Re: [INDOLOGY] Vālmīki’s first śloka

Sat Nov 19 23:30:39 UTC 2016

Dear Harry and All,

the observations about vai (and ha)  are part of a larger paper on the Epics:

MW, The Vedas and the Epics: Some Comparative Notes on Persons, Lineages, Geography, and Grammar.  In: P. Koskikallio (ed.) Epics, Khilas, and Puranas. Continuities and Ruptures. Proceedings of the Third Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Puranas. September 2002.  Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences  and  the Arts  2005: 21-80

See § 4. for a near-final version, attached.

Cheers !

MW

On Nov 19, 2016, at 6:03 PM, Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com<mailto:hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com>> wrote:

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<mailto: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<mailto: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<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__list.indology.info_pipermail_indology-5Flist.indology.info_2000-2DMarch_020863.html&d=CwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=tFXzIbyKS2C0TpVqKsMrj46qwsAermBN5wzaDe51So0&m=fmlw1eZH5Z2z74tTPAeqveDSp3tH9X3IWLIuPyQTEEM&s=QW4E9Op7duhJZKamh8KL8VlSS9HGvgJj0NaNi_INZYA&e=>
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<mailto: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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--
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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