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A Contemporary Guide to the Vedas: A Critical Survey of the Texts and Literature Tristan Elby* University of Oxford
Abstract
The Vedas are a major textual foundation of Hinduism, yet much of their content remains obscure and difficult to access. A discussion of recent literature on the Vedas provides the scholar with a clear conception of the nature of Vedic textual materials, the world views implied by Vedic texts and the nature of Vedic ritual, the central element of Vedic religion. Important resources for the study of the Vedas are identified, together with an assessment of the most important research themes in Vedic religion today.
The Vedic heritage remains important to most contemporary forms of Hinduism. However, like Hinduism itself, ‘the Vedic’ is a difficult category to construct. There are, after all, four ‘Vedas’, each of which constitutes a collection of compositions deriving from several sub-schools of textual transmission and ritual praxis known as śākhās. Here, an overview of the Vedas from the perspective of the study of religion will illustrate both the diversity of Vedic materials and their overall difference from the recognisable ‘Hinduism’ of later periods, itself still a problematic notion (see Lipner (2006) for a recent discussion). Since much Vedic research is conducted within philology, ‘the Vedas’ can seem a somewhat impenetrable category for students in religious studies or theology, especially in the absence of any modern general textbooks (see below for suggested textbooks) devoted to what constitutes a vast religious tradition spread over a millennium or more. In the ‘Ritual’ section of this article, an examination of the ‘pre-classical’ tradition within Vedic ritual will demonstrate the startlingly archaic aspects of the Vedas as against the more recognisable forms of Hindu religiosity, as well as draw attention to the developmental stages of solemn Vedic ritual. Before this, the ‘World view’ section will critically survey recent literature on various aspects of Vedic thought. First, however, the ‘Texts’ section will make clear the current consensus on the dating and social context of the various Vedic texts. The overall intention is to give a contemporary picture of what constitutes the Vedas, the world view of their authors and the ritual tradition that forms the most famous and visible part of this tradition, surviving in some forms to the present day. Research into the Vedas is highly international, and important research is frequently published in non-Western languages such as Hindi and Japanese. As an English-language guide, the discussion in the limited space here focuses primarily on the English literature, with some mention of important work in French and German. The Vedic Texts: Their Dates and Social Contexts Vedic texts do not come from a single social context, and their composition is likely to have continued for almost a millennium, a period during which Indo-Aryan speaking people in northern and central India were transformed from migratory, semi-nomadic pastoralists, to members of an agrarian society with significant urbanisation. Undoubtedly, the earliest layer of the Vedas is the hymns of the Rg whose composition is likely to have been . Veda Samhitā, . © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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during the mid- to late-second millennium before the Common Era (BCE; see dating, below). Although sometimes the division breaks down, with texts straying beyond the theoretical confines of their type, it is important to understand the traditional division of Vedic textual material into Samhitās, Āranyakas, Brāhmanas, . . . Upani .sads and Sūtras. Only the first four are traditionally considered śruti (revelation), with the sūtras regarded as sm.rti (approximately, ‘remembered (tradition)’). Samhitās are ‘hymns’, although there are considerable . differences between the Rg Veda Sa mhitā and the Sa mhitās of the other three Vedas. Āranyakas are . . . . works theoretically elaborating on the meaning and power of rituals, and the proper preparations for them. The word aranya . sometimes means ‘forest’ but here simply represents the wilderness beyond the settlement, the appropriate location for learning about some of the more dangerous Vedic rituals, since the texts tend to concentrate on the mahāvrata (discussed below) and the pravargya (Witzel 2005), two rituals regarded ambivalently as powerful yet hazardous. Āranyakas . rarely attract much comment in introductory works and courses, but they are important repositories of ritual information. Brāhmanas . also comment on rituals, explicating their purpose and power, and some provide mythological narratives explaining the origins of rituals. The prose portions of the Yajur Veda Samhitā are Brāhmana-like in this sense, even though they are not titled . . as such. The distance in time from the origins of Vedic rituals and mantras can make the Brāhmanas . unreliable guides to the original meaning of them, however; Frits Staal memorably wrote: “Brāhmana . interpretations are more fanciful than anything contemporary scholars have yet to come up with.” (1989, p. 223). They nevertheless provide an insight into the understandings of ritual present in their time. The inability to understand past rituals, whilst hardly unique to Vedic India, points to the long period over which Vedic religious culture developed. The Upani.sads are famous as some of the oldest recorded philosophical compositions. Indeed, one of the dangers of studying the Upani .sads is precisely their removal by both emic and etic interpreters from their Vedic context. They are explicitly compositions elaborating on the cosmology within which