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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Taken at face value, these statistics seem to indicate that a number of texts,<br />
namely PB, TS, MS, 113 the older AB (1-5), and even the Brāhmaṇa texts of the<br />
Taittirīyas (TB, TĀ), have virtually no narrative perfects. 114<br />
Obviously there has been a linguistic development; imperfect has been<br />
replaced by perfect. This probably developed from the normal usage of the<br />
perfect, e.g., stating the outcome of an event/action: "this has happened/been<br />
done," i.e., "now it is like this or that." Note especially the use of the perfect<br />
in such sentences as "XY has said the following," in MS, KS (see above). 115<br />
Oldenberg, (Prosa, p. 25 sqq.) pointed out the use of the perfect in narrative<br />
prose in combination with the particle ha. This agrees with one of the<br />
functions of the perfect, namely to state facts, and with the occurrence of the<br />
perfect in texts otherwise relating in the past tense (MS, KS, TS). He believes<br />
(ann. 2) that the change to a usage relating in the perfect tense had its origin<br />
in a wish to indicate, during a narration, the (present) r e s u l t of one action,<br />
or, in fact, one after another (which required the perfect in the YV<br />
Saṃhitās). 116<br />
Notably, all of these texts which use the imperfect in narrative sequences are<br />
of a clearly Western origin, except for TS-TB-TĀ, which stem from the<br />
central area (Pañcāla). Interestingly, ŚB 6-10, i.e., books which have been<br />
known, since Weber's investigation in middle of the last century, to have been<br />
imported from a more Western area to Eastern India, show a very low<br />
percentage of perfects as well, especially when compared to the Eastern books<br />
1-5.<br />
The Eastern parts of ŚB clearly constitute the area of the usage of the<br />
narrative perfect. However, the nearly equal distribution of perfects and<br />
imperfects in the earlier books of ŚBM (1-5) indicates that even these texts<br />
113 KS unfortunately has not been counted, but judging from experience, I think that KS<br />
comes very close to MS/TS cf. the perfects: 31.2 :3.8 tad u ha smāhur Dārteyāḥ MS<br />
4.1.3:5.4, KpS 47.2; KS 32.2:20.19 atha ha smāha Kapivano Bhauvāyanaḥ; KS 25.7:112.7<br />
atha ha smāha-Argalaḥ Kāhoḍiḥ (cf.Kahoḍa); KS 26.10:135.3 atha ha smāha Āruṇa<br />
Aupaveśiḥ; KS 34.17:47.2 etad dha vā uvāca Vāsiṣṭhaḥ; KS 26.9, end: uvāca Śyāparṇas<br />
Sāyakāyano 'ṣāḍham Kaiśinam...(The Kuntis conquer the Pañcālas).<br />
114 I quote part of the following section from my article in the Fs. U. Schneider.<br />
115 Unless one wants to be especially archaic, cf.the development of the use of tenses in<br />
recent modern German. While the brothers Grimm, adapting folktales, still use, together<br />
with North (Low) German and Dutch the past tense actively, colloquial modern High<br />
German largely avoids this tense and uses perfect instead.<br />
116 Cf. Oldenberg, Prosa, p. 27 ann. 2, on the preference for sa hovāca, te hocuḥ, etc.; cf.<br />
Delbrück, Syntax: impf. + vai; Whitney, TAPA 23.<br />
44