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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The chief cause of the undoubted monotony of the Ṛgveda is, of course, its essentially sacerdotal character. In the case of the vast majority of the hymns there can be, and has been, no doubt as to their purpose: they are praises of the gods who are worshipped in the ritual, and the native commentator, whose work, with all its defects, has done much to render the study of the Ṛgveda fruitful, provides us with references to the passages in the Sūtra where the ritual use of the verses is laid down. It is true that we cannot believe that the later ritual really gives us an accurate idea of the employment of the hymns which make up the Saṃhitā: without postulating any very violent change of practice, we can yet readily feel that the ritual has deviated from the form in which it must have appeared when the Saṃhitā was brought into being, but at any rate it is certain that there was a ritual, and that the hymns normally found a natural place therein. All the more interest attaches, therefore, to the comparatively small number of hymns for which Sāyaṇa gives no technical ritual employment, and which have generally a dialogue form, or may legitimately be deemed to have that form. The Bṛhaddevatdā shows that the technical term for such hymns was Saṃvāda, but there seems no doubt that they could also be included in the more general term Itihāsa and perhaps Ākhyāna.
page 979 note 1 Cf. ii, 88; IV, 44, 47 (dialogue of Indra and the Maruts); v, 163, 184 (a dialogue of Agastya, Vasiṣṭha, their sons, and Indra, RV. vii, 33); vi, 154 (dialogue of Yama and Yamī, RV. x, 10); vii, 29 (dialogue of the seer and Indra, RV. x, 28); 153 (dialogue of Purūravas and Urvaśī, RV. x, 95). vii, 140, given in Macdonell's Index of Words (i, 192), is an erroneous reference to saṃvāsa.
page 980 note 1 Thus RV. x, 95 was called a Saṃvāda by Yāska, according to the Bṛhaddevatā, vii, 154 (though, as Macdonell points out, this view cannot be found in the Nirukta, v, 13; x, 46, 47; xi, 36). In iv, 46 the “Indra and Maruts” dialogue is described as an Itihāsa, and even if the line is of doubtful authenticity (see Macdonell, i, 138) it shows that Saṃvāda and Itihāsa were naturally interchangeable. So in the Epic; see Winternitz, , VOJ. xxiii, 126Google Scholar. For Ākhyāna and Saṃvāda cf. Nirukta, xi, 25, devaśuindreṇa prahitā paṇibhir asuraiḥ samūda ity ālchyānam, and Bṛhaddevatā, i, 53, with vii, 154.
page 980 note 2 See ZDMG. xxxvii, 54 seqq.; xxxix, 52 seqq.; Literatur des alten Indien, pp. 44 seq., 125 seq., 153 seq.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 seqq.
page 980 note 3 Verhandl. der 33 Philologenversammlung, pp. 28 seqq.; Māra und Buddha, p. 128. On the other hand, Charpentier, , VOJ. xxiii, 50Google Scholar, takes the Māra and Bhikkunī Saṃyuttas as dramatic.
page 980 note 4 Vedische Studien, ii, 42 seqq. (he so explains RV. iv, 18).
page 980 note 5 Ibid., i, 284 seqq. (RV. x, 95); ii, 1 seqq. (RV. x, 102); 22 seqq. (RV. x, 86). It should be noted that Hertel, , VOJ. xxiii, 346Google Scholar, claims to have converted Geldner, but the treatment of RV. x, 95 in his Ṛgveda, Kommentar, p. 191, seems hardly adequate evidence of the conversion.
page 981 note 1 Die Sagenstojfe des Ṛgveda und die indische Itihdhâsatradition (Stuttgart, 1902). Sieg, at pp. 17 seq.Google Scholar, analyses the terms used of these narrative or dialogue hymns, and discusses the question of the existence of an Itihāsa-Purāṇa as a collection, a fifth Veda, which is asserted by Geldner. He arrives at a positive result, but he admits that no such collection had a finally fixed form, and, what is much more important, it must be noted that there is nothing to hint that the form of this collection was a blend of prose and verse. The passage in favour of Geldner's view, cited by Hertel, , VOJ. xxiv, 420Google Scholar, from the Kaulilīya Śāstra, i, 3, is of no cogency, as it does not go beyond the expressions found in Vedic texts of much greater authority. The disputes as to the nature of a hymn as an Itihāsa or Saṃvāda are explained by him to refer to the question of the deity; see p. 27, a passage overlooked, as it seems, by Winternitz, , VOJ. xxiii, 103Google Scholar, for it is more satisfactory than the explanation either of Oldenberg, , ZDMG. xxxix, 80 seq.Google Scholar, or of Geldner, , Vedisehe Studien, i, 292 seqGoogle Scholar. It may here be noted that Professor Oertel, in a note to DrHertel, (VOJ. xxiv, 121)Google Scholar, points out that A. Holtzmann in 1854 anticipated in some measure Windisch's theory, and he holds the view that there were “nicht nur vorbrahmanische itihāsa-Sammlungen, sondern auch fest redigierte exegetische Sammlungen”; see also AJP. xx, 440; JAOS. xviii, 16; xxiii, 325.
