Unveiling the Atharvaveda: Mapping the Cultural and Linguistic Peculiarities of a Vedic Text

Long regarded as a marginal text, overshadowed by its association with “magic” and “incantation”, the Atharvaveda is emerging as one of the most intriguing and conceptually rich corpora of early Indian thought. Far from being a peripheral collection, it offers a unique window into the ways in which ancient societies confronted vulnerability, disorder, and the uncertainties of human existence. Bringing together insights from linguistics, philology, the history of religions, and anthropology, this volume invites readers to reconsider the Atharvaveda as a dynamic field where language, the body, ritual practice, and power intersect. Here, healing, protection, and harm are not merely themes, but processes through which knowledge is produced, authority is negotiated, and the boundaries of the human are continuously redefined. Structured around three interconnected domains – language, lexicon, and ritual – the essays collected in this volume illuminate the distinctive logic of the Atharvaveda: a text deeply rooted in tradition, yet marked by a striking originality. By moving beyond reductive categories, this book presents the Atharvaveda as a central site for exploring the entanglement of body, knowledge, and power in the religious world of ancient India.