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The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools : the Social and Political Milieu

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The Development of the Vedic Canon and Its Schools : the Social and Political Milieu Michael Witzel Harvard University The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and Political Milieu (Materials on Vedic Śåkhås, 8) Le problème de la śåkhå est au centre des problèmes védiques, ... si l’on réussissait à établir ... la filiation des écoles, on saurait du même coup comment s’est développé l’ensemble du védisme. Louis Renou Les écoles védiques, 208 § 0. THE NATURE OF THE VEDIC CANON § 1. THE GVEDA § 1.1. The structure of the RV collection § 1.2. The historical background § 1.3. Two Stages in the collection of the gvedic materials § 2. COLLECTIONS OF THE MANTRA PERIOD IN THE LANDS OF THE KURU § 2.1. The social and political conditions: The Kuru realm § 2.2. The texts of the Mantra period § 2.3. The Såmaveda § 2.4. The Yajurveda § 2.5. The Atharvaveda § 2.6. The gveda Khila Collection § 2.7. The Four Vedas § 3. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE CANON: EARLY YAJURVEDA PROSE AND THE BRĀHMAAS § 3.1. The Historical Background § 3.2. The early Bråhmaa style collections of the CarS, MS/KS, TS § 3.3. The early Yajurveda Sahitås of the Kuru realm: MS, KS/KpS § 4. THE TEXTS OF THE PAÑCĀLA LANDS § 4.1. The Taittirīyas and their subschools § 4.2. Early Bråhmaa texts of the Pañcåla lands: Śåyåyani and Jaiminīya texts § 5. THE EASTERN TERRITORIES § 5.1. The social and political situation § 5.2. The eastern fringe area: Kosala § 5.3. The Śatapatha Bråhmaa of the Kåva school § 5.4. Baudhåyana Śrautasūtra § 5.5. Kau ītaki Bråhmaa § 6. THE EASTERN CORE AREA: VIDEHA § 6.1. The later Aitareya Bråhmaa (AB 5-8) § 6.2. Śåkalya's gveda redaction Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts, ed. M. Witzel Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora 2, Cambridge 1997 258 M. WITZEL § 6.3. Våjasaneyi Sahitå § 6.4. Canon formation in the east § 6.5. Upani ads § 7. THE VEDIC SCHOOLS IN THE LATE VEDIC AND POST- VEDIC PERIOD § 8. SUMMARY : Canon, schools and politics *** *** *** § 0. THE NATURE OF THE VEDIC CANON A* detailed list of the texts which make out the Vedic canon does not exist in Vedic or early post-Vedic literature. There are, of course, medieval lists of Vedic texts and schools, such as those contained in the Prapañcahdaya. In the Vedic period itself, we find incipient lists which stress the particular division of the Vedic texts into three (trayī) or four branches (RV, SV, YV; AV). As will be shown, this division became typical as a result of the Kuru reformation of the Vedic ritual. Yet a Vedic corpus, as more or less fixed canon, was recognized and quoted by the early grammarians (Påini1 c. 400 B.C., Patañjali2 c. 150 B.C.), and it was detailed in the Påli canon3 (c. 250 B.C.) which already knew of the complete Vedic corpus.4 As is well known, the Vedic canon is not scripture in the literal sense: the Vedas were composed orally and they always were and still are, to some extent, oral literature. They must be regarded as tape recordings, made during the Vedic period and transmitted orally, and usually without the change of a single word.5 The strictly oral transmission applies to the prose * A first, brief version of this paper was read at the Toronto conference on Canon in 1988, organized by D. Oxtoby and J. Chen. A section dealing with canon formation in the East was read at Freiburg, Germany, in December 1996. A book-length version of this paper will appear separately. - For the present topic, see especially L. Renou, Les écoles védiques et la formation du Veda, Paris 1947 and N. Tsuji, Genzon Yajuruweda Bunken / Existent YV literature, Tokyo 1970. 1 See P. Thieme, Påini and the Veda, Allahabad 1935, see now J. Bronkhorst, Påini and the Veda reconsidered, Påinian Studies, ed. by M. Deshpande and S. Bhate, Ann Arbor 1991, 75- 121. 2 See W. Rau, Die vedischen Zitate im Vyåkaraa-Mahåbhåya, Stuttgart 1985; Author, On the Archetype of Patañjali's Mahåbhå ya. IIJ 29 (1986), pp. 249-259 3 Of course, the problem of the time of the redaction of the Påli canon remains. Yet the testimony about Vedic schools, found at inconspicuous places in the Påli canon, is valuable. 