THE CHRONOLOGICAL GULF BETWEEN THE OLD RIGVEDA AND THE NEW RIGVEDA PDF

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THE CHRONOLOGICAL GULF BETWEEN THE OLD RIGVEDA AND THE NEW RIGVEDA [ABSOLUTELY FINAL REVISED VERSION 4/10/2020] Shrikant G. Talageri [Foreword: I posted this article more than a month ago but found that I had to keep revising it as I delved deeper into the data. This is the absolutely final version,...

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THE CHRONOLOGICAL GULF BETWEEN THE OLD RIGVEDA AND THE NEW RIGVEDA [ABSOLUTELY FINAL REVISED VERSION 4/10/2020] Shrikant G. Talageri [Foreword: I posted this article more than a month ago but found that I had to keep revising it as I delved deeper into the data. This is the absolutely final version, except perhaps if any minor typing errors etc. crop up. However, I intend to present all this data in more detail (hymn-wise and verse-wise words listed, as also other aspects of Rigvedic vocabulary) in the form of a book. This article has become extremely necessary for reasons that will be clear at the end of the article. Actually, the subject of "new" words in the later parts of the Rigveda was one which had intrigued me from the time of researching my first book (published early 1993), when I read the references to such words by B.K. Ghosh in the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan book (GHOSH 1951/1996). However, I could not locate any systematic study of such words, until, to some extent, in the work of Hopkins (HOPKINS 1896a) which I came across much later. Therefore there is also an academic satisfaction in undertaking this study. This final version contains an important new section, The Three Other Veda Samhitas and the Four Other Tribes, which shows once more how the distinction between the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda is the key to all historical problems in Vedic studies]

The Rigveda is one text, but it consists of hymns composed by different composers over different periods of time. Basically the text can be divided into two distinct divisions which are separated in time. In my books and articles, I have repeatedly provided lists of hymns to show the difference between what I now call the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda. I started using these terms since my recent (fourth) book "Genetics and the Aryan Debate", 2019, because these appellations bring out the stark distinction more clearly. Before that, in my blog articles in the last few years, I exclusively used the terms "Old Books/Hymns", "Middle Books/Hymns" and "New Books/Hymns" (and before that, in my earlier books, I

generally used the terms "Early Books/Hymns", "Middle Books/Hymns" and "Late Books/Hymns"). The Rigveda consists of 10 Books or Maṇḍalas, containing 1028 hymns or sūktas, with 10552 verses or ṛças/mantras. The following, as I have shown in my books, is the chronological order of the ten books. Books 6,3,7 are the Oldest Books, 4,2 are Middle Old Books and 5,1,8,9,10 are New Books. Actually Book 1 consists of small mini-books or upa-maṇḍalas which were finalized as one book (Book 1) in the New Period (i.e. the period of composition of the New Books), but the different upa-maṇḍalas belong to different periods starting from immediately after the period of the Oldest Books. The total number of hymns and verses in the different books is as follows: Book

Number of Hymns

Number of Verses

6 3 7

75 62 104

765 617 841

4 2

58 43

`589 429

5 1 8 9 10

87 191 103 114 191

727 2006 1716 1108 1754

Total

1028

10552

The Old Books (or Oldest Books 6,3,7 in that order) and Middle Books (or Middle Old Books 4,2) together constitute the Old Rigveda, and the New Books constitute the New Rigveda.

This two-fold division of the Rigveda is the most fundamental criterion to be kept in mind in any historical analysis of the Rigveda, and in this article I will analyze these divisions with even more rigor than in my earlier books and articles, under the following sections: I. The Chronology of the Rigveda as per the western scholars. II. The Old and New Rigveda vis-à-vis the Avestan Evidence. III. The New Books and Period, and the New words. IV. The Middle Books and Period, and the Middle words. V. A Summary of the Evidence, and Its Implications. VI. The Three Other Veda Samhitas and the Four Other Tribes.