page 981 note 2 pp. 119, 120.
page 981 note 3 The Great Epic of India, pp. 266 seqq., 386.
page 981 note 4 In his Geschichte der indischen Literatur, see i, 103; VOJ. xxiii, 102 seqq. See also Davids, Rhys, Buddhist India, pp. 180 seqqGoogle Scholar.
page 981 note 5 ZDMG. xxxvi, 474 seqq.; xlvi, 445 seqq.
page 981 note 6 Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda (Leipzig, 1908)Google Scholar.
page 982 note 1 VOJ. xviii, 59 seqq., 137 seqq.; xxiii, 273 seqq.; xxiv, 117 seqq.
page 982 note 2 VOJ. xxiii, 346.
page 982 note 3 GGA. 1909, pp. 66 seqq.
page 982 note 4 VOJ. xxiii, 102 seqq.
page 982 note 5 JRAS. 1909, pp. 200 seqq.
page 983 note 1 VOJ. xxiii, 127, 130.
page 984 note 1 Cf. Kirste, , VOJ. xxiii, 388 seq.Google Scholar; Thomas, , JRAS. 1910, p. 973Google Scholar.
page 985 note 1 Cf. Hertel, , VOJ. xxiii, 296, 299Google Scholar. It is impossible to ignore the complete distinction of the types of the theoretic Ākhyāna and the actual Ākhysāyikā, and Winternitz, , VOJ. xxiii, 126Google Scholar, seems to overlook the fact. The Kāṭhaka Upaniṣad, indeed, is somewhat more allied to the Ākhyāyikā type than to the Ākhyāyikā, but its source, the Taittīriya Brāhmaṇa, iii, 11. 8. 1, has no verses mingled with its prose, and so the Upaniṣad proves nothing for the early Vedic period which is the subject of this discussion.
page 986 note 1 See Hertel, , VOJ. xxiii, 278–81, 343Google Scholar. Franke, , ZDMG. lxiii, 13Google Scholar, shows in one case clearly (by a comparison of J. 507 and J. 539) that the existing prose and verse must be deemed contemporary (i.e. the verse was fitted into the existing prose when it was composed, not the prose inserted to replace a missing prose), and he thinks it was often the case. What is important, however, is that the discrepancies of prose and verse are no reasonable evidence in favour of the prose being a replacement of an older prose which really was consistent with the verse. The prose is just as probably an original composition without any predecessor, and reflects a type of literature which is seen in its perfection in the Hitopadeśa type; see Hertel, , VOJ. xxiv, 121–3Google Scholar. The type of mixed prose and verse is essentially originally one of prose in which verses are quoted, whether taken from the epic or the Śāstras or perhaps the drama. The style in which verses are composed by the writer of the prose, as in the Campūs, is decidedly later.
page 986 note 2 iv, 6. This passage clearly distinguishes ṛe, gāthā, and itihāsa; see Hertel, , VOJ. xxiii, 284Google Scholar.
page 988 note 1 vii, 13–18.
page 988 note 2 xv, 19 seqq.
page 989 note 1 Dr. Thomas is no doubt right in thinking that the verses are not from one poem.
page 990 note 1 xi, 5, 1.
page 990 note 2 GGA. 1907, pp. 69, 70.
page 991 note 1 There are several difficulties as to the Śatapatha passage. The mention of fifteen verses when the hymn has eighteen is very strange, and not yet fully explained. Hertel, , VOJ. xxiii, 346Google Scholar, thinks that the present text, which mentions v. 16 without commenting on it, is interpolated, and that the fifteen verses refer to the first fifteen, the Brāhmaṇa having referred to 1, 2, 14, and 15; and this is not impossible. Winternitz', view, VOJ. xxiii, 131Google Scholar, that the Brāhmaṇa does not cite the verses, but that the copyists saved themselves trouble by merely referring to the RV., is certainly untenable, for Hertel points out that the Brāhmaṇa has given its summary of the omitted verses in the prelude, and that the citation of vv. 1, 2, 14, and 15 only is deliberate and artistically necessary, thus also rendering needless Oldenberg's view of a shortening of the Ākhyāna.
page 992 note 1 VOJ. xxiii, 285 seq. The Pauṣyākhyāna, cited by Oldenberg in favour of his theory, is all in prose—dialogue as well as narrative; only three hymns and two citations are in verse; that is, there is no Ākhyāna at all in Oldenberg's sense.
