Copyright by Michael Brattus Jones 2017 The Dissertation Committee for Michael Brattus Jones Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Agriculture and Religion in Ancient India Committee: Joel Brereton, Supervisor Donald Davis, Jr. Oliver Freiberger J. Patrick Olivelle Gyula Wojtilla Agriculture and Religion in Ancient India by Michael Brattus Jones Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2017 Dedication Dedicated to the memory of Lucy Bulliet, a remarkable friend and mentor. Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my family – my parents and sister, Joyce, Ken, and Courtney – without whose love and support I would not have been able to complete this project. Next I would like to thank Joel Brereton, who has been an ideal supervisor because of his combination of patience and kindness with deep insight, scrupulous attention to detail, and an astounding level of expertise in the subject matter. The other members of my committee are also due my sincere thanks and admiration. Donald Davis provided detailed and meticulous feedback that has proven invaluable. Oliver Freiberger shared his wide- ranging knowledge of religious practice and scholarship to substantially improve this project. Patrick Olivelle generously shared his immense expertise for the benefit of this project. Gyula Wojtilla, the world-expert on agriculture in Sanskrit, helped in many ways at every stage of the project. I thank them all. I would also like to thank some other people from the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Many thanks are due to Martha Selby, who was always supportive of and expressed interest in this project. I would also like to thank Jishnu Shankar and Rupert Snell both for wonderful conversations despite my terrible Hindi, and Rupert in particular for a semester of reading Hindi agricultural proverbs. Thanks also go to Edeltraude Harzer for allowing me to help with her forthcoming and eagerly awaited translation project of the works of Wilhelm Rau. Abby Black's tireless efforts on the administrative side of things is also greatly appreciated. I have been extremely fortunate to study with amazing scholars at my previous schools as well. I would like to thank a few people from my time at Columbia University v also. Sheldon Pollock deeply influenced my thinking about the awkwardness of the inherently regionally-specific subject of agriculture as the subject-matter in the highly universalizing discourse of śāstra. Somadeva Vasudeva, while supervising my reading of the Kṛṣiparāśara, was the one who suggested that I commit to making agriculture the focus of my study. Lucy Bulliet earned my perpetual gratitude. She was a friend and a mentor. I remember sitting with her for hours as she went through my applications to doctoral programs word by word and sentence by sentence. I would also like to thank Rakesh Ranjan, my first Hindi teacher. During my time at the University of Washington also, where I went to complete my bachelor's degree after a long hiatus, I was fortunate to study with top scholars who are also wonderful people. Richard Salomon, my first Sanskrit teacher, was the person who first inspired me to pursue this path. Thanks also to Collette Cox, who is a great teacher as well as a great scholar. Heidi Pauwels is also due many thanks; she first introduced me to Sītā and supervised my honors thesis on her. I would also like to thank Stefan Baums; I still recall with amusement his correction of one of my answers in class: “No! It means ‘one who has much rice’!” My work will never be worthy of my teachers. Finally, I would like to thank Richard and Mark Bulliet. They welcomed me graciously into their family home, putting me up for several nights, as I sorted through the volumes that Lucy had left me in her will. vi Agriculture and Religion in Ancient India Michael Brattus Jones, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 Supervisor: Joel Brereton This project examines the religious conception of agriculture of the Vedic tribes as they transitioned from semi-nomadic pastoralism to an agriculturally-based sedentism in the Gangetic Basin. The basic thesis is that the Vedic peoples had a theology of agriculture that was sufficiently complex to both retain continuity through, as well as adapt itself to, the sedentary transition. This two-sided dynamic, which emerged directly from the close reading of the source texts, breaks down quite neatly into plowing material that demonstrates continuity and harvest material that demonstrates adaptation through discontinuity and innovation. This study examines those changes and continuities through the careful philological reading of select textual sources pertinent to the issue, beginning with the earliest Sanskrit text, the Ṛgveda, which precedes the sedentary transition and reflects the milieu of semi-nomadic tribes in the northwest of the subcontinent in the Bronze Age. Examining the Vedic texts closely, the ancient conception of agriculture is shown to be predicated upon an analogy involving a reproductive complementarity between gods, humans, and animals, who cooperate to inseminate the earth and thereby produce food that sustains them all and therefore perpetuates the cosmos. The integrality of agriculture to the cosmic order enables a formalized association between Prosperity and Plow, allowing the plow to turn up an all-encompassing prosperity for those who ritually demonstrate this knowledge. This positive conception was carried through as the Vedic tribes transitioned to sedentism in the Gangetic basin during the early Iron Age. vii Table of Contents List of Tables ......................................................................................................... ix List of Abbreviations ...............................................................................................x Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Vedic Agriculture: Introduction and Context .......................................7 2.1. Vedic Agriculture............................................................................7 2.2. Context: Geographic and Agricultural ............................................8 2.3. Context: Linguistic and Agricultural ............................................12 2.4. Ṛgvedic Agriculture ......................................................................16 Chapter 3: Prosperity and Plow .............................................................................24 3.1. The Kṛṣi Sūkta, AVŚ 3.17 ...........................................................24 3.2. Verse Sharing and the Question of a Kṛṣi Ur-Sūkta .....................39 3.3. The Ritual Application of the Kṛṣi Sūkta (KauśS 20) ..................59 3.4. The Ritual Dialogue in KauśS 20.16-19 .......................................72 3.5. Kṛṣi Sūkta: Chapter Summary and Conclusion ............................81 Chapter 4: Harvest and the Sedentary Transition .................................................85 4.1. The Harvest and Contextual Change ............................................85 4.2. Agriculture and the Seasons in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa ............87 4.3. An Atharvavedic Harvest Hymn (AVŚ 3.24/AVP 5.30) ..............96 4.4. Āgrayaṇa and Cāturmāsya: Adaptations to Multiple Harvests ...114 Chapter 5: Conclusion.........................................................................................132 5.1. Summary .....................................................................................132 5.2. The Legacy of Vedic Agriculture ...............................................137 5.3. Conclusion ..................................................................................141 Bibliography ........................................................................................................143 viii List of Tables Table 1: AVŚ 3.17 Verse Sharing ...................................................................46 Table 2: AVP 2.22 Verse Sharing ...................................................................48 Table 3: ṚV 4.57 Verse Sharing .....................................................................49 Table 4: MS 2.7.12 Verse Sharing ..................................................................53 Table 5: MS 2.7.12 Abstracted Core Verses with Types of Meter and Verse Sharing ..............................................................................................57 Table 6: AVŚ 3.24 Verse Sharing .................................................................107 Table 7: AVP 5.30 Verse Sharing .................................................................107 Table 8: Disjunction of AV Harvest Material vs. Plowing ...........................119 ix List of Abbreviations AAH Asian Agro-History Foundation AjĀg Ajitāgama ApŚ Āpastamba Śrautasūtra AŚ Arthaśāstra AśGS Āśvalāyanagṛhyasūtra AśŚS Āśvalāyanaśrautasūtra AV Atharvavedasaṃhitā AVP Atharvavedasaṃhitā (Paippalāda recension) AVŚ Atharvavedasaṃhitā (Śaunaka recension) BṛhD Bṛhaddevatā BṛhPDh Bṛhatparāśarasaṃhitā BS Bṛhatsaṃhitā BŚS Baudhāyanaśrautasūtra EI Epigraphia Indica EWA Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen by M. Mayrhofer GDh Gautamadharmasūtra HG Hiraṇyakeśigṛhyasūtra HDŚ History of Dharmaśāstra by P.V. Kane Kap Kapiṣṭhalakaṭhasaṃhitā KauśS Kauśikasūtra