Section I. The Chronology of the Rigveda as per the western scholars Firstly, let us see the chronological divisions of the Rigveda, as per the Western scholars. I have given a full and detailed analysis of the Internal Chronology of the Rigveda (TALAGERI 2008:130-167) for anyone interested in the stage-by-stage formation of the Rigveda, and will not repeat it here. The salient points, of the perfectly correct western case, are as follows: 1. In his 1995 papers in the volume edited by Erdosy, Witzel tells us: “The structure of the text has been more extensively studied, already by Bergaigne (1878-83) and Oldenberg in the 19th century. From the latter’s Prolegomena (Oldenberg 1888), it appears that the Ṛgveda was composed and assembled in the following stages, beginning ‘at the centre’ with books 2-7” (WITZEL 1995b:309). Witzel even provides a graph on the page, vividly showing this order of composition and assembly, with Books 2-7 as the earliest core of the text, parts of 1 and 8 forming the second layer, the rest of 1 and 8 forming the third layer, followed by Book 9, and finally by “the great appendix to the Ṛgveda” (WITZEL 1995b:310), Book 10. More recently, Theodore Proferes (frequently quoted by Witzel to promote his own “status kit” mumbo jumbo) puts it as follows: “The formation of the ṛksamhita [....] appears to have been carried out in three stages. First, the ‘clan books’ 2-

7 were collected and ordered [....] At a later stage, Books 1 and 8 were added to the case like book ends. It was likely at this stage that Book 9 was added as well. Lastly, the heterogenous material in Book 10 was appended to the entire collection” (PROFERES 1999:10). In short, the first basic fact, generally accepted by all the scholars, is that the Family or “clan” books (2-7) represent an earlier stage of composition and compilation and the non-family books (1, 8-10) represent later stages of composition and compilation. 2. But there is a further point noted by the scholars, distinguishing one of the six Family books (or clan books, as Proferes calls them above) from the other five, and clubbing it with the non-family books: Edward Hopkins, as long ago as 1896, wrote a long and detailed article (“Prāgāthikāni-I”, in JAOS, the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1896) about the late chronological position of Book 8. In this article, he refers to “the intermediate character of v, between viii and the other family books” (HOPKINS 1896a:88), and repeatedly points out with detailed evidence (see HOPKINS 1896a:29-30 fn, 88-89) that there are a great many “evidences of special rapport between viii and v” (HOPKINS 1896a:89). Further, he emphasizes that “the vocabulary of the Kaṇva maṇḍala [8] often coincides with that of the Atri maṇḍala [5] when it shows no correspondence with that of other family books. This subject deserves special treatment” (HOPKINS 1896a:29). More recently, Proferes, after pointing out, in his Harvard thesis above, that the Family Books 2-7 are earlier than the non-family Books 1, 8-10, repeatedly singles out Book 5 as having a close relationship with Books 1 and 8, the two Books which he earlier tells us were appended to the collection of the Family books “at a later stage”: “We need not rely exclusively on the Anukramaṇī to affirm that there were important interactions between the priestly groups represented in Books 1, 5

and 8. As Oldenberg [1888b:213-215] has shown, evidence from the hymns themselves supports this conclusion” (PROFERES 1999:75). “the pavamāna collection [Book 9] consists primarily of late authors, those from Books 1, 5, 8 and in a limited number of cases, 10” (PROFERES 1999:69). In a more recent paper, Proferes repeats the above point: “the clan book composers, except those from Book 5, are not well represented among the pavamāna composers of Book 9” (PROFERES 2003:12). “These circles are represented by the Kāṇva, Ātreya and Āngirasa authors from Books 1, 5 and 8, as well as by descendants of these authors” (PROFERES 2003:16). “the breakdown of the strict separation of the ritual poetry of different clans and the preservation of that poetry together in a single collection began with the Kāṇva, Ātreya and Āngirasa poets of Books 1, 5 and 8” (PROFERES 2003:18). [Most significantly]: “The connections of Book 5 with Books 1 and 8 and not with the other clan books (2-4, 6-7) is interesting, since it seems to belong to the core RV collection (Oldenberg [1888a]; Witzel [1997])” (PROFERES 2003:16, fn).. In short, the second basic fact, clear from the writings of the scholars, is that, from among the Family or “clan” books (2-7), Book 5 is classifiable with the non-family Books (1, 8-10) rather than with the other Family Books, and stands chronologically between the other Family Books (2-4, 6-7) and the non-family Books (1, 8-10). Thus, even without going into the details of the internal chronological order within the group of other Family Books (2-4, 6-7), we already have, as per the analysis of the western scholars themselves, the following three chronological stages: Old Family Books 2-4, 6-7.

