Re: [INDOLOGY] Vālmīki’s first śloka

Sun Nov 20 07:18:26 UTC 2016

Use of the terminology of ārṣa prayōga  is independent of Rama's placement
in trētā yuga.  ārṣa prayōga is a term used to 'justify' /make sense of
'the irregularities' with reference to ' Paninian sādhutva'. It is
anchored on the view of  language of the r̥ṣi authors of the books being a
different 'dialect' of Sanskrit taking shape on account of their different
settlement pattern, different life style, and as a result different
attitude towards (sādhutva of ) speech.

On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 10:42 AM, Luis Gonzalez-Reimann <
reimann at berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Dear David,
>
> If what you are suggesting is that because Rāma is supposed to have lived
> in Tretā, that implies that the language can be older, the argument doesn't
> work. The yuga system only appears in India around the beginning of the
> common era. In addition, the placement of Rāma in Tretā appears only once
> in Vālmīki, and that is in the second part of the Uttarakāṇda, which is
> late. The Uttara, of course, is the one just published. Later versions of
> the *Rāmāyaṇa*  -as well as some Purāṇas-  reinforce that placement, but
> it is all a later development, after the *Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa*.
>
> Unless I misunderstood you.
>
> Luis
>
> _____
>
> On 11/19/2016 8:55 PM, David and Nancy Reigle wrote:
>
> Dear Dipak,
>
> What about the standard Indian tradition that Rāma lived in the Tretā
> age? In that case, no ārṣaprayoga would be required to explain the
> archaic language.
>
> Best regards,
>
> David Reigle
> Colorado, U.S.A.
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 9:22 PM, Dipak Bhattacharya <dipak.d2004 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> Why not a pure solecism as Indian authorities think? These are known in
>> Indian tradition as ¡rÀaprayoga, irregular use by the seers?
>>
>> Best
>>
>> DB
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 6:02 AM, Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> Note also what Oberlies, "A Grammar of Epic Sanskrit" says about
>>> "irregularities" in epic sanskrit in his introduction..
>>> "The language of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana may certainly be
>>> called Sanskrit when compared with contemporary Middle Indo-Aryan but it is
>>> a Sanskrit which continually deviates from the norms codified by Panini.
>>> This is not because such 'aberrant' forms were pre-Paninian.  For the Epics
>>> (and in fact only the Mahabharata) know only a handful - moreover rather
>>> doubtful - Vedisms. ......Almost always it is metrical exigencies which
>>> forced the poets to use a form not sanctioned by traditional grammar....the
>>> "irregularities' are very often found at a metrically relevena position of
>>> the stanza: "Metre surpasses grammar".
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Harry Spier
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 7:13 PM, Jan E.M. Houben <jemhouben at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear David,
>>>> "*agamas* has here retained its augment": you apparently postulate a
>>>> development in the language here, but one which does not match the
>>>> available evidence.
>>>> See mainly Karl Hoffmann Der Injunktiv im Veda 1967, but also, offering
>>>> alternative analyses of partly the same phrases, Jan Gonda Aspectual
>>>> function of the Rgvedic present and aorist.
>>>> Another point is that in order to translate the Ramayana a choice has
>>>> to be made which edition to take as starting point: even for mere practical
>>>> reasons the Baroda critical edition is the obvious candidate to be
>>>> selected.
>>>> It was the editorial choice of the editors G.H. Bhatt et al. of this
>>>> critical edition to give preference systematically to the recension where
>>>> most grammatical and metrical "irregularities" are found, i.e., the
>>>> Southern recension.
>>>> The idea is that the manuscripts of the Northern recension underwent
>>>> "polishing" in a much higher degree.
>>>> Under this "polishing-theory" one should then expect that specific
>>>> "irregularities" in the text are identical and found in a large number of
>>>> manuscripts that supposedly represent the older, pre-polishing stage, but
>>>> this is precisely what is not the case:
>>>> see Leendert van Daalen's 1980 study *Valmiki's Sanskrit*: at present
>>>> his study, not without problems of its own, could be redone with more
>>>> advanced statistical means and a fresh study of the evidence. On the basis
>>>> of a study of books II-IV van Daalen concludes that the Poet Valmiki wrote
>>>> mostly "correct" classical Sanskrit -- this does not necessarily always
>>>> correspond to "Paninian" sanskrit, and the poor definition of van Daalen's
