Some thoughts on Sanskritization or Tantrification?

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

S. Palaniappa wrote:

> The role of the pre-Vedic Aryans (or Aryan speakers) in the Indian
> cultural history is not duly recognized. What I was trying to do was

Wouldn't that be because of the lack of data about pre-Vedic Aryans? Given
that the earliest piece of evidence is the Rgveda, what indeed can one say
about pre-vedic Aryans in India?

[..]

> In my opinion, the usage of 'maRai' meaning 'secret' must have
> possibly preceded the Vedas. It must have meant the 'secret' tantric texts
> before it came to be applied to the Vedas in the sense of 'scripture'. Today,

Not necessarily so. The upanishads routinely describe themselves as
'guhya', 'gUDha' etc, and caution that their teaching is not to be passed 
on to one who is not a son or a student. Knowing what others do not know
is an exciting part of religious faith. Such a phenomenon keeps recurring
in different forms. Every religious group gravitates to some sort of
secrecy in its teaching, which means that the teaching is accessible only
to some inner circle in its entirety. Less privileged individuals can get
only glimpses of it, and they go away with an impression of great secrecy
attached to it. This is seen as much among modern movements like the
Radhasoami Satsangh as in ancient religions. maRai is then a descriptive
term useful across vast stretches of time - it could have arisen at any
point of time in history, and one has to be careful about dating its
usage.

Vidyasankar