The Paippalada-Samhita of the Atharvaveda (Volume II)

The Paippalada-Samhita of the Atharvaveda is next only to the Rgveda in importance and antiquity in Indo-European literature. It was originally the most prominent branch of the Atharvaveda and seems to have been known as such to Yaska, Panini, the author of the Mahabhasya and even later. Its decline in the middle ages is related to the parallel rise of the Saunakiya-Samhita as the main text of the Atharvaveda. A mutilated and hopelessly corrupt Sarada manuscript of the Paippalada-Samhita was known from the seventies of the nineteenth century through the efforts of Rudolph von Roth. But with its lacunae and undetermined readings (ed. L.C. Barret, 1905-1940) it hardly generated any decisive philological research into the Atharvaveda. The situation changed with late Durgamohan Bhattacharyya’s discovery, after years of search, of complete and much better manuscripts in the Oriya script on which the present edition is based. Durgamohan Bhattacharyya (d.1965) edited the first four Kandas (Sanskrit College, 1964, 1970) resulting in a ‘precious store of material… (being) spread out before our eyes’ (Karl Hoffmann) but did not have the opportunity to complete the work. The book consists of twenty Kandas or books. The first volume of the present Asiatic Society edition (Kandas 1-15, 3771 verses in 510 hymns) was published in 1997. This second volume consists of 1363 verses in 155 hymns.