra-so The present book has all the mantra-s from the four Kanda-s, eleven through fifteen. This book has well known Sukta’s suchas the Bhumi-sukta (Hymn to the Earth), the Sukta on vedic education (or Brahmacharya), the sukta’s on food offering or Dana viewing odana as a cosmic person.

The translation follows the same format used by us in the Rig Veda translations namely recognizing the four Padas (or quarters) in each mantra and translating each Padas separately. The primary aim of our book is to make the translation understandable to all lovers of Veda in all walks of life, not limited to academics or experts in English language.

It is needless to say that the meanings of many words in the mantra-s, assigned by Sri Aurobindo are quite different from those found in the commentary of the great scholar Sayana or the translations of Enologists. Sri Aurobindo made a deep study of the Sanskrit of the Veda mantra-s which is very different from the classical Sanskrit. This study coupled with his intuition regarding the secrets in the Veda helped him to reveal the correct meanings of the words given here. For more on this topic of assignment of meanings for words, you may consult the SAKSHI book Semantics of Rig Veda'. In section (ix), we mention the meanings of some of the important words in the mantra’s

Welcome to this book giving the text and translation of all the 1099 mantra-s in the five Kanda-s, 15 through 19. With this SAKSHI book, the translation of the entire second half of Atharva Veda with its ten Kanda-s or 3001 mantra-s is available with the format and guidance suggested in other SAKSHI volumes of translations. The 2986 mantra-s in the first half of Atharva Veda will be translated and published in three volumes during 2011 and 2012, completing the task of translating all 5987 mantra-s of Atharva Veda.

The translation follows the same format used by us in the Rig Veda translations namely recognizing the four Padas (or quarters) in each mantra and translating each Padas separately. The primary aim of our book is to make the translation understandable to all lovers of Veda in all walks of life, not limited to academics or experts in English language.

It is needless to say that the meanings of many words in the mantra-s, assigned by Sri Aurobindo are quite different from those found in the commentary of the great scholar Sayana or the translations of Enologists. Sri Aurobindo made a deep study of the Sanskrit of the Veda mantra-s which is quite different from the classical Sanskrit. This study coupled with his intuition regarding the secrets in the Veda helped him to reveal the correct meanings of the words given here. For more on this topic of assignment of meanings for words, you may consult the Sakshi book Semantics of Rig Veda'. In section (ix), we mention the meanings of some of the important words in the mantra’s.

Sri Aurobindo has stated that the business of the ancient Rishi was not only to know God, but also to know the world and life and to express it in a format useful and accessible to the people. The Indian idea of the World, of Nature and of existence is not physical, but psychological and spiritual. Atharva Veda is perhaps the earliest book documenting these ideas in a poetic format. It has 20 Kanda-s with about 6,000 mantra-s, mostly metrical Riks. Welcome to the translation of the 20th Kanda of Atharva Veda Mantra Samhita. Our plan is to bring out the translation of Atharva Veda in six volumes. each book having about 900 to 1000 mantra-so The volume of AV having all the mantra-s from the four Kanda-s, eleven through fifteen has already been published [13]. The volume of Atharva Veda containing the translation of Kanda-s, fifteen through nineteen is in press. Thus the complete translation of the second half of Atharva Veda is in the process of completion.

The remaining three volumes containing translations of Kanda-s one through ten, will be completed by 2012.

The translation follows the same format used by us in the Rig Veda translations namely recognizing the four Padas (or quarters) in each mantra and translating each Padas separately. The primary aim of our book is to make the translation understandable to all lovers of Veda in all walks of life. not limited to academics or experts in English language.

A special feature of this Kanda 20 of A V is almost all of its mantra-s appear in the Rig Veda Samhita, almost verbatim. Thus in preparing this translation, we have freely used the translation of the Rig Veda mantra-s of all the 10 Mandala-s published by SAKSI in twelve volumes [12]. To do this task, we had to first identify the exact Rig Veda mantra which matches each Atharva Veda mantra. The existing commentaries such as that of Sayana or translations done by enologists like Whitney have not attempted this concordance. It has been an uphill task, but has rendered our translation task very easy.

It is needless to say that the meanings of many words in the mantra-s, assigned by Sri Aurobindo are quite different from those found in the commentary of the great scholar Sayana or the translations of Enologists. Sri Aurobindo made a deep study of the Sanskrit of the Veda mantra-s which is very different from the classical Sanskrit. This study coupled with his intuition regarding the secrets in the Veda helped him to reveal the correct meanings of the words given here. For more on this topic of assignment of meanings for words, you may consult the SAKSI book, 'Semantics of Rig Veda'. In section (vii) and appendix 2, we mention the meanings of some of the important words in the mantra-so