TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

similarities between the Ṛgveda and Pāli. Such discussions must, I think, be
supplemented by the type of evidence to be presented in detail in this paper;
one has to collect items mainly from the texts that precede the Pkt.s, i. e., from
the Middle and Late Vedic texts, and cannot directly compare the Ṛgveda
with the later Prākṛts. It is the Middle Vedic period that saw the diffusion of
Old Indian and of early forms of Middle Indian all over Northern and
Western India. 14 The RV territory, however, still was restricted to the Panjab
and its immediate surroundings.
§ 2. MATERIALS FOR THIS STUDY
It is not always easy to select materials that are accessible for such a study.
Whatever criteria one wishes to employ for the selection, at present only some
easily accessible materials can be used, like those contained in Vishva
Bandhu's Vedic Word Concordance (VPK), Wackernagel's Altindische
Grammatik, and the grammars of Whitney and Renou, those found in the
introductions to text editions, etc. This means that a thorough investigation
can only be made of the words listed alphabetically in VPK, such as the
spread of a particular word, or of a combination of two words (especially in
the case of particles), which is already much more time-consuming. A
comprehensive study of a particular case ending or of a verb form is not
possible with this tool. Unless one finds the time to read a l l the texts for the
present purpose only, one either has to restrict oneself to an impressionistic
test (as, for example, with the exact number of cases of certain verb or noun
endings), or one has to rely on the grammatical descriptions and the
occasional statistical counts (which, however, do not always include all major
Vedic texts). The lack and the unavailability of complete data will
occasionally be felt in the sequel.
For example, some materials,8like the occurrence in the texts of the opt. in -
īta of thematic verbs, 15 are not easily accessible so long as complete lists of
such forms do not exist. These data will, in the future, have to be found in
computer-based data systems which will easily allow one to trace, select as per
14
Panjab to the borders on Bengal, and South to Gujarat and, apparently Vidarbha (Berar,
N.Mahrashtra, acc. to JB ).
15
On -īta, see below ann. 22; see Renou BSL 41 p.11 sqq., and K.Hoffmann, Aufs.371;
Aufrecht, ed. AB p.429, Wackernagel, Ai.Gr., I, German ed. p. XXX = Renou, intro. p. 14,
with ann. 198, further: II.1, p.89; Keith, ed. AA p.172.; Keith, transl. AB, p.46, KB p.75;
also in BŚS, see Caland, Über BŚS, p. 42 "Die meisten also im spateren Teile des Werkes";
and in BhŚS 9.5.3, 10.7.15, 5.16.18, see ed. Kashikar, p. LX; for the DhS, see
S.K.Bharadwaj, Linguistic Study of the Dharamasūtras, Rohtak 1982, p. 119 sqq..
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