page 992 note 2 The Great Epic of India, pp. 266 seqq. See Hertel, , VOJ. xxiii, 286, 287, 345Google Scholar, and compare Viṣṇu Parāṇa, iv, 10.
page 992 note 3 Mysterium und Mimus, p. 340.
page 993 note 1 vi, 117–23.
page 993 note 2 ZDMG. xxxix, 58.
page 995 note 1 Le théâtre indien, p. 307.
page 995 note 2 Hymns to the Maruts, pp. 172, 173; repeated in SBE. xxxii, 182, 183.
page 996 note 1 Le théâtre indien, pp. 333 scqq.
page 996 note 2 e.g., the speech of the Queen in Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā, xxxiii, 18 seqq.; cf. the speech of the Brahmin student and a hetaira in the Mahāvrata, , Kāṭhaka Saṃhitā, xxxiv, 5Google Scholar; Taittirīya Saṃhitā, vii, 5. 9. 4; my Aitareya Āraṇyaka, p. 277, n. 15.
page 997 note 1 Ludwig, , Der Rigveda, iii, 390 seqq.Google Scholar; Bloomfield, , JAOS. xv, 172 seqq.Google Scholar; Religion of the Veda, pp. 215 seqq.
page 997 note 2 Op. cit., p. 168.
page 997 note 3 Oldenberg, , GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4Google Scholar. He suggests that the sense is rather “die unter Verletzung (des vrata) (sinnlich) Erfreuende”, which is very plausible, for in RV. x, 10. 12 we have pramúdaḥ in this sense, and so the root mud in Śatapatha Brālimaṇa, xiv, 7. 1. 14: strībhiṇ saha, modamānaṇ.
page 998 note 1 Again neatly defended by Oldenberg, , GGA. 1909, pp. 79 seqqGoogle Scholar.
page 998 note 2 Op. cit., pp. 408 seqq.
page 998 note 3 Op. cit., pp. 13 seqq.
page 998 note 3 RV. i, 92. 4; Schroeder, p. 44. He repeats this view in VOJ. xxiii, 8, n. 1, in respect of RV. x, 72. 6, where he seeks to show in the RV. the recognition of the cosmic power of dancing, and he compares the use of ὥστ∈or ὡς in Greek (e.g., Il. iii, 380, 381; Soph. Oid. Tyr. 1078) and ut in Latin (e.g. Cic, . Tuse. i, 43. 104Google Scholar; de Or. ii, 1. 2). The argument is, however, very weak: in both cases iva naturally is a comparative particle, and there is no ground for the unusual sense ascribed to it. It is no argument for the version of von Schroeder that nṨtau is used of Uṣas in RV. x, 29. 3: the comparison shows that Uṣas could be conceived as a dancer, and nṨtau is consistent with this. Von Schroeder sees dance as the sense of nṨt throughout, e.g. in RV. v, 33. 6: nṨmnāni nṨtámāno á;martaḥ, and so nṨtuin ii, 22. 4; vi, 29. 3; viii, 24. 9, 12, etc., but how far he is right in doing so is a question of some difficulty. That the gods danced is of course in itself probable, and x, 124. 9 seems to show it of Indra.
page 999 note 1 Myaterium und Mimus, pp. 11–13.
page 999 note 2 VOJ. xviii, 64, 73, 137, 138; xxiii, 274, 275.
page 1000 note 1 Cf. Oldenberg, , GGA. 1909, p. 68Google Scholar. Hertel's, criticisms in VOJ. xxiii, 274, 275Google Scholar, do not seem to me effective. They rest on modern Indian practice, and on assertions which assume that our modern musical sense is a criterion for ancient music, a view which the dispute regarding the character of Greek music would seem to render yet more dangerous where the Indian musical sense of the second millennium b.c. is in question.
page 1001 note 1 It is of course true that the drama springs from the dramatic ritual, and that there must be a stage when the two seem but one. But the essence of the two is distinct, and depends on the relation of the performers to the action. In the dramatic ritual they are actors themselves seeking some direct end; in the drama they consciously represent the actions of others: thus the Mainades who tore Pentheus to pieces performed a dramatic ritual, the actors of the Bacchai represent in a higher form that ritual. As the ritual ceases to be intelligible, the possibility of drama emerges.
page 1001 note 2 VOJ. xxiii, 299 seqq.
page 1001 note 3 Op. cit., pp. 70 seqq.
page 1002 note 1 Cf. the Vājapeya, , Hillebrandt, , Vedische Opfer, p. 142Google Scholar.
page 1002 note 2 In the Vājapeya and Rājasūya, Hillebrandt, pp. 141, 145, 146; in the Mahāvrata, , Keith, , Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaha, p. 82Google Scholar.
