Kshetresa Chandra Chattopadhyaya Quotes

Consequently the hymns in which these passages occur should be assigned to the period of the later Vedic literature. Other passages that similarly show late linguis- tic characteristics must also be considered as of late date. But the converse of this proposition is not necessarily true. It is possible that even in later ages unbroken family traditions enabled the priestly bards to compose hymns in antique form. In fact, there are several indications to show that this actually happened. Consequently, there must be some hymns in the Rgveda-Samhiui which, though early in form, are actually late in date.... The different attempts that have been made so far for the detailed chronological stratification of the Rgveda-Samhiui by Arnold, Belvalker, Weist and others have either failed or met with only partial success, for failing, among other reasons, to re- cognise that poems antique in form may yet be late in date. I therefore apply the criterion of thought for determining the early and the late passages in this text.

These beings have also been called 'not divine' (a-deva) and 'not human' (a-miin~a), which shows that they were something between men and gods, i.e., they were demons.

... Consequently we can safely infer that wherever the general scheme has been disturbed we have reasonable grounds for suspecting interpolations .... To give an ins- tance, the original Indra collection of the III Mandala was . hymns 30-50, the first hymn (30) containing 22 verses, and the last (50) only 5; the three supplementary Indra hymns (51-53), having respectively 12, 8 and 24 verses, seem to have been added in two instalments, hymn 53 (24 verses) having been added some time after hymns 51 (12 verses) and 52 (8 verses) had been appended to the original Indra collection. There are many more such additions, in some cases of entire groups of hymns. Now these later additions are not necessarily all later compositions. They may have been added later, because they were discovered later. But some of them certainly can be compositions of later times. Then there are six verses in the accepted text of the Rgveda-Samhita, 1.99.1, VII.59.12, X.121,1O, X.190.1-3, whose Pada-Piitha is wanting. The only inference that we can make from this fact is that these verses did not form part of the Rgveda-Samhiui when Sakalya compiled its Pada-Piuha. Consequently they have been added even so late as after the time of Sakalya. In this case too it is not possible to say that they were all composed after Sakalya, particularly when VII.50.12 and X.121.10 are found in the various Yajurveda-Samhitas. But we can presume this for X.190.1-3, which bear on their very face the impression of lateness. We do not find these three cosmogonic verses, showing knowledge of the Kalpa theory, till the very late Taittiriya Aranyaka (X.1.13), a text which shows know- ledge of Smrtis (1.2.1) ....

But K. Chattopadhyaya'" has penetratingly corrected Parpola's authorities: King Sudas has been called in the Rgveda Paijavana, Yaska in a Nirukta passage (II.24) '" paijavanalt pijava- nasya putrah, says that Pijavana was the name of Sudas's father. King Divodasa is also mentioned as the ancestor of Sudas. Professors Macdonell and Keith'" incline towards the view that Divodasa was the grandfather of Sudas, and Pijavana his father. Their reasons for this supposition fail to convince me. R.V. VII. 18.22 mentions Paijavana Sudas as the ruiptr of Devavant: Devavant seems to be used here for Divodasa.!" ruiptub probably means "of the son", for "son" is the usual meaning of the word naptr or napiu in the Rgveda, But even if the later meaning of "grandson" be put on the word, as Sayana has done (devavato riijiio naptub pautrasya) , how will Professors Macdonell and Keith explain the concluding verse of the hymn : imam , , naro marutab sascatanu divodasam, nd pitaram sudasab avis/ana paijavanasya ketam dunasatn ksatram ajdram duvoyu, where Divodasa is explicitly calledthe father , (pita) of Sudas? This passage clearly establishes that Divodasa was the father and not the grandfather of Sudas. As regards Pijavana he may have been the same person as Divodasa as Geldner'" supposes, or may have been some remote ancestor.

The name Varuna is not found outside India. Its equation with Greek Ouranos, though accepted by philologists, must be rejected on account of two differences, the quality of the second vowel and the place of the accent. The second vowel in Varuna is U and it is a in ouranos. The former word is accented on the first syllable and the latter on the final syllable, though accenting it on the syllable third from the end would not have militated against the special law about the place of the accent in the Greek language. Either discrepancy would not have by itself gone against the equation but their combination makes it extremely difficult to connect Varuna and Ouranos .... Varuna appears to be a purely Indo-Aryan word, formed in the same way as karuna, taruna, dharuna, etc.

Continuity of hieratic or bardic tradition preserves many old forms and in religious texts antique forms are generally preferred. ... The chief ground for taking the Rgveda-Samhita as the earliest Vedic. text is the archaic character of its language as compared with much of the remaining Vedic literature. Another ground for this conclusion is the fact that a large number of verses which are in their proper contexts in the Hymns of the Rgveda are found utilised in the mantra collections of the other Vedas, from which one may infer that they were borrowed from the Rgveda-Samhita. Both these grounds make the comparative antiquity of-large portions of the Rgveda-Samhita almost certain. But they do not entitle us to assume that the whole of the Rgveda- Samhita is older than the other Vedic texts .... Scholars have always recognised that this Samhita has older and later portions....

It is not true that mandalas I (or large portions of it), VIII and particularly X of the Rgveda-Samhita are the only later additions. There are enough indications to show that additions were made even in "the family books", the original nucleus of the Samhita. If we make a careful study of the arrangement of these "family books", ... the fol- lowing scheme seems to have been followed by the original redactors: - 1. the family groups were arranged according to the decreasing number of the hymns in each of these books; 2. within each family group the Agni hymns came first, then the Indra hymns and then the Visvadeva hymns (if there were any) and after them hymns to the other deities in due order; and . 3. within each devatii sub-group, the hymns were ar- ranged according to the diminishing number of stanzas contained in them.

I have said above that the chief ground for placing the greater portion of the Rgveda-Samhita in a very early period is the archaic character of its language. But the Samhita is not lacking in late linguistic features as well. It well known that the word usura means "a good spirit", "a god" or "God" in the Rgveda-Samhiui as its cognate ahura means in the Avesta, and that in the later Vedic literature and in classical Sanskrit the word has undergone semantic deterioration, acquiring the sense of "demon".