TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

elonging to the Ṛgveda, and why only later otherwise, in BŚŚ, etc.? Is
the final redaction even of AB 1-5 so late? Was the text revised in the
East, by Śākalya or his school, during t(e late Br. period?
While deliberating on such questions, a circular argument has, of
course, to be avoided. The only way to do so with the still limited
materials at hand, is, in my opinion, to take into account as many factors
concerning a particular text or śākhā as possible: that means, such
features of a particular text as its (absolute and relative) time of
composition, collection or redaction, its geographical location, its levels of
text composition, its position in the development of the Vedic language,
school peculiarities, special features belonging to a particular Veda, etc.
These peculiarities have to be evaluated while not losing sight of the
feature under discussion. I hope to have shown in the preceding chapters
that the facts gleaned from the various Vedic texts tend to support and to
complement each other rather than to conflict with each other; they form
a consistent pattern of dialectal divergencies which slowly spread, from
various centres of innovation viz. (secondary) diffusion, over the lenghth
and breadth of Northern India.
If we take a look at some of the major cases of an uneven diffusion of
dialect features, - either attested only in part of the area of a particular
dialect, or more interestingly, in the various schools of o n e Veda, - it
will be seen that no single answer can be given for this phenomenon.
Most cases, however, fall under the two categories of diachronic
development viz. the influence of areal features; sometimes the still
uncertain attribution of a text or of its final redaction to a certain area
creates difficulties (as in the case of PB).
(a) diachronic development:
* The uneven distribution of the narrative impf./perf. in the Pañcāla
area (§5.2, cf. ann. 117): A late text like TA uses (outside the Kaṭha
chapters) the imperfect while KB uses the perf. On the other hand, the
late Anubrāhmaṇa of the Taitt., VādhB, has both impf. and perf. The
reason for this distribution is the intentionally conservative nature of the
Taitt. school (cf. suvar!). Especially, TA tends to copy older parts of TS
(such as a whole section in TA 5 dealing with the Pravargya but copied
from a Soma chapter of TS). Note, however, that the Pravargya chapters
(TA 4-5) are not necessarily very young but have been set aside, into the
Ar., as they deal with a secret and dangerous ritual (cf. KathA, ŚBM
14,1-3). The case of PB has been discussed above; the text must be based
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