ritual takes place, and they cannot be fully understood independently of the Vedic ritual world view. Later Indic commentators, most famously Śamkara, co-opted . certain Upanisadic passages to support a philosophy of absolute monism, whilst Western . scholarship has often focused on the mystical and meditative dimensions of the Upanisads . at the expense of their connections to ritual. The Sūtra literature, whilst theoretically at a significant remove from other Vedic compositions by the attribution of sm.rti status, is in fact close to other late Vedic compositions in terms of language and content. Sūtra authors provided directions for the performance of the rituals whose purpose, power and cosmological significance the other classes of text dealt with. The Sūtras are divided into Śrauta Sūtras (those covering ‘solemn’ rituals), G .rha Sūtras (those covering the domestic rites) and Dharma Sūtras (those covering somewhat wider topics of law and conduct). Whilst the Sūtras are among the newest Vedic compositions, and the oldest compositions are Samhitās, there is not a neat temporal progression between the different categories of text. . The following paragraphs are designed to collate recent dating estimates, together with the reasoning behind them, for the categories of Vedic texts. All dating of Vedic texts has to remain provisional, however. Levitt, in an interesting article exploring connections between early Vedic religion and earlier Mesopotamian religion, argues that the Rg must have been composed . Veda (Samhitā) . by 1500 BCE, with its compilation in the centuries following this (2003, p. 353). Edwin Bryant is somewhat more agnostic than this. He argues that the attestation of Anatolian in documents of c. 1900 BCE is a “chronological anchor that reasonably secures the date of the Rgveda to after 1900…” (2001, p. 40), given that Anatolian is likely to be somewhat . elder to Vedic. However, Bryant also argues that no philological arguments have so far been sufficiently convincing to produce an overwhelming consensus, and that it is decipherment © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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of the Indus Valley script that is likely to prove decisive in dating the Rg oldest . Veda Samhitā’s . hymns. Axel Michaels gives a similar 1750 BCE date for the start of the early Vedic period in India, when “a new culture emerged and spread from the northwest…” (2004, p. 33). Michael Witzel assigns the composition of the earliest Vedic texts to c. 1500 BCE, although he adds the pertinent cautionary note that “there still is no absolute dating for any Vedic text.” (2003, p. 68) Theodore Proferes tends to agree in placing the production of the early Rg at approximately 1600 BCE (2010, pp. 27–29). Most scholars now agree . Veda Samhitā . that the Rg Veda cannot have been composed too much after 1200 BCE, since it does not . show awareness of the use of iron (see Possehl and Gullapalli (2007) for a reasonably up-to-date discussion of the archaeometallurgy of early Vedic India). On the other hand, the Mitanni documents have recently begun to move the consensus for dating Rg . Vedic Sanskrit well into the later half of the second millennium – since the Mitanni texts are dated quite precisely to 1380 BCE, Rg . Vedic Sanskrit is likely to be at least a century later than this date. Levitt places the composition of the Sāma and Yajur Veda Samhitās in the centuries follow. ing 1500 BCE (Possehl and Gullapalli, 1999). Proferes, on the basis of a ‘rough and ready estimation’, places the Yajur Veda at 1200–1100 BCE (2010, p. 29). Since both have the Rg . Vedic mantras as the source of most of theirs, their dating is constrained by that assigned to the Rg . Veda, and the considerations above would suggest that these dates are too early. The Atharva Veda Sa mhitā has portions that are later in style, but it also has a much greater pro. portion of unique material compared to the Sāma and Yajur Sa mhitās, and much of the ma. terial is ancient enough to belong “linguistically to a historical phase closely following the very latest parts of the Rgvedasa mhitā” (Proferes, 2010, p. 33). . . to a period beginning at roughly 1100 BCE (Proferes, 2010, Proferes dates the Brāhmanas . p. 29). The Āranyakas are likely to have been composed from this point too, and are broadly . contemporary with the Brāhmanas, . sharing a similar style of later Vedic Sanskrit. However, given the derivative nature of the Brāhmanas, above must be taken . the dating of the Samhitās . into consideration – this would place the Brāhmanas considerably after 1000 BCE, likely fol. lowing the completion of the Yajur Veda Samhitā prose sections. . Modern dating of the Upani .sads has moved them slightly forward in time compared to older scholarship. Patrick Olivelle, author of the most recent, and highly respected, scholarly translations of the major Upani .sads, notes that it is “impossible to date these documents with any degree of certainty or precision,” and draws attention to the lack of evidence external to the texts for the dates of any of the Upani .sads (2010, p. 44). However, he places the consensus on the Chāndogya and B.rhadāra nyaka Upani .sads, as the oldest . Upani .sads, at roughly 600–500 BCE, followed by the Kau .sītaki, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Katha, Īśa, Śvetāśvara and Mun. daka Upani .sads at roughly 300–100 BCE. The Praśna, Mā n. dūkya . . and Maitreyi Upani .sads cannot be “much older than the beginning of the Common Era” (2010, p. 44). Given that various collections of Upani .sads include all of these texts, it is worth students’ while to remain aware of the different dates and composition styles of the major Upani .sads, for which Patrick Olivelle’s