New Family Book 5. New non-family Books 1, 8-10. 3. But there is a further division within the Family Books: Oldenberg, in his writings (notably his Prolegomena) has identified certain principles in the arrangement of most of the hymns in the Family Books 2-7: each Family Book begins with a group of hymns to Agni, followed by a group of hymns to Indra, followed by groups of hymns to various other deities, arranged according to decreasing number of hymns per deity; within each deity-group, the hymns are again arranged according to decreasing number of verses. Within this arrangement, hymns with the same number of verses are arranged according to meter, starting with jagatī and triṣṭubh, and followed by anuṣṭubh and gāyatrī. That Oldenberg and his predecessors identified a very important set of principles in the arrangement of the Rigvedic hymns is beyond doubt. But what followed this identification is more important: Oldenberg identified hymns, in each Family Book, which seemed to violate these principles of arrangement by either being too short or too long, or having different deities or meters, and concluded that these “unordered” hymns were late hymns, or more properly Redacted Hymns,which were added to the collection or modified later, as compared to the other (“ordered”) hymns in the Books. The Aitareya Brahmana, attached to the Rigveda, testifies that 6 hymns in Book 3 were added to the collection later. These hymns, according to the Aitareya Brahmana (VI.18), are III.30-31, 34, 36, 38, 48. The full list of Old Hymns and Redacted Hymns in the five Old Books is as follows: Old Rigveda (280 hymns, 2368 verses)

Redacted Hymns (62 hymns, 873 verses) II. 1-31, 33-40 (39 hymns, 394 verses). II. 32, 41-43 (4 hymns, 35 verses). III. 1-25, 32-33, 35, 37, 39-47, 49-50, III. 26-31, 34, 36, 38, 48, 51-53, 54-61 (48 hymns, 428 verses). 62 (14 hymns, 189 verses). IV. 1-14, 16-29, 33-36, 38-47, 49, 51-54 IV. 15, 30-32, 37, 48, 50, 55-58 (47 hymns, 456 verses). (11 hymns, 133 verses). VI. 1-14, 17-43, 53-58, 62-73 (59 VI. 15-16, 44-52, 59-61, 74-75 hymns, 449 verses). (16 hymns, 316 verses).

VII. 1-14, 18-30, 34-54, 56-58, 60-65, VII. 15-17, 31-33, 55, 59, 66, 74, 67-73, 75-80, 82-93, 95, 97-100 (87 81, 94, 96, 101-104 (17 hymns, hymns, 641 verses). 200 verses).

TOTAL NUMBER OF HYMNS AND VERSES IN THE RIGVEDA: 1. Old Rigveda Books 2,3,4,6,7: 280 Hymns, 2368 verses. 2. Redacted Hymns in Old Books 2,3,4,6,7: 62 Hymns, 873 verses. 3. New Rigveda Books 1,5,8,9,10: 686 Hymns, 7311 verses. The Redacted Hymns form a sort of buffer zone between the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda: they were composed during the period of the Old Rigveda itself but kept aside as a kind of appendix to each book (except the last group of hymns in each book, II.42-43, III.62, IV.55-58, VI.74-75, VII.101-104, which were added last of all), but were not preserved with equal rigor until the first Rigveda (consisting of the Family Books including the New Book 5) was finalized after the composition of Book 5 in the New Period, when they were combined with the hymns of the Old Rigveda. The reasons for the lack of rigorous rigidization of the Redacted Hymns (before the first Rigveda was fixed in form) were that some of them were not used regularly in ritual and were hence linguistically updated before addition, and many of the others by contrast were regularly recited as ballads before audiences (due to some historical or popular material in them) and became automatically linguistically updated before addition. [The non-family Books were added later to the collection in different stages, as detailed by the western scholars]. But while the Redacted Hymns were linguistically updated, they were not changed in historical and geographical context and content (except the handful of references to Purukutsa and Trasadasyu, but these were actually interpolated into Old Hymns and not into the Redacted Hymns). Hence, geographically and historically they represent the Old Period, while linguistically they contain incidental new words not found in the Old Period. Therefore, I repeat, it is important to keep in mind that this two-fold division of the Rigveda is the most fundamental, crucial and vital criterion in any coherent historical analysis of the Rigveda.

