The oldest name of this Veda is Atharvangirasah, a designation occurring in the text of the Atharva-veda, and found at the beginning of its MSS. themselves. This word is a compound formed of the names of two ancient families of priests, the Atharvans and Angirases. In the opinion of Professor Bloomfield the former term is here synonymous with "holy charms," as referring to auspicious practices, while the latter is an equivalent of "witchcraft charms." The term atharvan and its derivatives, though representing only its benevolent side, would thus have come to designate the fourth Veda as a whole. In its plural form (atharvanah) the word in this sense is found several times in the Brahmanas, but in the singular it seems first to occur in an Upanishad. The adjective atharvana, first found as a neuter plural with the sense of "Atharvan hymns" in the Atharva-veda itself (Book XIX.), is common from that time onwards. The name atharva-veda first appears in Sutras about as early as rigveda and similar designations of the other Samhitas. There are besides two other names of the Atharva-veda, the use of which is practically limited to the ritual texts of this Veda. In one of these, Bhrigu-angirasah, the name of another ancient family of fire-priests, the Bhrigus, takes the place of that of the Angirases. The other, brahma-veda, has outside the Atharvan literature only been found once, and that in a Grihya Sutra of the Rigveda. A considerable time elapsed before the Atharva-veda, owing to the general character of its contents, attained to the rank of a canonical book. There is no evidence that even at the latest period of the Rigveda the charms constituting the Atharva-veda were formally recognised as a separate literary category. For the Purusha hymn, while mentioning the three sacrificial Vedas by the names of Rik, Saman, and Yajus, makes no reference to the spells of the Atharva-veda. Yet the Rigveda, though it is mainly concerned with praises of the gods in connection with the sacrifice, contains hymns showing that sorcery was bound up with domestic practices from the earliest times in India. The only reference to the spells of the Atharva-veda as a class in the Yajurvedas is found in the Taittiriya Samhita, where they are alluded to under the name of angirasah by the side of Rik, Saman, and Yajus, which it elsewhere mentions alone. Yet the formulas of the Yajur-veda are often pervaded by the spirit of the Atharva-veda, and are sometimes Atharvan even in their wording. In fact, the difference between the Rigveda and Yajurveda on the one hand, and the Atharva on the other, as regards sorcery, lies solely in the degree of its applicability and prominence.