work is an excellent guide. The Jaiminīya Upani .sad Brāhmana nyaka Upani .sads, or, in some sections, . may be as old as the Chāndogya and Brhadāra . . slightly older (see Fujii, 1997). Proferes’ dating for the Sūtras in general is 600–400 BCE (Fujii, 1997). They are thus older than some of the newer Upani .sads. Witzel (2005) puts the important Indian grammarian Patañjali at c. 150 CE, and assigns this as the latest possible date of any Vedic text, given the extensive quotations from Vedic material found in the grammarians. However, the oldest of the Sūtras, namely the Baudhāyana Śrauta Sūtra, and the partially extant Vādhula Sūtra (sometimes called the Vādhula Brāhmana) . have a similar style and language to the late Brāhmanas, so they are potentially slightly earlier than 600 BCE (see Fushimi, 2007). . © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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In which context did the incomparably old Rg originate? As far as is known, . Veda Samhitā . it originated amongst tribes speaking an early form of Sanskrit within northern India and areas of modern Afghanistan. In the context of the second millennium BCE, these tribes are likely to have been engaged in a series of migrations toward an area of eventual settlement, namely the Kuru-Pañcāla (two important kingdoms in early Vedic India) heartlands of the modern northern Indian states of Delhi, Haryana, Uttarkhand and Uttar Pradesh. It has long been recognised that this migration did not represent an ‘Aryan Invasion’, but it was nevertheless a significant movement of people who must, by virtue of their language, have come from areas of central Asia or Western Russia and Ukraine where Indo-European cultures developed speaking cognate languages. If not an Aryan invasion, then, there appears to have been a prolonged ‘infiltration’ of speakers of Indo-Aryan languages. Besides the direct generation of early Sanksritic culture, these people would also have exercised a cultural influence on neighbouring tribes. The later texts would have been composed in the context of increasing urbanisation, and an agrarian, rather than pastoralist economy. The Jaiminīya Brāhmana . contains a colourful example of the aspirations of this society in its promise to the performer of the mahāvrata ritual: Thus [it is said]: “Just like this, a man surrounded by a cow, a horse, a goat, and a field of rice, so indeed, it [the resulting prosperity] is of that [ritual].” (II.403.10, translated from the (non-critical) edition of Chandra & Vira, 1954)
If the varying styles, purposes and origins of Vedic texts are appreciated, it is obvious why it is imperative that ‘the Vedas’ are not referred to lightly as a unified category. ‘The Vedas’ are rather a very long textual and ritual tradition containing new developments in theory and praxis over the course of almost a millennium, and, particularly with the Brāhmana . and Sūtra literature, several centuries worth of reflection on the tradition. The Vedic World View Much work on the Vedas tends to be highly specific in its aims; general treatments of Vedic world views and philosophies tend to be rarer. Mahony (1997) is an interesting exception to this, providing a broader discussion of the Vedic religious imagination. In German, Oberlies (1998, 1999) is also an exception to this, providing a two-volume study of the religion of the R . g Veda. Naturally it should be borne in mind that for much of the Vedic textual material, a world view or philosophy is implicit rather than openly stated, and such a thing would hardly have been needed in many of the contexts of recitation, particularly ritual contexts. Scholars are somewhat more likely to need to know what the Vedic perspectives were on particular topics, so the following account is organised by theme rather than period or school of thought. Soteriologically, the earliest layer of Rg . Vedic thought has no conception of mok .sa or liberation, despite the pervasiveness of this concept in later Indic thought. It also lacks an ethical theory of karma, and has only a limited notion of karma in general. In this sense, these highly recognisable elements of ‘Hinduism’ are only minimally present, and post-mortem existence is generally referred to in a way continuous with the worldly prosperity sought by ritual action. The early Vedic view of the desirable afterlife destination is therefore the peaceful world of yamaloka, an idealised human existence presided over by Yama, the god of death. Yama is not seen as malevolent, although his messengers are fierce, including hungry foureyed dogs (Shushan 2011, p. 203). Achievement of this existence is a reward gained by pious sacrifice, or, more accurately for the Vedic context, sacrifice performed with faith (śraddhā) in © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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its efficacy (German-reading scholars can access an excellent study of the important concept of śraddhā in Köhler, 1973). It is notable that it is not just one’s own sacrificial action that determines one’s post-mortem fate; some parts of the R make clear that . g Veda Sa mhitā . those enjoying a favourable post-mortem existence depend on the continued ritual action of living relatives. There is also an underworld attested in the Rg . Veda. Various hymns wish for inimical parties such as sinners, rivals, demons or even, in the Atharva Veda, diseases to be ‘cast down’ to a dark world located below the world of the living (Bodewitz, 2002: 213–214). Interestingly, there is some ambiguity about the universality of this underworld. Bodewitz notes that, in the earlier layers of the Rg . Veda, “the deceased in general seem to have had the underworld as their destination” (2002: 218). It