The Atharvaveda stands as the fourth Veda, emerging somewhat later than the earliest layers of Vedic revelation and overlapping in time with the later portions of the Ṛgveda. It arose in a milieu where the established sacrificial religion of the priestly elite was coming into sustained contact with popular, domestic, and folk practices. Its hymns and rituals bear witness to a religious landscape in which concerns about illness, protection, rivalry, love, and royal power were woven into the broader Vedic framework. This text thus reflects a stage of Vedic culture in which settled agricultural life, expanding social complexity, and the growth of kingship were already well underway. Within this context, the Atharvaveda preserves older Indo-Iranian and Indo-European elements while at the same time giving voice to a more diverse and practical religiosity.

From a historical and linguistic standpoint, the Atharvaveda is clearly stratified, and no single date can be assigned to its composition. The earliest layers are generally placed around 1200–1000 BCE, roughly contemporaneous with the later strata of the Ṛgveda, while the bulk of the Saṃhitā is often situated between about 1000–800 BCE. Its redaction into a relatively fixed form belongs to the early Iron Age, when Vedic culture was consolidating and expanding, and when its interaction with non-Aryan traditions was particularly intense. Over this broad span, the Atharvaveda gradually came to be recognized alongside the other Vedas, eventually attaining full canonical status within the unfolding Vedic and Upaniṣadic tradition. All proposed dates remain scholarly estimates, grounded in linguistic, ritual, and comparative analysis rather than explicit historical records, yet they converge in portraying the Atharvaveda as a bridge between the older sacrificial world and a more encompassing religious vision.