Re: [INDOLOGY] Two additional recensions of the Ṛgveda available

Wed Aug 12 08:53:52 UTC 2015

12.08.15

The first two paragraphs cited from the mail, I think, leaves the
importance of the Āśvalāyana Saṁhitā  as to the recensional history of the
RV to question. The khilas did not originally belong to the RV as
represented by the Vulgate ie Śākala-Saṁhitā.  Unless we find any reason
(violence, obnoxious practice) for their exclusion from an older version at
a later date, the hymns have to be regarded as originally alien to the RV.
Even the Śaunakīya Saṁhitā relegates them to its 20th kāṇḍa, regarded as
apocryphal by many. And the Paippalāda-Saṁhitā does not incorporate them
with it.

The Āśvalāyana-Saṁhitā’s liberal inclusion shows its emergence in later
slack times.

Added problems with the new recension could have been any liberty taken by
the editor. There would not be any problem in such case if the exact
readings and their difference, if any, from the manuscripts are furnished
by the editor. Did late Professor Chaubey, a longtime friend and colleague
of mine, give the MS readings for 10.121.10? Any decision has to be taken
on that basis.

What we all are prone to do is leaving the answers to such questions
equivocal. And exactly this point was raised by me sometime as a practice
that must be avoided. I think it is imperative that someone took up the
edition for study.  I paid only a cursory glance which did not lead to any
noticeable defect.  I hope none will be discovered. Still, a study is
called for.

Best
Dipak Bhattacharyaś

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 11:05 PM, David and Nancy Reigle <dnreigle at gmail.com
> wrote:

> The first thing that was noticed by the editor of the the Āśvalāyana-Sa
> ṃhitā, B. B. Chaubey, is that the khilas, long known and often published
> as an appendix to editions of the Ṛgveda, are almost all found
> incorporated in the hymns of the Āśvalāyana recension. They are apocrypha
> only for the Śākala recension. They are genuine Ṛgveda mantras, as shown
> by their presence within the Āśvalāyana-Saṃhitā.
>
> Both of the newly published recensions include their own pada-pāṭha. In
> his extensive introduction, Chaubey stated that the 212 additional mantras
> not found in Śākala recension are not given in Āśvalāyana pada-pāṭha
> manuscripts. He therefore, after learning its different method of showing
> the avagraha, supplied them himself (p. 57).
>
> Here is my question, that perhaps someone in India with access either to
> the manuscripts or to the editors can answer. In hymn 10.121 addressed to
> hiraṇya-garbha, the last verse, verse 10, brings in Prajāpati. Vedic
> scholars such as Jan Gonda have questioned the authenticity of this verse
> because its words are not separated in the pada-pāṭha (WZKS 27, 1983, p.
> 31). In both of the newly published recensions, this verse has a full
> pada-pāṭha. So, was the pada-pāṭha for this verse prepared and added by
> Chaubey to his edition of the Āśvalāyana recension? And perhaps then
> copied by Amal Dhari Singh Gautam for his edition of the Śāṃkhāyana
> recension? Or is it in fact found in manuscripts of the pada-pāṭha of the
> Āśvalāyana and/or the Śāṃkhāyana recension?
>
> Best regards,
>
> David Reigle
> Colorado, U.S.A.
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2015 at 3:07 PM, David and Nancy Reigle <
> dnreigle at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As most of you know, two recensions of the Ṛgveda in addition to the
>> long standard Śākala/Śākalya recension have become available in the last
>> several years. They are:
>>
>> Āśvalāyana-Saṃhitā of the Ṛgveda, ed. B. B. Chaubey, 2 vols., New Delhi:
>> Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 2009.
>>
>> The Ṛgveda Saṃhitā of Śāṃkhāyana-Śākhā, ed. Amal Dhari Singh Gautam, 4
>> vols., Ujjain: Maharshi Sandipani Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratishthan,
>> 2012-2013.
>>
>> I would be very interested in comments from the Vedic scholars here about
>> the significance of having two additional recensions of the Ṛgveda. In
>> particular, I was earlier informed that an 1897 book in Danish by Hans
>> Vodskov, Rig-veda og Edda, has a chapter attempting to demonstrate that the
>> Ṛgveda we have shows a very late style. My informant noted that Vodskov's
>> views about the late style of the Śākala recension have not been adopted
>> by Vedic scholars. Now that we have two additional recensions, almost
>> identical to the Śākala recension, I assume that this would be
>> significant evidence for an early, unchanged style.
>>
>> As for linguistic peculiarities, as opposed to stylistic ones, Madhav
>> Deshpande had noted in his 1993 book, Sanskrit & Prakrit: Sociolinguistic
>> Issues, p. 134: "In most recent discussions, a historical fact of utmost
>> importance is often overlooked, namely that the text of the Ṛgveda that
>> we have today is not necessarily the original Ṛgveda. What we have is
>> only one recension (saṃhitā) of the Ṛgveda compiled several centuries
>> after the hymns were composed by the Ṛgvedic sages."
>>
>> Now we have three recensions, together presumably bringing us closer to
>> the original Ṛgveda.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> David Reigle
>> Colorado, U.S.A.
>>
>
>
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