is only in later layers of Rg . Vedic hymns that a pleasant, heavenly, destination is promised to some. The conception of a relatively undifferentiated underworld is somewhat reminiscent of concept of sheol found in earlier Old Testament Judaism (see Hartman, 2007), and points to the important fact that, even at the earliest stage, the Vedas did not have a dichotomous, heaven-or-hell, model of the afterlife. The Upani .sads embody a significant shift in the Vedic consciousness, in which a prosperous afterlife became perceived as an inherently limited goal, and in which liberation from rebirth and union with divinity came to be the ultimate goal. It is in this context that the famous doctrine of the unity of the ātman with brahman, the impersonal ultimate reality, occurs, together with the imperative to truly realise this unity through meditation. However, it should be borne in mind that Upanis.adic texts still speak of negative or hell-like existences in which the ignorant will be reborn, and of a similar variety of cosmological destinations or pleasant, heaven-like existences that those with wisdom will pass through. The nature of the merit that determines one’s rebirth is somewhat changed in the Upani .sads though; wisdom and knowledge, rather than correct ritual and moral action, constitute merit. Shushan (2011, p. 210) notes in this context that it is not “that the Upanis.adic system became ethically or morally neutral, however, for presumably the immoral and unethical would not become enlightened to begin with.” This is perfectly true, but the emphasis on wisdom led to somewhat shocking implications for the conduct of those who achieved enlightenment in life. For example, the Kau .sītaki Upani .sad contains the following verse: When a man perceives me [Indra], nothing that he does – whether it is stealing, or performing an abortion, or killing his own father or mother – will ever make him lose a single hair of his body. And when he has committed a sin, his face does not lose its colour. (Kau sītaki Upani sad, . . 3.1, trans. in Olivelle 2008)
Insight into the ultimate reality of Indra entails that even basic ethical imperatives are part of the merely conventional reality of the phenomenal world, and are thus non-binding. Given that Rg . Vedic hymns do speak of sacrificial action bearing differing fruits in the afterlife, and some hymns imply a sort of succession of births, it would be possible to overstate the differences between early Vedic soteriology and later Hindu thought. Indeed, Shushan (2011, p. 203) argues that a “significant continuity which tends to be underplayed in summaries of Hindu beliefs” runs through Vedic and post-Vedic thought about the afterlife. The Vedas generally have an anthropology in which the human being plays an important role within the overall cosmology. The well-known Puru .sa Sūkta hymn (RV 10.90) describing the creation of the universe by the gods through the sacrifice of Puru s. a, the primordial man, is a good starting point, since this shows clearly the centrality of the human person as opposed even to the gods themselves. Wujastyk (2009, p. 195) points out that the Puru s. a is © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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identified in the Puru .sa Sūkta hymn with Virāj, the primeval giant whose name “is used in later literature to refer to Viśvarūpa, the giant person who is identified with the universe as a whole.” However, in the passage in question, the pair is poetically said to originate from each other; whilst a simple identification would be one way to read this, an equally plausible reading would be that is a paradoxical formulation designed to create ambiguity about a mysterious subject. The anthropic origins of the universe condition human social structures: His mouth became the Brahmin; his arms were made into the Warrior, his thighs the people, and from his feet the servants were born. (R . g Veda 10.90.12, trans. in O’Flaherty, 1981, p. 31)
Frank Clooney draws attention to the essentially dynamic nature of the relationship between the universe and the primordial man when he speaks in a recent article of the Puru .sa Sūkta’s “interplay of cosmos and person and the emphasis on sacrificial destruction and reconstruction rather than visual resemblance” (2008, p. 230). Whilst anthropocentric homologies between the macrocosm and microcosm are relatively widespread in ancient thought, Clooney’s insight here is important in establishing the specificity of the Vedic anthropology, which is bound up with the Vedic theory of sacrifice. Besides the cosmogony of Purus.a, the Rg . Veda has two additional creation accounts: a single hymn (10.82) refers to Viśvakarman, a god who created everything (viśva, or ‘all’; karman, or ‘action’, ‘creation’), while the Nāsadīya Sūkta (10.129), in a fascinating example of early speculative metaphysics, envisages the emergence of an original monad from a state of neither being nor non-being (see Klostermaier, 2007, pp. 88–89). Vedic theology is polytheistic, although at all times there seems to have been a high god, and each god tends to be associated with particular areas or functions. In the Rg . Veda, Indra (explicitly the chief of the gods), Agni (the fire god, particularly god of the sacrificial fire) and Soma (both a god and the soma itself) are the three deities with the most hymns addressed to them (Levitt, 2003, p. 345). Rudra is addressed specifically by very few hymns, and often ambivalently as a dangerous (or ghora, ‘terrible’) god who, although also a healer, must be entreated not to harm “cattle, children, and the people of the village” (Bisschop 2010, p. 742). There are Rg . Vedic hymns that suggest that, even at an early time, Rudra was seen as