TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

attention to the general political and historical sitution, as exemplified
above, and the development or gradual deterioration of some schools,
(like that of the Caraka, Kaṭha and Maitr. śākhās even during the Br.
period). The Veda and its development have, also in this regard, been left
"floating in thin air" for too long. Texts are not composed or collected by
priests just to pass their time, and complicated rituals like the classical
śrauta form of the Aśvamedha are not just a form of priestly speculation
but serve, besides their religious and social functions, a clear political
purpose of establishing the cakravartin superiority of a king over his
neighbours.
§10.4 Vedic dialects and archeology
It has been mentioned above that the three centres of innovation coincide
more or less with the territory of the Kurus, Pañcālas and (Kosala-
)Videhas. This is , from the point of view of political history, not too
surprising. It is well known from dialect studies that political boundaries
often coincide with dialect boundaries, cf. e.g. the curious case of Germ.
dial. schlīn, schlën 'schlagen' which straddles the Middle Rhine valley
and coincides with the borders of the old principality (bisdom) of Trier.
All surrounding dialects have schlān or schlön. 335
That the territory of Vedic dialects covers that of the political units, like
that of the Kurus, etc., is thus not surprising. In fact, the coincidene of
tribal and dialect territory and the spread of certain dialect peculiarities
agrees well with the political development as we know it on the basis of
Car.Vy., to the East; -- the problem of the Brahmanisation of the "foreign " territory of
Magadha (and Aṅga), and the Southern spread of the Mādhyandinas; the late/post-Vedic
immigration of new tribes into the East (Malla, Licchavi, Śākya, etc.) and the possibility of
an Iranian element among them (note the river names from E. Iran/Afghanistan like
Gomatī, Sarayū in the East, and cf. the Śākyas and their marriage customs, further Balhika
in ŚB, etc.). --- The gaps in the late Vedic geographical attestation of the śākhās can now be
closed to some extent: The SV of the East is unknown but must have been that of the
Bhāllavins as their Br. was recited with the bhāṣika accent, like ŚB. Perhaps this was a subschool
of the Kauthumas, cf. the notice in Bhāṣika Sutra that PB was transmitted with
bhāṣika accent as well (see ed.Kielhorn, Ind. Stud.10, p.421). By the time of Śabara (Mīm.
Sūtra), the accented tradition was lost already. - Equally, the SV of the Central area was
that of the pre-Jaim. Śāṭyāyanins; the question of the other Vedas in the Jaim. territory is
open: probably, they were partly Maitr., partly Taitt. (note a Taitt. quotation in the late
Pāli texts, the Jātakas), cf. ann. 345; it can now be attempted to close the gaps between the
late Vedic spread of schools and their earliest attestation on copper plate grants (cf. author,
Beitr. zur Südasienforschung, 104).
335 See W.König, dtv-Atlas zur Deutschen Sprache, München 1978, p.142
133