The link between the bhR^igu-s & the a~Ngiras-es in establishing the fire ritual is an ancient one. They are named together& remembered as the preeminent ancestors of the v1s in the manistic incantations RV itself. Various ancient bhR^igu-s like bhR^igu, aurva, apanvAna are
remembered for their discovery of fire within water -- a memory of the old Indo-European homeland. Similarly, the a~Ngiras-es are remembered as first institute the fire ritual:
vipram padam a~Ngiraso dadhAnA yaj~nasya dhAma prathamam mananta ||
These ancient a~Ngiras ritualist
vipram padam a~Ngiraso dadhAnA yaj~nasya dhAma prathamam mananta ||
These ancient a~Ngiras ritualist
clans who founded the yaj~na were known by the mysterious terms navagva & dashagva which the great patriot Tilak interpreted as meaning those who performed 9 or 10 monthly annual sattra-s pausing for the great aindra rite in months before the mahAvrata. Likewise we can make the
argument that the ancient bhR^igu ritualists were known as the atharvan-s. They were nearly figures of mythology even by the time of the extant RV & known even in Iranic tradition. It seems likely that in addition to the a~Ngiras dominated (3 great clans, gotama-s, bArhaspatya-s
kANva-s, apart from several other early a~Ngiras vipra-s) RV collection, both bhR^igu-s & a~Ngiras-es had several other "special incantations". One of these were shAntika& abhichArika purposes used either within or outside classic shrauta contexts. Hence the term ghora for the
abhichArika a~Ngiras collection. The other special collection was foundations of H medicine. This is explicitly remembered even outside the AV tradition: The kauthuma-s say: bheShajaM vAtharvaNAni bheShajam eva tat karoti | At some point the bhR^igu-s & some a~Ngiras consciously
decided to unify their collection into a single 1. Indeed, the existence of earlier separate precursor collections is indicated by:1. a fragment of that corpus in the Kashmirian RV khila. 2. Notices in sAmaveda brAhmaNa-s of the compositions of distinct compositions Atharvan-s
which included bheShaja & other material. 3. The mysterious teachings of the ancient atharvan kabandha which remanifest in shamanic possessions in multiple later vedic texts. By the time of the Yajurvedic brAhmaNa-s we hear of the unified corpus in unambiguous terms mirroring the
self-referral in the AV gopatha brAhmana. Thus, we posit that the special bhR^igu-a~Ngiras collection was ancient but "stored" in the more archaic manner of the clan books. Episodically, parts of it were incorporated in the RV Khila & the emerging KYV & SV texts where needed.
However, the comprehensive collection was initiated after the KYV& SV saMhitA-s were compiled & this became the ur-AV saMhitA which evidently was a superset of what today is the vulgate ~ shaunakIya & paippalAda. After this joint compilation new compositions were added to it in a
manner that perhaps involved a process similar to invoking the ancient kabandha AtharvaNa coming back to give new revelations. These new compositions can be identified by their conscious recognition of a unified AV collection. At least in Gujarat & possibly Kashmir down to the
early medieval period, some version of the unified AV tradition was still practiced.
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