the high god by some poets, but, as Bisschop notes, it is the Śvetāśvatara Upani .sad, one of the theistic Upanis.ads (see above for dating), that presents “a developed theology of Rudra as an all-god,” holding “Rudra to be the great lord (Maheśvara)” (Bisschop 2010, p. 742). Prajāpati (‘lord of creatures’), often thought, since he appears only in the tenth and latest book (ma.ndala) of the Rg to be a somewhat later addition to the Vedic pan. . Veda Samhitā, . theon (see Gonda (1982, p. 130) for a classic study of Prajāpati, Gonda’s (1986) monograph is worth consulting) is mentioned in some texts as a creator god, particularly of the sacrifice. Prajāpati is also linked to the power of the ritual (Witzel 2009, p. 778). Vis. n. u, Śiva and Brahmā, the well-known Hindu deities, appear in the Vedas only to a very limited extent; Śiva is known as Rudra, and Brahmā only appears very late in the Vedic corpus. The gods are treated practically as the bestowers of prosperity, subject to the continued performance of the sacrifice, and in this sense are part of a relatively life-affirming religiosity, in which there is a relationship of exchange between gods and men. A summary of all Vedic deities is beyond the scope of this guide, but it is important to note the complexity of Vedic theology, particularly in the context of the famed plurality of Hindu gods. Besides named gods of particular functions or aspects of nature, the Vedic pantheon includes gods in troops, including, importantly, the troop of the Maruts, traditionally storm gods and led by Indra, and the similar Rudras, subject to Rudra. These deities are sometimes invoked as guardians or protectors: in a dramatic © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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instance of this, at the aśvamedha (the Vedic horse sacrifice), the Śatapatha Brāhma na . (13.4.2.16) instructs the sacrificers to invoke the Maruts, to watch over the horse during its year of wandering before its eventual sacrifice. As York demonstrates, the Maruts in many ways exemplify the nature-focused character of much of the Vedic pantheon, since they “personify rain as the semen of the sky-lord Dyaus Pitr, . which fertilises Pr. thivī, the earth” (2008, p. 493). Ritual has its own philosophy in the Vedic context. Ritual will be further examined below, but it is worth commenting on how ritual fits in to the overall world view of the Vedas. In the Rg . Veda, it is implied that the creation of the world was itself a ritual act of sacrifice, quite unlike many creation myths, although the dismemberment of Purus.a has a clear Indo-European parallel in the primeval giant Ymir (Witzel, 2005, also notes this), whose killing and dismemberment by Odin and other gods results in the creation, as in the Rg . Veda, of the universe from the elements of his body (see Larrington (2009, p. 43); the narrative appears in the ‘Vafthrudnir’s Sayings’ poem within the Poetic Edda). Whilst the world is the result of the primordial sacrifice of a divine being, ritual in the world divinises human beings, at least according to the philosophy of ritual expounded in the Brāhmanas. . In an important article, Brian K. Smith noted the way in which Brahmin priests are said by the Śatapatha Brāhmana . to be a type of ‘human god’ propitiated in ritual along with the other gods. The patron or sponsor of the sacrifice is also said, within the ritual, to pass into the world of gods (Smith, 1985, p. 292). The words spoken in ritual are mantras, which had a special philosophy of their own. Staal makes clear the primordial power that the mantras and seed syllables were considered to possess, a power that required them to be “kept secret and jealously guarded” (2008, p. 204), despite the mystery (for both Vedic commentators and modern scholars) of their origins. Vedic Ritual and Vedic Sacrifice (‘domestic’). The latter include rites such as Rituals are either śrauta (‘solemn’), or g rhya . those pertaining to the stages of life – birth, initiation, marriage and death – and require only a single fire. The former are larger, public, affairs conducted within a ritual arena and have at least three fires. They include animal sacrifices such as the famous aśvamedha (‘horse sacrifice’), fire sacrifices such as the agnihotra and soma sacrifices such as the agnihotra, in which the offering is (or was) soma, the psychoactive plant used by the earlier Vedic culture. At an early point, the soma rituals would have involved the preparation and consumption of soma by participants. Whilst most introductory treatments devote space to Vedic ritual, it is difficult to find books devoted to it, especially in the way of recent textbooks. Fortunately, Frits Staal’s Discovering the Vedas (2008) has several chapters devoted to the ritual tradition and, overall, constitutes an excellent introduction to the various facets of the Vedic tradition – it is a useful source of advanced insight into the Vedic ritual tradition. Ranade, the translator of a variety of previously untranslated Vedic texts, has published the Illustrated Dictionary of Vedic Rituals (2006), which constitutes an extraordinary reference work replete with comprehensive textual references. Where available, Dharmadhikari (1989) is a useful work supplying further reconstructions of Vedic ritual implements. Ultimately, a definitive modern account of Vedic religion, of monographic length, has yet to appear, although it is sorely needed as a textbook for advanced students and researchers. In the interim, scholars would do well to consult Michael Witzel and Stephanie Jamison’s freely available (online) article, ‘Vedic Hinduism’ (Witzel & Jamison, 1992), which is an extensive treatment of Vedic religion by two leading scholars in the field. