From Him Power Arose On Divination in the Vrā́tya Chapter of the Atharvaveda

Abstract

This article explores the vrā́tya, an enigmatic figure who appears throughout ancient South Asian texts and has been an important component for a number of scholars’ historical theories. I argue that vrā́tya identity in the Atharvaveda is constructed over and against kingship, using the solar symbols of royalty. Moreover, the vrā́tya is divinized in contrast to human kings as an attempt to subjugate kings to vrā́tya power with the aim of securing social prestige, food, water, and lodging for vrā́tyas, whose itinerant lifestyle seems to have depended upon these resources. Thus, in response to orthogenetic or heterogenetic historical theories, the vrā́tya chapter (kā́ṇḍa) of the Atharvaveda presents us not so much with a figure who is the representative of a more ancient proto-Indo-European time or a distinct Indo-Aryan culture clashing with Ṛgvedic culture, but one whose identity is rhetorically constructed in relation to social and economic contexts that were contemporaneous with its composition.