The figure of the Rshi, the priest-poet endowed with a particular spiritual excellence, just because he has a fundamental place in the vedic culture, is interpreted in divergent ways in the various texts of the literature which expresses that culture. After delineating the image resulting from the Rgveda, this article analyses the attestations of the Rshi in the Atharvaveda, thus showing, through the conception of that figure which emerges from this collection of hymns, the continuity and innovation inside the brahmanic tradition.