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Ritual appears to have increased in complexity as the Vedic culture developed. Staal (2008, p. 234) notes that the role of the priests was increasingly emphasised, especially after Yajurvedic Brahmins began to reorganise the ritual, assigning additional priests and roles for priests to the śrauta rituals, such that sixteen were required to “officiate in the Soma and all larger śrauta rituals that are based upon, or related to them” Staal (2008, p. 234). Heesterman (1962, p. 32) remarked that early ritual “did not yet require rigorous specialization … nor were warriors and priests rigidly exclusive groups,” and in this sense, the trend was clearly toward greater specialisation as well as complexity. Another trend is that toward non-violence, such that the killing of the sacrificial animal originally entailed its decapitation within the ritual arena, but was later achieved by suffocation outside this sanctified area (Witzel 2005). Later still, the actual killing of animals ceased almost entirely. The increase in complexity was not just a matter of specialisation. Staal (1989, 2008) has drawn attention to the fascinating ways in which sequences of mantras, and ritual actions, were combined and sometimes repeated in patterns characteristic of musical or indeed linguistic sequences. There is an aspect of Vedic ritual that tends to be under-represented in studies of Vedic Hinduism, despite its remaining a live area of research. This is the so-called ‘pre-classical’ ritual, which included violent and erotic elements, and which appears to have been associated with earlier forms of social organisation (Falk, 1985, 1997, and Proferes, 1999, are important past studies in this area). This explains its gradual obsolescence as the Vedic corpus developed. Heesterman speaks of “an older stage of ritual marked by more direct rites and less sophistication in the use of symbols” (1962, p. 29), and draws attention to the occurrence of copulation, and martial elements such as the presence of chariots in rituals associated with an archaic social grouping of young men in the Vedas known as vrātyas. The vrātyas have been repeatedly addressed in Vedic scholarship, but their exact nature as social and ritual actors remains in question. A scholarly consensus has nevertheless formed around the idea that early Vedic society had a männerbund, traces of which can be seen even in the Mahābhārata, into which adolescent young men were initiated for some time before progression to householder status (In German, see Falk (1986) for an important study of the vrātyas and Vedic society, and in English, Bollée (1981)). It is likely that this had a religious aspect involving certain rituals the performance of which devolved to the männerbund. The mahāvrata, a day-long ritual performance occurring within a longer ritual, is said to have involved warrior elements such as a figure in a chariot who shoots arrows at a target, a ritual swing on which a priest is to swing whilst engaged in some form of breath control, dancing of dāsī slave girls, and ritual copulation The aśvamedha between, broadly, a bard or poet (māgadha), and a courtesan (pu mścalī). . (horse sacrifice) and puru .samedha (human sacrifice) are also of interest in this area, since they involve the extreme archaism of the wife of the sponsor of the sacrifice lying down with the dead man or horse under a blanket whilst an erotic dialogue takes place. Various explanations for this simulated copulation might be produced, but it is an excellent example of the ‘pre-classical’ ritual tradition. There is continued debate about the actual occurrence of the puru .samedha reported in the texts, but a historical Indic human sacrifice has prominent recent defenders, and some Vedic texts, for example the Vādhula Brāhmana, . are surprisingly specific in their account of the ritual (see Caland, 1923–1926). Asko Parpola (1998) has sketched out a speculative scenario for an actual puru .samedha associated with the vrātyas. Later articles by Parpola (e.g. 2002, 2007) have continued to elaborate on the possible culture of the practitioners of pre-classical rituals. Research of this nature can sometimes constitute little more than informed speculation, but it is the beginnings of what is most needed, namely a phenomenological investigation of the extraordinary religious culture that, long before tantric Śaivism, apparently practised such a strange and in some ways terrifying series of rituals. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Contemporary Developments and Conclusion A variety of developments in current research may have implications for the future study of the Vedas. Since the 1960s, projects have been underway to collect and critically edit the previously incomplete Paippalāda rescension of the Atharva Veda Samhitā. Some of the books . (khan. das) of this text are now available in a series of critical editions and translations, recent . examples of which are Zehnder (1999), Lubotsky (2002), Griffiths (2009) and Lopez (2010). This important development in Indology has begun to shed light on Vedic ritual and thought, and will continue to do so. An interesting recent example of this is the study of Oort (2002), in which newly published Paippalāda hymns have shed further light on the preparation and religious significance of distilled alcohol (surā). The extent of any connection between Vedic religion and the religion of other Indo-European cultures has been debated for over a century, and remains an important area of research. The publications of Nick Allen have found numerous interesting correspondences, and are well worth reading for those interested in this area. Recent articles, for example, have considered sky gods (Dyaus in the