My research consists in the study of the fifteenth kāṇḍa of the Paippalādasaṃhitā of the Atharvaveda, the oldest collection of Vedic hymns after the R̥gvedasaṃhitā. Since it has been discovered, and the process of editing it been undertaken, the Paippalādasaṃhitā of the Atharvaveda has greatly increased our knowledge in many fields of Vedic – and more generally Indian – studies. Unfortunately, there is not yet a complete critical edition of the text, provided with translation and commentary, which are essential prerequisites to fully appreciating its value. My research focuses on the critical edition of book fifteen, which includes 23 hymns. The text of the hymns will be established from the collation of seven manuscripts, the Kashmirian birchbark manuscript and six palm-leaf manuscripts from Orissa; a positive critical apparatus will record the variants of the manuscripts and give an account of the textual situation.

The text will be accompanied by a translation, which will be as literal as possible but will represent at the same time a first interpretation of the text and of its deeper meaning.

The commentary will be as in-depth as possible: after a brief introduction to every hymn, textual problems and variants will first be analyzed, as well as graphic mistakes in the manuscripts; then linguistic, grammatical and lexical peculiarities, sandhi phenomena and metrical problems will be noted and commented. I will take into consideration also the parallel passages, in order to elucidate the content and the ritual context of each stanza.