TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

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