Idiom and Grammar (and chariots again!)

[Steve Farmer]

S. Bhatta writes:

> Dr. Fa[r]mer, the orality, how do you account for that in a translation. For example, if
> you were to read "Do you think that I cannot smash this grape with small of my hand?"
> This can be read with force as well as a lack of force. The multiple dimensions of
> words need to be conveyed to one orally; otherwise, you may never understand the
> sentence proper and could take off on the wrong path.

You are mistaken if you think that comparative historians rely naively on
translations or are oblivious to oral/literate issues of this sort. I spent
nearly a decade editing, translating, and annotating one of the most
abstruse premodern texts ever drawn up for oral debate, involving difficult
issues involving Latin, Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew philology. What makes
you think that when I approach Indian texts that I'd lose my rigor?

Subrahmanya writes:

> Could you please explain where there is "war chariot" in 6.75 ?
> I also leafed through Sparreboom's book to find if there is
> anything about 6.75 there and did not find it. It is possible
> I may have missed it.

With all respect, Subrahmanya, read the poem and look at the comments on it
by Geldner and many others (see infra). I'm not interested in pursuing the
chariot issue at present, simply because last year I discussed what I knew
of the pan-Eurasian evidence on it at length with S. Kalyanaraman, K. Elst,
S. Talageri, and N.S. Rajaram (in at least 50 long posts in
IndianCivilization and in a private online forum with M. Witzel, Talageri,
Rajaram, & Frawley, etc.). Most of that discussion revolved around the
non-existence of spoked chariots in the pre-historical eras in which Kak,
Rajaram, Talageri, Frawley, Danino, and other Indian nationalists and their
Western helpers imagine that the RV had its roots. The war use of chariots
doesn't, in fact, interest me much, since I agree with most people (NB:
including M. Witzel) that the movement of RV culture into India was a
question of slow migration and acculturation more than invasion in the
dated Wheeler sense. You are mistaken in labeling Witzel an invasionist on
the basis of a passing colorful reference in one of his two papers in the
1995 Erdosy volume to Vedic "tanks." If you read that paper as a whole, or
any of a half dozen related papers of his, you'd find that Witzel is
anything but an invasionist. (If Michael did not exist, Indian nationalists
would have to invent him -- and they have!)

Briefly on RV 6.75 (the RV hymn to weaponry and the chariot): I don't have
Sparreboom at hand, but the hymn speaks pretty clearly for itself. If
Sparreboom mentions it, I imagine it would be in relation to the reference
in 6.75.8 to the ratha-vaahana -- the wagon/platform/stand (often trans.,
e.g. by Keith, as 'platform,' but apparently etymologically related to
Engl.'wagon') on which the chariot was drawn to battle in late RV times.
Similar carriers are also well-known from non-Indian sources. In India, the
ratha-vaahana took on ritual significance in the mantra period, as we see,
e.g., in Taitt. Samhita 1.8.20, and other post-RV texts. For other
references in post RV texts see Macdonnel-Keith, _Vedic Index_ II, p. 205.
There are also classical discussions by Weber and Geldner. My notes say
that Sparreboom discusses the ratha-vaahana on p. 29, but I don't know
whether he specifically mentions the reference in RV 6.75.8.

As I already noted, I recognize that all of 6.75 is a late RV poem, as was
shown by Oldenberg 1888. I cited this example, as indicated yesterday,
because Talageri claimed that all of Bk. 6 came from the mid 4th - early 3d
millennium, when no chariots of any sort (let alone the sophisticated form
described in RV 6.75) existed anywhere on the planet. But I think there are
many obvious references to early uses of chariots in military operations
(and in cattle rustling, of course!) in much older strata of the family
books. But this isn't an issue that I find controversial, nor is it
pertinent to my current research.

Regards,
Steve Farmer