TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

concludes that the preservation of the pronunciation [Cuva] as in [tuvák],
instead of the usual later Vedic tvák, is due, in the Brāhmaṇas, either to
metrical considerations (p.161) or, in prose, to the pressure of traditional
formulas (p.171).
In other cases, the pronunciation [Cvà] was already the contemporary one of
the Saṃhitā prose texts. S.Jamison adduces one telling example. KS, KpS
once substitute carman- for tvac- in a traditional explanation of the various
parts of the body, i.e., in a list where tvác was counted originally as dissyllabic
(as it is indeed found in the parallel passage of MS, see IIJ 29,172). As MS
generally is an older formulation of roughly the same material that is
presented by KS-KpS, one may conclude that either the composers of MS still
pronounced this cluster as [Cuva], or that even they had taken it over from
the lost Mantra time, brāhmaṇa-like explanations of the ritual. 200
In Mantras at least, the traditional dissyllabic pronunciation [Cuv] and [Ciy]
was apparently preserved for a long time, until the time of the older
(Western, Panjab/Kurukṣetra) portions of AB. This text (AB 3.12) counts
ukthaḥ vācīndrāya [vāci indrāya] as 7 syllables, and ukthaḥ vācīndrāya [vāci
indrāya] devebhyaḥ [devebhiyaḥ] as having 11, 201 while in the parallel
passages in the generally younger (and also differently located, Central N.
Indian) Kauṣītaki version of the RV Brāhmaṇas (KB 14.3) uktham avāci still
is counted as having five syllables and uktham avācīndrāya [avāci indrāya] as
8, but on the other hand, avācīndrāyoktham devebhyaḥ [avācīndrāyokthaḥ
devebhyaḥ!] as having 9 syllables. 202
The transition of [Ciya] > [Cya], even in the pronunciation of Vedic
mantras, therefore seems to have taken place at the time of the late
Brāhmaṇas, at least in the Central area. If one compares this to the
insecurity felt by the Kaṭhas in the pronunciation of traditional [tuvák] as
[tvák] (see above), it can be concluded that the transition first began in the
West and the Central area with normal, everyday prose, perhaps at the time
of the composition of the post-MS YV- Saṃhitā texts (KS, TS), and that it
then (gradually) affected even the pronunciation of traditional Mantras (KB).
200 These lost texts are only discernable in fragments, see K. Hoffmann, Der Mantra yan
navam ait, Aufs. p.509 sqq. Cf. also the role of the lost texts of the Caraka school which
predates KS/KpS and probably MS, see StII 8/9, p.178 sqq., esp., the diagram p.181.
201 The mantra in question is found down from TS, in various forms, in TS, AB, GB, ĀŚS,
VaitS, ĀpŚS, MŚS, see VC, s.v uktham vāci, sqq. Cf. Keith, transl. AB, p. 43, S. Jamison,
IIJ 29, 161; and see Oldenberg, Prolegomena, p.373-376, for details.
202 Keith concludes that AB was redacted before the orthoepic diaskeuasis of Śākalya, p. 43
f.; he compares AA 1.3.4 (meaning 3.1.3 ??) which recognises the absence of Sandhi in such
cases in the text of the RV; cf. further on Śākalya, AA tr. ad 3.1, etc.; cf. ann. 82,95,97.
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