TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu
TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu
TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu
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note: 'Bhava' in the East,<br />
Śarva in W.: Bāhīka term;<br />
500 BC: Persians in Panjab cf.with Vīdëvdād: Sauruua,<br />
and Salva, 333 Salvi<br />
_______________________________________________________<br />
This is only a brief summary of what could be established in this article,<br />
even if some aspects were only briefly touched upon. More results are to<br />
be expected from a larger collection and comparison of facts. The<br />
scheme mentioned above can, however, be enlarged and modified by a<br />
closer look at the spread and the early history of some Vedic schools<br />
(śākhā) and their ritual. 334 It is important, in this regard, to pay close<br />
333 Is the name of the tribe, Salva, to be compared with Iran. Sa u ruua (=Ved. Śarva, a<br />
Western, Bāhīka name of Agni/Śiva)? Just as Bharata is a name of Rudra in RV, Śarva<br />
could be taken from the (Ir.) name of the tribe as well.<br />
334 For the post-RV period cf. the role of the Adhvaryus in the development of the Śrauta<br />
ritual and their apologetic myth (the cutting off, by Indra, of Dadhyañc's head, viz. that of<br />
the head of the sacrifice, see Author, Fs. W. Rau, ann.104); a comparison of RV hymns<br />
taken over into the other Vedas establishes that there must have been a period when there<br />
was an Ur-YV, Ur-SV, Ur-AV (cf. already Oldenberg, Prolegomena, and for non-metrical<br />
texts, author, WZKS 24, p.22 sqq., 76 sqq.); these texts were first assembled and composed<br />
in the Kuru country (cf. the role of Kurukṣetra as devayajana, and cf. BEI 2, Sur la voie du<br />
ciel); from there, they spread eastwards, being both gradually changed or consciously<br />
altered (out of the wish to establish separate identities, because of 'political' motives), until<br />
they reached their Pañcāla (TS, Śāṭy, KB, AVŚ), Kosala (ŚBK) or Videha (ŚBM, Bhall.,<br />
Eastern RV) forms. The centre of ritual activity spread eastwards; note the lack of<br />
complete Br. or Ār. texts of the Kaṭhas and Maitr. schools (though both schools developed<br />
Sūtras, probably in their new territories, in Gujarat viz.the East: Prācya-Kaṭha) ; --- The<br />
spread eastwards and the role of the Kāṇvas in the colonisation of the East has to be<br />
studied, (Videgha Māthava from the Sarasvatī, together with a RV author, Gotama<br />
Rāhūgaṇa!); the East was a melting pot of earlier IA and non-IA settlers and took over the<br />
Vedic śrauta orthopraxy only at a late stage (during the Br. period); the Kāṇvas were in<br />
competition with the Central Taitt. school and others, like the ancient school of the<br />
Carakas; this process is, as it were, personified by the adoption of Taitt. ritual by the first<br />
Sūtrakāra, Kāṇva Bodhāyana, who probably wanted to codify ritual "for once and all".<br />
The strange correspondences of the Mādhy. texts with those of the Maitr. have to be<br />
investigated and have to be compared to the same situation relating the Kāṇvas with the<br />
West (Kaṭhas/Carakas?), or the Taitt. with the Kaṭhas, etc. -- Furthermore, the spread<br />
eastwards of the Śāṇḍilya school and its texts (ŚBM 6-10) has to be investigated. They were<br />
imported from the West (at least, from the Central area, cf. the Saṇḍilla country in the<br />
Jaina texts, N. of Benares). Other Western schools were - in an apparently politically<br />
motivated move by (Mahā-) Janaka - imported into the East: The Aitareyins (AB 6-8), and<br />
most probably also Śākalya who redacted his RV in the East, in competition with an earlier<br />
Eastern RV; composition of ĀŚS in the East; -- the probable move of some Kauthumas (cf.<br />
the RV name Namin Sāpya, already a Videha king at PB 25.10.17, cf. the bhāṣika accent of<br />
PB, - just like ŚB - which is lost now in PB) and some Kaṭhas, the later Prācya Kaṭha of the<br />
132