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