Re: [INDOLOGY] Vālmīki’s first śloka

[Harry Spier]

Dear list members,

I've just done a search of the RgVeda, Atharva Veda, Brhadaranyaka-Upanisad
and Ramayana book 1 for the particle "ha"  and this agrees with what
Michael Witzel said about the occurance of "vai" in Ramayana 1 showing that
Ramayana book 1 language is Late Epic.

In the RgVeda and Atharva veda and the Brhad-Aranyaka the particle "ha"
occurs in sentence slot 2 location the majority of times and never at paada
final .

In Ramayana book 1 the particle "ha" occurs 47 times.  46 of these are at
paada end and only 1 in the middle of a sentence.  It occurs at paada end
6 times  before (the verse David is asking about (1.2.14) and very closely
after at 1.2.20

Thanks,
Harry

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 5:27 PM, Jesse Knutson <jknutson at hawaii.edu> wrote:

> Dear Friends, I think the aorist also imparts a kind of archaic/ārṣa-ic
> feel in these kinds of contexts. It's obvious how this would be relevant
> for the first verse of all poetry right? And as Michael pointed out, it's
> not so rare in classical Sanskrit. It just comes across as a little fancy.
> Best,J
>
> On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 11:46 AM, Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> In an old posting on dating the Jyotisa Vedanga
>> http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.indology.
>> info/2000-March/020863.html
>> Michael Witzel makes two observations
>> 1) that Ramayana book 1 has linguistic characteristics of Late Epic
>> and
>> 2)  the difficulties in modernizing sentences in verse.
>>
>> Quoting from the posting:
>> -----------------------------
>> .........
>>
>> As I have noticed some years ago (unpublished), this is precisely a feature
>> of LATE Epic. In both texts, Mbh. and Ram., [vedic vai occurs not as usual in slot 2 of a sentence but at the end of a paada] c. 13% of all cases of vai
>> have this characteristic: they occur at the end. And are most common in
>> Mahabharata 12, Ramayana 1 and 7.
>>
>> ........
>>
>> 2. We can add: The text is composed in Epic Shloka meter which is not
>> exactly a Vedic one (though we have the Vedic  Anustubh). Now, its is a
>> well known fact that you cannot change arround or modernize sentences as
>> easily in verse as you can in prose. Note the famous case (Lueders) of the
>> old, eastern forms in stanzas of the Pali canon.
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Harry Spier
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 3:02 PM, Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear David,
>>>
>>> Bob is of course best able to respond in the case of *Rāmāyaṇa,* but my
>>> impression is that the post-Vedic
>>> use of the aorist is not so rare as you suggest. A good example to
>>> consider is Aśvaghoṣa, particularly in
>>> *Saundarananda*, in which he displays his virtuosity in the conjugation
>>> systems by making plentiful use of unusual
>>> aorist forms. In *kãvya* I rather doubt that this alone can be taken as
>>> evidence of antiquity. Rather, the aorist
>>> seems to be deliberately employed to display erudition.
>>>
>>> best,
>>> Matthew
>>>
>>> Matthew Kapstein
>>> Directeur d'études,
>>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>>>
>>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>>> The University of Chicago
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>>
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>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Jesse Ross Knutson PhD
> Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali, Department of Indo-Pacific
> Languages and Literatures
> University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
> 461 Spalding
>


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