Scholars approach the Atharvaveda as a text with many historical layers, not as a single, uniform composition. The primary tool is careful linguistic analysis: older portions preserve more archaic forms of Vedic Sanskrit, while later strata show grammatical simplifications and innovations that move toward more developed Vedic usage. This linguistic stratification is refined through metrical study, since different prosodic patterns and degrees of metrical regularity tend to cluster in distinct periods of composition. In parallel, content is examined: simpler charms for healing, protection, and everyday welfare are generally treated as belonging to an earlier horizon, whereas more elaborate ritual and speculative material is placed later. Through this multi‑faceted reading, a relative chronology emerges in which the oldest Atharvan verses stand roughly alongside the later layers of the Rigveda, with further accretions extending into subsequent Vedic phases.

A second axis of inquiry is comparative: the Atharvaveda is constantly read against the other Vedas, Brāhmaṇas, Upaniṣads, and ritual sūtras. Shared or parallel hymns with the Rigveda are scrutinized to see which version appears more archaic and which seems adapted for specific magical or ritual purposes. References to Atharvan material in Brāhmaṇa and Sūtra texts help to anchor at least a relative “terminus ante quem” for certain hymns, since a passage must predate a work that quotes or presupposes it. Thematically, scholars distinguish between more “primitive” magical formulas and later, more systematized ritual and speculative layers, noting where the text presupposes developed ritual handbooks and priestly systems.

The manuscript tradition provides another, very concrete, window into the text’s formation. Two principal recensions are central here: the Śaunaka version, long better known and more widely transmitted, and the Paippalāda version, which, although less complete in some respects, often preserves readings that appear more archaic or contextually fuller. By collating manuscripts from different regions and lineages, editors identify variant readings, omissions, and probable interpolations, and then attempt a stemmatic reconstruction of the textual “family tree.” Passages that appear only in a subset of manuscripts, or that show a marked stylistic or linguistic mismatch with their surroundings, are treated as later additions or redactional reworkings. Critical editions then present a carefully chosen base text, accompanied by an apparatus that records these variants and signals where different layers may be discerned.

Finally, this stratifying gaze is applied even within individual hymns. Sudden shifts in meter, vocabulary, or ritual focus can betray the stitching together of originally separate pieces, while verses that closely rework well‑known Rigvedic lines may indicate secondary adaptation. In this way, a hymn that appears seamless in the received tradition can be seen as a composite of earlier core material and later explanatory or ritual expansions. The resulting picture is of the Atharvaveda as a living, evolving collection: early charms and folk practices gradually framed, reorganized, and theologized by priestly and scholastic activity, and preserved through recensional traditions that themselves bear witness to centuries of reflection and redaction.