page 1002 note 3 In the Mahāvrata, Keith, op. cit., pp. 77, 78.
page 1002 note 4 Ibid., p. 79.
page 1002 note 5 x, 99, 3; vii, 21, 5. The sense is rather “phallus worshippers” than phallic spirits or deities, as von Schroeder, pp. 63–4, would prefer to take it. His suggestion that the name Kṛkadāśu, , in RV. i, 29Google Scholar, represents a phallus (cf. κέρκος) worshipper is as improbable as it is ingenious.
page 1002 note 6 See my Aitareya Áraṇyaka, p. 277, n. 15.
page 1002 note 7 Hillebrandt, op. cit., pp. 149 seqq.
page 1003 note 1 Mysterium und Mimus, pp. 275 seqq. This is a peculiarly gratuitous theory, and it is not supported in the least by the Ṛśyaśṛṅga and Śāntā story, which belongs to a totally different type of idea.
page 1003 note 2 VOJ. xxiii, 297 seq. Winternitz, , VOJ. xxiii, 110Google Scholar, doubts the evidence of the connexion of the Vedic and the classical drama, and Hertel, , VOJ. xxiv, 118–20Google Scholar, finds a link in the Harivaṃśa, ii, 91, where it is said: tatra yajñe vartamáne sunāṭyena naṭas tadā | maharṣīṃims toṣamyām āsa Bhadranāmeti ūāmataḥ ‖ But this is a very poor piece of evidence: the Harivaṃśa is a late text, and undoubtedly contemporaneous with the classical drama, at least in its earlier stage, and that this text should recognize a naṭa (it is not clear if “actor” is really meant, but it does not matter much) as filling up a period in the horse sacrifice really does not help us to any connexion of the secular and ritual drama, which must rest on other evidence.
page 1004 note 1 See GGA. 1909, pp. 71 seqq.
page 1004 note 2 See Hertel, , VOJ. xxiii, 331 seqqGoogle Scholar.
page 1004 note 3 Op. cit., pp. 361–95.
page 1005 note 1 Winternitz, , VOJ. xxiii, 137Google Scholar, admits the weight of Bloomfield's, criticism (ZDMG. xlviii, 541 seq.)Google Scholar of Geldner's, version (Vedische Studien, ii, 1 seq.)Google Scholar of this curious hymn, to which I called attention in JRAS. 1909, p. 207. MrPargiter, , JRAS. 1910, pp. 1328 seqq.Google Scholar, has connected the hymn with the genealogy of Mudgala in the Purāṇas, and has seen in vādhriṇā (v. 12) and indrasenā (v. 2) references to Vadhryaśva, a grandson of Mudgala, and Indrasena his daughter-in-law. The difficulties of the hymn do not, however, seem in the slightest degree to be diminished by these assumptions, and that either vádhriṇā or indrasenā is intended as a proper name seems most improbable. The whole hymn seems to me, as it did to Bloomfield, to be of mythological content, and I do not think the Puranic genealogy rests on any Vedic tradition. Yāska already evidently could not explain the hymn; see Nirukta, ix, 2, 3. Here may be noted MrPargiter's, attempt, JRAS. 1911, pp. 803–9Google Scholar, to find a rational explanation of the genesis of the Vṛṣākapi poem, RV. x, 86. I fear that the explanation is more rational than probable.
page 1006 note 1 Cf. Bloomfield, , JAOS. xvii, 177Google Scholar.
page 1006 note 2 vii, 18, 33, 83.
page 1006 note 3 RV. iii, 33.
page 1006 note 4 See x, 72, 81, 82, 121, 129, etc.; Macdonell, , Sanskrit Literature, pp. 131 seqqGoogle Scholar.
page 1006 note 5 Cf. Śūtapatha Brāhmaṇa, xiii, 5. 3. 4; Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa, iii, 9. 14. 4.
page 1006 note 6 Āśvalāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, iv, 6. 6. Cf. also Kāṭhaka Upaniṣd, i, 3. 16; Winternitz, , VOJ. xxiii, 132, 133Google Scholar.
page 1007 note 1 x, 34.
page 1007 note 2 Op. cit., pp. 53 seqq.; VOJ. ix, 233–52.
page 1007 note 3 See my note in the Classical Quarterly, iv, 283, 284. Ridgeway's theory of the origin of the drama from the festivals in honour of the dead is set forth at length in his work on the Origins of the Greek Drama, but his thesis seems to be still improbable as an explanation of the origin of tragedy.
page 1008 note 1 See Weber, , Indische Studien, xiii, 354 seqq., 488 seqq.Google Scholar; my note, ZDMG. lxiv, 534 seqq., and cf. JRAS. 1908, p. 172.
page 1008 note 2 See my Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, p. 78.