4 “The old text of the mantras” (poråa mantapada) MN 2, p.169:95; the Padapåha: padaka Brahmins, the three Vedas and their transmitters (DN 1.88, Thag 1248, Thīg 65, A g.N. I p.163,166: 58,59, etc.), and even ancillary texts like etymology, grammar, etc. (DN 2.13, MN 2.91.93, Bv. 38); see Author, Tracing the Vedic dialects. Dialectes dans les littératures indo-aryennes, ed. by Colette Caillat, Paris 1989, pp. 97-264; cf. Hillebrandt, Kleine Schriften p. 309 sqq. 5 Strictly speaking, only after the collection and redaction; yet even before redaction, the changes made are minimal (see below §1.3, n.35, 132 on diaskeuasis; but contrast M. THE VEDIC CANON AND ITS POLITICAL MILIEU 259 parts of the Vedas as well. These texts were taught and recited on the offering ground.6 Exceptions to the strictly oral tradition are rare.7 The earliest surviving Vedic8 mss., written without accent marks,9 come from Nepal (c. 1040 A.D.); however, they have not been studied so far. The Four Vedas have been transmitted in various śåkhås or “branches”, or as we usually call them, in “schools”. The many Vedic schools developed from a very early time onwards, i.e. from the post-gvedic period when the Mantra texts such as the AV and YV were composed and collected. A particular school represents the Brahmin community of a particular area, tribe, or small kingdom, or rather chieftainship. Each local school followed a particular form of ritual and pronunciation, as opposed to those of the neighboring areas. Thus, the early territory of a Vedic school usually coincides with that of a particular tribe or subtribe.10 Therefore, originally there was no canon of Vedic texts, no Vedic “Scripture”, but only a canon of texts accepted by each school. Thus, one can say, with L. Renou: to know the development of the schools is to know that of the Veda. This means: all school texts taken together form the Vedic canon.11 It does not mean that all of these texts were accepted by all Deshpande, gvedic retroflexion, Aryan and Non-Aryan in India, ed. by M. M. Deshpande and P. E. Hook, Ann Arbor 1979, p. 246). The situation of individual texts may differ: texts with a small basis of reciters (PS, ŚS, Jaiminīya, Vådhūla, Maitråyaīya, Kaha texts) have more deviations due to little control on the medieval written transmission on which our editions are almost exclusively based. For details see Author, Prolegomena on AV tradition (forthc.). 6 MS 1.6.13 refers to the three fires with imam and amum 'this one', and 'that one', while KS 8.4/KpS 6.9 already substitute the words: gårhapatya, odanapacya and åhavanīya (observed by J. Narten, in her classes, c. 1970). Even the Vedic Sūtras still show the emphatic use of the demonstrative pronoun: “he should do in that way”, see W. Caland, Über das rituelle Sūtra des Baudhåyana, Leipzig 1903. 7 Note the “first” writing down of the Vedas by the Kashmiri Brahmin Vasukra, according to Albiruni, see Alberuni's India. An English ed. ... by Dr. Edward C. Sachau, p. 126; however, the tradition of PS points to a written archetype of c. 800-1000 A.D., see Author, Die Atharvaveda-Tradition und die Paippalåda-Sahitå. ZDMG, Supplementband VI, Stuttgart 1985, pp. 256-271; cf. also Rau, Zur Textkritik der B hadårayakopani ad ZDMG 105, 1955, p. *58*, on a possible written archetype of BĀU. 8 One has perhaps to exclude the Upani ads which have a separate tradition in Vedåntic circles, some Dharma texts and several Vedå gas. 9 Note that Orissa MSS lack accent marks while these are common elsewhere in the Middle Ages. 10 By 150 B.C., however, Patañjali gives a list of schools which clearly is unrealistic in part: There are a surprising 21 schools of the RV, 101 schools of the YV, 1000 of the SV and 9 of the AV. 11 The question what was excluded from these śåkhå collections has not even been asked. An indication is given by H. Falk's investigation into Vedic rituals in the Påli canon (BEI 6, 225-254), which shows that certain rituals did not make it into the canon accepted by the various (surviving) Vedic schools. 260 M. WITZEL Brahmins. A working definition,12 thus, may be: the Vedic canon consists of the sum of all those texts in Vedic Sanskrit that originated in and were used by the various Vedic schools (śåkhås). Most of these canonical texts were composed by Brahmins for Brahmins. The texts stress proper praxis rather than belief, and one would be justified to speak of orthopraxis rather than orthodoxy. However, the Kuru system of śrauta ritual13 comes along with a complete set of mostly unstated (and largely unstudied) presuppositions and beliefs, which are the basis of this authoritative system, an orthodoxy of sorts. The most important among them, perhaps, is the very act of belief in the efficacy of the system itself, by śraddhå.14 In this sense, I think, we can speak of a Kuru orthodoxy. Other peoples15 of Vedic Northern India did not believe (śrad-dhå) in these tenets of Kuru orthodoxy and therefore did not follow Kuru orthopraxy (the post-gvedic śrauta ritual).16 12 In the longer version of this paper (forthc.) this will be discussed at length; also, major questions such as origin and formation, gradual shifts in tradition, additions to and exclusion from an emerging canon, the interpretation of (early) canon, the continuing power of “meaning” of canonical texts, expansion by inclusion of “commentaries”, transmission in recitation and writing, etc.
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