Section II. The Old and New Rigveda vis-à-vis the Avestan Evidence The first and most important aspect of this two-fold division is that it provides the key to "Indo-Iranian" and "Indo-European" history. As per the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory), the "Indo-Aryans" and "Iranians" (speakers of two of the twelve known branches of Indo-European languages), the "Aryans", left their Original Homeland in the Steppes around 3000 BCE or so, and entered Central Asia in 2200 BCE or so. Later, around 2000 BCE or so, they split into three groups and migrated in three directions: a) The western Indo-Aryans migrated westwards from Central Asia and entered West Asia sometime around 1800 BCE or so, and later established the chronologically recorded and dated Mitanni kingdom in Syria and Iraq around 1500 BCE. b) The Iranians migrated southwards into Afghanistan and composed the Avesta after 1500 BCE. Later, after 1000 BCE, they spread out westwards into Iran and later as far west as Europe. c) The eastern Indo-Aryans migrated southeastwards into northwestern India (present-day northern Pakistan and east as far as Haryana) and composed the Rigveda after 1500 BCE. Later, after 1200 BCE, they spread out eastwards into the rest of northern India. As per this scenario, the common elements in the three data-base texts and materials representing the earliest outputs or records of these three people (the Mitanni records, the Avesta and the Rigveda) are common ancestral pre-Rigvedic elements, which should be most commonly present in the earliest parts of the Rigveda, and increasingly less common in the newer parts of the Rigveda and in the post Rigvedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit texts. But the actual situation is exactly the opposite of this: these elements, as I have shown in my books and articles in great detail, and show below in summary, are completely and totally absent in the Old Rigveda, and increasingly present in the New Rigveda and continue in the post-Rigvedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit texts. This shows that these common elements developed during the period of the New Rigveda (whose geographical spread is from western Uttar Pradesh to

Afghanistan), and that, therefore, the Mitanni and Iranians are emigrants from this area. Further, the geography of the Old Rigveda, which clearly represents an Old and Early stage well before the development of these common Rigvedic-IranianMitanni elements, is in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh to the east of the Sarasvati river, and the Old Rigveda actually records in merciless detail the historical spread of these Old Rigvedic people westwards from this area to as far as Afghanistan. All the data therefore places the Old Rigvedic people in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh long before 2500 BCE, in an area which, even as early as that, knows no non-Indo-European languages and has purely Indo-Aryan names for the eastern animals, places and rivers! All this data has been detailed in my books and articles. Below, the summary of the common Rigvedic-Avestan-Mitanni elements (with the addition of five more common words, and a correction in the number of verses in the Redacted Hymns from 890 to 873, and in the number of common-element hymns in Book IX from 309 to 308). Note again the distribution of the total hymns in the Rigveda: TOTAL NUMBER OF HYMNS AND VERSES IN THE RIGVEDA: 1. Old Rigveda Books 2,3,4,6,7: 280 Hymns, 2368 verses. 2. Redacted Hymns in Old Books 2,3,4,6,7: 62 Hymns, 873 verses. 3. New Rigveda Books 1,5,8,9,10: 686 Hymns, 7311 verses. Words and names common with the Avesta: The common Vedic-Avestan names and name types include not only names with the prefixes and suffixes found in the Mitanni records already considered earlier except -uta (i.e. -aśva, -ratha, -sena, -bandhu, vasu-, ṛta-, priya-, and, as per the analysis of the Indologist P.E.Dumont, bṛhad-, sapta-, abhi-, uru-, citra-,-kṣatra and yama/yami-) and the word maṇi, but also names with the prefixes and suffixes aśva-, ratha-, ṛṇa-, -citra, pras-, ṛṣṭi-, -ayana, dvi-, aṣṭa-, -anti, ūrdhva-, ṛjū-, -gu, saṁ-, svar-, -manas, śavas-, -stuta, śūra-, sthūra-, vidad-, nṛ-, pṛṣad-, prati-, -śardha, pṛthu-, jarat-, maya-, hari-, -śruta, śyāva-, -toṣa, tanu, -rocis, -vanta/-manta, -kratu, etc., and the following names: Ghora, Āptya, Atharva, Uśīnara, Avasyu, Budha, Ṛkṣa, Gandharva, Gaya, Sumāyā,

