TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

The absolute date of the texts remains in balance, 44 if we do not want to use
external evidence like the Mitanni agreement of ca. 1380 B.C., which
mentions the major Vedic gods, or the occurrence of iron 45 (first attested in
AV), or the frequently discussed date of the Buddha (who died ca. 480 or 380
BC?) 46 and the age of the older Upaniṣads, which is usually linked to this date.
(The exact date is, however, not a serious problem in the present context.)
Patañjali (ca.150 B.C.) presupposes the bulk of Vedic literature, as does his
predecessor, Kātyāyana, to a great extent. What Pāṇini knew of Vedic texts
has already been established by P. Thieme, - without the practical indexes
one can use nowadays (if one is only patient enough to do so). Even Pāṇini
knows of younger Brāhmaṇas and quotes the words upaniṣad and sūtra,
which are attested to in the sense of "literary genre" only in late Brāhmaṇa
and Up. texts (cf. below §10.5) .
§ 4.2.5. Relative chronology
Another way of approaching the objective parameter, 'time,' is to establish
the relative chronology of the texts. This has, in fact, been attempted since
the beginning of Vedic studies, and has resulted in a number of relative
chronologies of the texts which are still valuable. Even the old (originally
quite provisional) scheme of Max Mueller still carries some weight and is
useful to some extent. He more or less followed the traditional Indian system
and divided the Vedic texts into four levels, that of the Saṃhitās, Brāhmaṇas,
Āraṇyakas, and Sūtras. Today, we know that this is too simplified (see below
on the linguistic development). Furthermore, various texts are
"misclassified" that way, even by contemporary Vedic scholars. 47
Especially illustrative and worthy of mention are the following cases: most
Upaniṣads are technically in fact part of the Āraṇyakas of the schools that
they are attributed to, see author, JNRC I. Or, e.g., TA is a composite text
44 The latest summary in: Mylius, Zur absoluten Datierung der mittelvedischen Literatur,
Festschrift Ruben, Berlin 1970, p.421-31; cf. also W. Rau, Zur ind. Altertumskunde.
45 Note that the first occurrence of Iron in the AV forms a date ad quem (or post quem) for
the Mantras of the AV, at ca. 1150 B.C., see author, Persica 10, p.92, with ann. 122-124; for
a collection of data found in Vedic texts which may be compared with archeological finds,
see various works by W.Rau, all quoted in his last book on the subject, Zur ind.
Altertumskunde, Akad. Mainz, Wiesbaden 1983.
46 See O.v. Hinüber, Überblick, summing up the discussion, § 6; see H.Bechert, The date of
the Buddha reconsidered, Ind. Taur. 10, 29-36.
47 Cf. Gonda, The ritual Sutras, p.471, 496; cf. Minard, Trois énigmes, II §717 sqq.
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