The AV is internally mentioned several times in the yajuSh as atharvANgirasa. Thus, the collection predates the tathAgata, even if you follow a white indological chronology. The tathAgata, as is typical of him, redefined what the trayi meant; hence, we cannot take his mention of the term as defining some kind of vaidika reality. As you know he also clashes with a skull-tapping AV v1, vaNgIsha.
Bipartition
Atharvaveda seems to have been compiled in two parts: The atharvan collection & aṅgiras collection. …
We do tarpaNa in 2 parts even today 1 for the Atharvana sections and another for the ANgirasa sections; -> atharvaNAm aNgirasAM pratIchI | the combined collection was recognized in the TB - just as it is internally recognized in the AV saMhitA-s before upaniShat-s.
atharvas and angirases
Source: TW
In KYV-TS & SYV-ŚB, there are references to just Aṅgirasa mantras & Aṅgiroveda
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 aNgiraso dadhAnA yaj~nasya dhAma prathamam mananta ||
These ancient aNgiras ritualist clans who founded the yajna 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 aNgiras dominated (3 great clans, gotama-s, bArhaspatya-s kANva-s, apart from several other early aNgiras 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 |
Unification
At some point the bhR^igu-s & some a~Ngiras consciously decided to unify their collection into a single one. Indeed, the existence of earlier separate precursor collections is indicated by:
- a fragment of that corpus in the Kashmirian RV khila.
- Notices in sAmaveda brAhmaNa-s of the compositions of distinct compositions Atharvan-s which included bheShaja & other material.
- 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.