>>>> "irregularities" is one of the weaknesses in his study, which could however
>>>> be "repaired" to some extent by referring to other forms of acceptable yet
>>>> not strictly Paninian sanskrit (cf. Narayana Bhatta's Apaniniyapramanata
>>>> and www.academia.edu/28515426).
>>>> E.W. Hopkins 1901 was even more sceptical, or, for those accepting his
>>>> line of argument (cf. Madeleine Biardeau's arguments *against* critical
>>>> editions for the epics), more realistic, than van Daalen: "There can be no
>>>> plausible original reconstructed and practically there was from the time
>>>> of, let us say, the first repetition of the text no original Ramayana"
>>>> (quoted in van Daalen's study, p. 6).
>>>> Jan Houben
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *Jan E.M. HOUBEN*
>>>>
>>>> Directeur d’Études
>>>>
>>>> Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite
>>>>
>>>> *École Pratique des Hautes Études*
>>>>
>>>> *Sciences historiques et philologiques *
>>>>
>>>> 54, rue Saint-Jacques
>>>>
>>>> CS 20525 – 75005 Paris
>>>>
>>>> johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr
>>>>
>>>> https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
>>>>
>>>> www.ephe.fr
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 19 November 2016 at 19:55, David and Nancy Reigle <
>>>> dnreigle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Bob and all,
>>>>>
>>>>> Ever since I was introduced to what tradition regards as the first
>>>>> śloka ever written, Vālmīki’s first śloka now preserved at *Rāmāyaṇa*
>>>>> 1.2.14, I have had a question about it. Probably you or others have long
>>>>> ago answered it. Sorry for my ignorance of the relevant material on this
>>>>> verse.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> mā niṣāda pratiṣṭhāṃ tvam agamaḥ śāśvatīḥ samāḥ |
>>>>> yat krauñca-mithunād ekam avadhīḥ kāma-mohitam || 1.2.14 ||
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> “Since, Niṣāda, you killed one of this pair of *krauñcas*, distracted
>>>>> at the height of passion, you shall not live for very long.” (trans. Robert
>>>>> P. Goldman, 1984)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What first struck me is that both of the verbs in this verse, *agamas*
>>>>> and *avadhīs*, are aorists. Moreover, *agamas* has here retained its
>>>>> augment, although used with *mā*. My understanding is that, since
>>>>> aorists largely fell out of use after the Vedic period, they are not at all
>>>>> common in the *Rāmāyaṇa*. So here is my question. Assuming that this
>>>>> is in fact Vālmīki’s first śloka, would this point to an original
>>>>> *Rāmāyaṇa* that is considerably older than the *Rāmāyaṇa* we now
>>>>> have? Could the *Rāmāyaṇa* as now extant have been reworked, updated
>>>>> in language so to speak, from an earlier original? For example, F. E.
>>>>> Pargiter in his detailed study, *The Purāna Text of the Dynasties of
>>>>> the Kali Age* (1913), found considerable evidence that in the oldest
>>>>> purāṇas (*Vāyu*, *Brahmāṇḍa*, *Matsya*) the verses had been
>>>>> Sanskritized from an earlier literary Prakrit, and that these Sanskrit
>>>>> verses had in turn been condensed and rewritten directly in Sanskrit in
>>>>> some other purāṇas (*Viṣṇu*, *Bhāgavata*).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> David Reigle
>>>>>
>>>>> Colorado, U.S.A.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 1:50 PM, Robert Goldman <rpg at berkeley.edu>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Colleagues,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On behalf of all the scholars who have been involved with the
>>>>>>  decades-long project to translate and annotate the critical edition of the *Vālmīki
>>>>>> Rāmāyaṇa*, Dr. Sally Sutherland Goldman and I are happy to announce
>>>>>> the publication of the seventh and final volume  of the work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: An Epic of Ancient India,* *Volume
>>>>>> VII: Uttarakāṇḍa*
>>>>>> Introduction, Translation, and Annotation by Robert P. Goldman &
>>>>>> Sally J. Sutherland Goldman
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hardcover | December 2016 | *$175.00* | *£129.95* | ISBN:
>>>>>> 9780691168845
>>>>>> 1544 pp. | 6 x 9 | 1 color illus. 1 line illus. 5 tables.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dr. R. P.  Goldman
>>>>>> Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor in South
>>>>>> and Southeast Asian Studies
>>>>>> Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies MC # 2540
>>>>>> The University of California at Berkeley
>>>>>> Berkeley, CA 94720-2540
>>>>>> Tel: 510-642-4089
>>>>>> Fax: 510-642-2409
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
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-- 
Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )

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