Vedic pantheon) (Allen, 2004), and the pre-history of yoga with reference to the Śvetāśvatara Upanis.ad (Allen, 1998). Also worthy of mention, though apparently little known, is Kershaw (2006), a study of connections between Rudra, the vrātyas and old Germanic society and religion. Finally, students should be aware of ongoing research into the script of the Indus Valley civilisation. This has resisted decipherment for decades, but substantial written information from it would answer many unsolved questions about the origins of Vedic religion. Debate in recent years has addressed controversial suggestions that the ‘script’ is non-linguistic, and thus incapable of decipherment. Possehl (2007) is a good source of contemporary information on the religious significance of research into the Indus Valley civilisation. Ultimately, the Vedas remain one of the more challenging areas of Hinduism (broadly conceived) for students to get to grips with. Despite two centuries of philological research, only a proportion of texts are available to the student or scholar of religion in translation, and only a smaller proportion of these are available in a reliably peer-reviewed format (see Dandekar (1946) and Renou (1931) for two classic bibliographies. Macdonnell and Keith’s (1912) Vedic Index is also still considered a useful encyclopedia). Many of these contain fascinating details of Vedic religion which could be brought into comparative context were their contents accessible by non-specialists in Vedic Sanskrit. The philological focus of Vedic scholarship is perhaps also seen in the lack of recent monographs providing a comprehensive overview of the Vedic religious tradition, especially in English. Nevertheless, the student of Hinduism has much to learn from the Vedas. The religious experience implied by the texts and rituals is different in important ways from that implied in later Hinduism. The Rg . Veda constitutes a record unique in the world for the textually based insight it gives into the religious world of the mid-second millennium BCE in central Asia. Lastly, the continuing development of scholarship is making it possible to enter into the phenomenology of this set of religious rituals, experiences and aspirations in a way that was scarcely possible a century ago. Short Biography Tristan Elby is a DPhil candidate in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Oxford. He is affiliated with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. His research investigates the phenomenology of early Vedic ritual and religion, particularly in a comparative context with other Indo-European traditions and the early Śaivite tantric traditions. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Note * Correspondence: Tristan Elby, St Cross College, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3LZ, UK. Email:
[email protected]
Works Cited Allen, N. (1998). The Indo-European Prehistory of Yoga, International Journal of Hindu Studies, 2(1), pp. 1–20. —— (2004). Dyaus and Bhī ma, Zeus and Sarpedon: Towards a History of the Indo-European Sky God, Gaia: Revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grèce archaïque, 8, pp. 29–36. Bisschop, P. (2010). Śiva. In: K. Jacobsen (ed.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol. 1, pp. 741–754. Leiden: Brill. Bodewitz, H. (2002). The Dark and Deep Underworld in the Veda, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 122(2), pp. 213–223. Bollée, W. B. (1981). The Indo-European Sodalities in Ancient India, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 131, pp. 172–191. Bryant, E. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Caland, W. (1923–1926). Vādhula Sūtra, Acta Orientalia, 1(2), 4, 6. Chandra, L. & Vira, R. (1954). Jaiminīya Brāhmana . of the Samaveda. Nagpur: Lokesh Chandra. Clooney, F. (2008). Imago Dei, Paramam . Smāyam: Hindu Light on a Traditional Christian Theme, International Journal of Hindu Studies, 12(3), pp. 227–255. Dandekar, R. (1946). Vedic Bibliography, vols. 5. Bombay: Karnatak Publishing House. Dharmadhikari, T. (1989). Yajñāyudhāni: An album of sacrificial utensils, with descriptive notes, Pune: Vaidika Samsodhana Mandala. Falk, H. (1985). Zum Ursprung der Sattra-Opfer, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 6, pp. 275–281. —— (1986). Bruderschaft und Würfenspiel: Unterschungen zur entwicklungsgeschichte des vedischen opfers. Freiburg: Hedwig Falk. —— (1997). The Purpose ofR . gvedic Ritual. In: Michael Witzel (ed.), Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts. New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas, pp. 67–88. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Fujii, M. (1997). On the Formation and Transmission of the Jaiminīya-Upani sad. Brāhmana. . In: Witzel (ed.), Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts. New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas, pp. 89–102. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Fushimi, M. (2007). Baudhāyana Śrautasūtra: development of the ritual text in ancient India. Harvard dissertation. Gonda, J. (1982). The Popular Prajāpati, History of Religions, 22, pp. 129–149. —— (1986). Prajāpati’s Rise to Higher Rank. Leiden: Brill. Griffiths, A. (2009). The Paippalādasamhitā of the Atharvaveda: Kā n.das . . 6 and 7. A New Edition with Translation and Commentary. Groningue: Egbert Forsten. Hartman, Louis F. (2007). Eschatology. In: Michael Berenbaum & Fred Skolnik (eds.), Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 6 (2nd edn.), pp. 489–504. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 7 Sept. 2013. Heesterman, J. (1962). Vratya and Sacrifice, Indo-Iranian Journal, 6(1), pp. 1–37. Keith, A. & MacDonnell, A. (1912). Vedic Index of Names and Subjects. London: John Murray. Kershaw, K. (2006). The One-eyed God: Odin and the Indo-Germanic Mannerbunde. