Dr. Thompson's dating of the Rigveda

[Vishal Agarwal]

----Original Message Follows----
From: Prasad Velusamy <prasad_velusamy at HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Dr. Thompson's dating of the Rigveda
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 16:05:57 PDT

--- Vishal Agarwal <vishalagarwal at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:


Dr. Madhuresan wrote:
  Let us work with the extant texts, I do not see a big problem
  in composing them all over India over a period of
  13 centuries. Didn't mahakavis have power to compose 1000s
  of songs overnite? Just the volume of texts may not necessarily
  lead to this conclusion.

Vishal wrote:
What makes you think that all this was achieved in 3 centuries?
How do you say so? What is the probability? The rhetorical retort on
the Mahakavis is therefore worthless here and does not amount to much.

Prasad wrote
  Misrepresentation using rhetorics!
  I do not think Dr. Madhuresan is committed to the thought that
  "all this was achieved in 3 centuries".

Vishal writes:
Please do not detach words out of the context.

The words 'Rhetorical retort' qualifies the example of Mahakavis only.

The '3 century' statement was in connection with the example of Rigveda and
the Apastamba Srauta Sutra (although it can be easily extended to cover many
other texts). Infact, if we draw a distribution curve of Vedic texts from
1000 B.C.E (assuming Dr. Thompson's chronology) to 3rd Cent. C.E., we will
get a very skewed curve with an everwhelming majority of texts being older
than 4th Cent. B.C.E. The very few texts that postdate (assuming Dr.
Thompson's chronology again) this 6 century period include the Atharvaveda
Parisistas (according to B.R. Modak), the Vaikhanasa Smartasutras (according
to many) and so on.
So, while Mr. Madhuresan might not be committed to 'the thought...." yet his
statement naturally leads to that conclusion. Or so I think. Prove or
demonstrate otherwise if you can.

In any case, you have still not answered my question, which was an honest
query. Is this is how you treat new List Members??

Regards

Vishal



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