TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

the last century, record some of the phenomena, they have tended to establish
a uniform Sanskrit text, recognisably Vedic, but close in its "orthography" to
the MSS of classical Sanskrit of the standard Northern tradition of Benares
and Poona.
This is misleading. Nearly all Vedic texts have, because of the whims of the
editors, been normalised to such an extent that it became unlikely that other
scholars paid attention to or even recognised many of the particular traits of a
particular Vedic school. In the same manner, of course, the traits which
agree in several schools were often not detected. What is almost universally
accepted, however, is the misconception of Vedic as a uniform language. This
is, in itself, not surprising; the texts a p p e a r to have no phonetic
differences (see above). What is usually not taken into account, however, is
that the texts were only m a d e to look uniform by the late Vedic diaskeuasis
and canonisation of the redactors which often comes close to the norms of
classical Skt., as first codified in Pāṇini's grammar. In s0ite of this
normalising tendency, made worse by that of the modern editors, a
considerable number of school divergencies can be recognised, some of which
will be treated in the sequel. It will be seen that many of these śākhā
peculiarities do, in fact, form a pattern, and are part and parcel of the major
Vedic dialects.
§6.1 -ch-, -śch-, -cch-
One such item is the spelling of the long palatal affricate. In classical
Sanskrit, it is written and printed cch, and this is also the pronunciation (in
Vedic recitation) and, consequently, the spelling found in most schools.
However, as is well known, the Ṛgvedic MSS usually write ch, e.g., gachati
instead of classical gacchati, see Aufrecht, preface to RV, 2nd ed., p.VI.
This is not all. The Maitrāyaṇi school participates in this trait. Schroeder
mentioned the spelling in the preface to his edition, p. XLIII, but normalised
to some extent (e.g., in the Sandhi case -t + ch- > cch). The writing ch is also
found in the Vulgate of the Atharvaveda, 156 usually called the Śaunaka-
Saṃhitā, see Lanman in: Whitney, AV transl., p. CXXV. 157
156 Also in cases like -t ś- > cch, in ŚS written -ch-; cf. also Allan, Sandhi, p. 92.
157 Finally, Ms. C of JB (see ed. L.Chandra JB II, p. XVI) usually writes gachati, etc. This is
a ca. 300 years old palm leaf Ms. from Kerala (Burnell No. 421 = Keith Cat. no.4353).
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