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph 36, Washington DC: JoIES. Klostermaier, K. (2007). A Survey of Hinduism. Ithaca: SUNY Press. Köhler, H.-W. (1973). Śrad-dhā- in der vedischen und altbuddhistischen Literatur. In: Klaus Janert (ed.), Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Larrington, C. (2009). The Poetic Edda. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levitt, S. (2003). The Dating of the Indian Tradition, Anthropos, 98(2), pp. 341–359. Lipner, J. (2006). The Rise of “Hinduism”; or, How to Invent a World Religion with Only Moderate Success, International Journal of Hindu Studies, 10(1), pp. 91–104. Lopez, C. (2010). Atharvaveda-Paippalāda, Kān.das . Thirteen and Fourteen: Text, Translation, Commentary. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lubotsky, A. (2002), Atharvaveda-Paippalāda, Kā a Five: Text, Translation, Commentary. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mahony, W. (1997). The Artful Universe: An Introduction to the Vedic Religious Imagination. Ithaca: SUNY Press. Michaels, A. (2004). Hinduism: Past and Present. B. Harshaw (trans.), Princeton: Princeton University Press. Oberlies, T. (1998). Die Religion des Rgveda. 1. Teil. Das religiöse System des Rgveda. Wien: Institut für Indologie der . . Universität Wien. —— (1999). Die Religion des Rgveda. 2. Teil. Kompositionsanalyse der Soma-Hymnen des Rgveda. Wien: Institut für . . Indologie der Universität Wien. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Olivelle, P. (trans.) (2008). Upanisads. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . —— (2010). Upani ads and Āranyakas. In: K. Jacobsen (ed.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol. 2, pp. 41–55. Leiden: . Brill. Oort, M. (2002). Surā in the Paippalāda Samhitā of the Atharvaveda, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 122(2), . pp. 355–360. Parpola, Asko (1998). Sāvitrī and Resurrection: The Ideal of Devoted Wife, her Forehead Mark, Sati, and Human Sacrifice in Epic-Purānic, Vedic, Harappan-Dravidian and Near Eastern Perspectives. In: Asko Parpola and . Sirpa Tenhuen (eds.), Changing Patterns of Family and Kinship in South Asia, Studia Orientalia, Helsinki: Societas Orientalis Fennica, vol. 84, pp. 167–312. Parpola, A. (2002). Pre-proto-Iranians as initiators of Śākta tantrism: On the Scythian / Saka affiliation of the Dâsas, Nuristanis and Magadhans, Iranica Antiqua, 37, pp. 233–324. —— (2007). Human Sacrifice in India in Vedic Times and Before. In: J. Bremmer (ed.), The Strange World of Human Sacrifice. Lueven: Peeters. Possehl, G. (2007). The Indus Civilisation. In: J. Hinnells (ed.), Handbook of Ancient Religions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Possehl, G. & Gullapalli, P. (2007). “The Early Iron Age in South Asia”. In: V. Pigott (ed.), The Archaeometallurgy of the Asian Old World. Philadelphia: The University Museum. Proferes, T. (1999). The Formation of Vedic liturgies. Harvard dissertation. —— (2010). Vedas and Brāhmanas. In: A. Malinar and K. Jacobsen (eds.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol. 2, . pp. 27–40. Leiden: Brill. Ranade, H. (2006). Illustrated Dictionary of Vedic Rituals. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. Renou, L. (1931). Bibliography Védique. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve. Shushan, G. (2011). Afterlife Conceptions in the Vedas, Religion Compass, 5(6), pp. 202–213. Smith, B. (1985). Gods and Men in Vedic Ritualism: Toward a Hierarchy of Resemblance, History of Religions, 24(4), pp. 291–307. Staal, F. (1989). Rules Without Meaning: Rituals, Mantras, and the Human Sciences. New Work: Peter Lang. —— (2008). Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Witzel, M. (2005). ‘Vedas and Upani ads’. In: G. Flood (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Oxford: Blackwell. ——. (2009). Vedic Gods. In: K. Jacobsen (ed.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol. 1. pp. 765–780. Leiden: Brill. Witzel, M. & Jamison, S. (1992). Vedic Hinduism. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/vedica.pdf, accessed 5th September, 2013. —— (2003). Vedic Hinduism. In: A. Sharma (ed.), The Study of Hinduism, pp. 65–113. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Wujastyk, D. (2009). Interpreting the image of the Human body in premodern India, International Journal of Hindu Studies, 13(2), pp. 189–228. York, M. (2008). Maruts. In: D. Cush, et al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Hinduism. London: Routledge. Zehnder, T. (1999). Atharvaveda-Paippalāda Buch 2, Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Idstein: Schulz-Kirchner Verlag.
Further Reading Bhattarcharya, D. (2011). Atharvavedīyā Paippalādasamhitā, vol. 3. Kolkata: The Asiatic Society. . Cush, D., Robinson, C. & York, M. (2008). Encyclopedia of Hinduism. London: Routledge. Doniger, W. (trans.) (1981). The Rig Veda: An Anthology of one Hundred and Eight Hymns. London: Penguin. Gonda, J. (1980). Vedic Ritual: The non-Solemn Rites. Leiden: Brill. Heesterman, J. (1993). The Broken World of Sacrifice: An Essay in Ancient Indian Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Parpola, A. (1999). ‘Vāc as a Goddess of Victory in the Veda and her Relation to Durgā’, Zinbun, 34(2). Samuel, G. (2006). The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Śāstri, V, et al. (1935–1965). A Vedic Word Concordance (Vaidika-Padānukrama-Ko a), vols. 5. Lahore and Hoshiapur: Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute. Witzel, M. (ed.) (1997). Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts: New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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