Kṛpa, Kṛṣṇa, Māyava, Śāsa, Traitana, Urukṣaya, Nābhānediṣṭha, Vṛṣṇi, Vaivasvat, Virāṭ, etc., as well as a few words common to the Rigveda and Avesta which are found only as words in the Rigveda but as words as well as in names in the Avesta or vice versa (such as prāṇa, kumbha, śepa, etc., and the names of certain animals). Also, there are numerous other words, listed by earlier Indologists (like Hopkins) and present-day Indologists (like Lubotsky and Witzel), which are peculiar to only the Indo-Aryan and Iranian branches and are not found in the other IE languages. These include the following prominent words: āśā, gandha/gandhi, kadrū, sūcī, tiṣya, phāla, saptaṛṣi, mūjavat, stukā, ambhas, samā, strī, tokman, evathā, udara, kṣīra, sthūṇa, chāga, kapota, vṛkka, śanaih, pṛdāku, bhaṅga, parṣa, pavasta, prabhartar, dvīpa, jāmātar, tanūkṛt, yahu, śvātṛ, and priya- compounds. Also the words gāthā and bīja. Their distribution in the Rigveda: A. Composer Names: The following is the distribution of names with these prefixes and suffixes among the composers of hymns in the Rigveda: 1. Old Rigveda Books 2,3,4,6,7: 0 Hymns, 0 verses. 2. Redacted Hymns in Old Books 2,3,4,6,7: 1 Hymn, 3 verses (last 3 of the 18 verses in the hymn). 3. New Rigveda Books 1,5,8,9,10: 308 Hymns, 3389 verses. III. 36.16,17,18 (1 hymn, 3 verses). V. 1, 3-6, 9, 10, 20, 24-26, 31, 33-36, 44, 46-49, 52-62, 67, 68, 73-75, 81, 82 (39 hymns, 362 verses). I. 12-30, 36-43, 44-50, 99, 100, 105, 116-139 (61 hymns, 710 verses). VIII. 1-5, 10, 14, 15, 23-38, 43-51, 53, 55-58, 62, 68, 69, 75, 80, 85-87, 89, 90, 92, 97-99 (52 hymns, 878 verses). IX. 2, 3, 5-24, 27-29, 32-36, 41-43, 53-60, 63, 64, 68, 72, 80-82, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 99-103, 111, 113, 114 (61 hymns, 547 verses). X. 1-10, 13-29, 37, 42-47, 54-66, 72, 75-78, 90, 96-98, 101-104, 106, 109, 111115, 118, 120, 122, 128, 130, 132, 134, 135, 137, 139, 144, 147, 148, 151, 152,

154, 157, 163, 166, 168, 170, 172, 174, 175, 179, 186, 188, 191 (95 hymns, 892 verses). B. References Within the Hymns: The following is the distribution of names with these prefixes and suffixes, and the other common Vedic-Avestan or "Indo-Iranian" words, within the hymns of the Rigveda: 1. Old Rigveda Books 2,3,4,6,7: 0 Hymns, 0 verses. 2. Redacted Hymns in Old Books 2,3,4,6,7: 15 Hymns, 21 verses, 22 words. 3. New Rigveda Books 1,5,8,9,10: 238 Hymns, 456 verses 522 words. VI. 15.17; 16.13,14; 47.24 (3 hymns, 4 verses and words). III. 38.6; 53.21 (2 hymns, 2 verses and names). VII. 15.11; 33.9,12,13; 55.8,8; 59.12; 104.24...