A thread on materialization of AV corpus. Apparently there's a claim going on that AV is unknown to bhagavadgItA as it only knows the first three veda. Let us set the record straight. Taittiriya Upanishad of yajurveda in brahmAnandavalli (8.3.1)on manomaya kosha has yajur as the

head, R^iks and sAmans as the wings and atharvAngirasa as the tail. This establishes taittiriya upanishad is aware of all the 4 veda. One has to be brain dead or dishonest to argue that taittiriya upanishad is later than mahAbhArata, even in its oldest form jaya samhita.

Let's keep going. Taittiriya brAhmaNa 3.12.8.2 has this passage:
It enumerates R^iks, yajushes, sAmans and continues with atharvAngirasas, itihAsa puraNas and the vidyas of sarpa and deva janas.

Someone might argue taittiriya upanishad being later than mahAbhArata (erroneously) but now we have reference in taittiriya brAhmaNa itself. We're not done. Let's get going. Taittiriya samhita in ashvamedha mantras has this:

In the long list of svAhAkAras, it has R^igbhyassvAhA, yajurbhyassvAhA, sAmebhyassvAhA and angirobhyassvAhA. Now are arivu jIvis are going to post date taittiriya samhita to later than mahAbhArata?

The process by which AV mantras are collected, samhitas taking shape and the differentiation of 9 shAkhAs is generally poorly understood and there are lot of gaps. We have white indologists muddying water as if we don't have problems on our own. We need brightest minds

working on this, carefully collating, cross checking and teasing out a coherent theory. It is not only annoying but also saddening to note folks on our paksha get basics wrong.
Here is a chronology of what I think happened with materialization of AV corpus.

The word atharvan itself has the Iranian cognate āθravan which really semantically equivalent to brAhmaNa. Just like brAhmaNa is supposed to possess brahmavarchas, acquisition of glorious khvarena makes one an āθravan. Connection Iranian ātar most likely is correct, as it was

atharvan who discovers fire under water and deposits on a lotus leaf (something alluded in Rig Veda itself). Any connection to atharvan and angirasa collection of mantras appear to be a later development.
If you examine the contents of AV, you can see broad

divisions like this - grihya ritual proper (lot of AV mantras make their way into mantrapAThas of grihya sutras. AV has superior reading in general); witchcraft/sorcery - domain of angirasa and bheshajAni/shAnti - domain of atharvan. Most likely mantras associated with these

practices predate RV itself - AV healing charm has an exact Germanic stanza. The yAtuvidya/sorcery is at least of Indo-Iranian provenance - Yasna 12.4 has the zoroastrian reject yAtus and their associates:

vî daêvâish akhâish avanghûsh anaretâish akô-dâbîsh sarem mruyê hâtãm draojishtâish hâtãm paoshishtâish hâtãm avanghutemâish vî daêvâish vî daêvavatbîsh vî ýâtush vî ýâtumatbîsh vî kahyâcît hâtãm âtarâish vî manêbîsh vî vacêbîsh vî shyaothanâish vî cithrâish, vî zî anâ sarem...

The floating mass of grihya, shAnta and yAtu material most likely collected and given shape by the clans of bhrigus/atharvans and angirases - this post dates shrauta standardization in kuru panchala realms. As we can see AV specific mantras and practices seeping into

Yajur and sAman texts, it is obvious that trayI is not only aware of AV mantras they drew on it occasionally and gave a ritual application. Atharvans appear to have scored a good victory in claiming paurohitya via rAjakarmANi for kshatriyas.

Finally, does RV, at least 10th manDala know of AV collection? After all this manDala shares lot of material with AV. I'm not so sure. Swami Dayananda afaik thinks "R^ichassAmAni jajñire, ChandAGMsi jajñire tasmAt" from purushasukta - the Chandas refers to Atharva veda.

In this case, I think he may be on to something. AV unlike RV doesn't have perfect meters. There's an explosion of Chandas types - virADgarbha, yavamadhyA, pipIlikAmadhyA etc. One can speculate that this RV mantra indeed is aware of Chandas explosion in AV.