TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

* decline of u (Kuru area and beyond)
* renewed use of u in collocations: Prācya/Southern
* sa in sentence initial position: Prācya/Southern
(5) Style 315
Innovations:
* use of sam.yat (part of Kuru area)
* devāsura- (Kuru and beyond)
* punarmṛtyu- (Prācya)
-
* retention of spṛdh (Kuru area and beyond)
* avoidance of pāpa- (Kuru area and beyond)
* renewed use of pāpa- (Prācya)
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§10.2.Three Centres: Kurukṣetra, Pañcāla, (Kosala-)Videha
Observing and evaluating all the dialect features mentioned above,
certain dialect areas can now be distinguished:
When one excludes the Panjab, the main area of the Ṛgvedic tribes,
which itself shows many dialect variations, 316 three centres of innovation
and subsequent diffusion of dialect features are observable:
(1) -- The Kuru area (E.Panjab, Haryana) is an important centre of
innovation in Mantra and YV Saṃhitā prose texts (MS,KS, as well as
315 Certain lacunae, however, have to be identified here: they occur, as has been mentioned
in the introduction, in those areas of Vedic grammar which are not directly approachable
for a detailed investigation so far, i.e. the occurrence of certain endings of verbs and nouns,
their statistical or geographical relations to each other, or the combinations of two or more
particles with each other. Only a data base system, built up with the help of a complete
electronic storage of the Vedic texts, will bring s i g n i f i c a n t progress.-- Other lacunae
concern certain forms and words - especially particles - which are not completely listed in
Vishva Bandhu's Vedic Word Concordance (VPK), most notably in the Sūtra volumes. It is
regrettable that an old Śrautasūtra like BŚS is recorded only so imperfectly.
316 Which are presently studied by S.Insler.
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