[INDOLOGY] Age of gayatri mantra in śrīsūktam
Dominik A. Haas
dominik at haas.asia
Thu Oct 21 06:02:43 UTC 2021
Dear Harry,
thank you for your kind of reply off-list! The contents of Ṛgveda Khilas
are not all the same age – Prof. Witzel himself remarks in his footnote
(118) to the quote you gave: “The hymns are of various age, and
many have various additions, e.g., the Śrīsūkta has Brāhmaṇa
time and even later, unaccented additions.”
I have not studied the Śrīsūkta in detail, but I'm confident that the
age of the modified Gāyatrī mantra it contains does not depend on its
source (i.e. it's probably a later addition). In this particular case,
it is important to bear in mind that the worship of Mahālakṣmī and Viṣṇu
only developed more than a millennium after the composition of the
Ṛgvedic hymns. Cf. Marion Rastelli, “Mahālakṣmī. Integrating a Goddess
into the Ahirbudhnyasaṃhitā.” /IIJ/ 58 (2015): 325–356, doi:
10.1163/15728536-05804002.
For a critical assessment of Scheftelowitz's arguments, see Theodore N.
Proferes, “The Relative Chronology of the /nivid/s and /praiṣa/s and the
Standardisation of Vedic Ritual.” /IIJ/ 57 (2014): 199–221, doi:
10.1163/15728536-05703013.
Best,
D. Haas
__________________
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Am 19.10.2021 um 13:15 schrieb Harry Spier:
> Dear Dominik,
> You wrote that the Śrīsūkta is post-Vedic . I asked my question
> because both Michael Witzel and Scheftelowitz say the Rg Veda Khilas
> (in which Śrīsūkta occurs) are old.
> Michael Witzel wrote in his article: The Development of the Vedic
> Canon and its Schools:
> "This collection [the RV Khilas] contains quite diverse materials,
> including such
> famous hymns as the Śrīsūkta, RVKh 2.6, Suparnasūkta 1.3, etc. The
> bulk of the material is of Rgvedic and Mantra period age".
>
> Scheftelowitz says the Rgvedic Khilas are from the vedic period.
>
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 4:53 AM Dominik Haas <dominik at haas.asia
> <mailto:dominik at haas.asia>> wrote:
>
> Dear Harry,
>
> no, the fact that this mantra is part of the post-Vedic Śrīsūkta
> does not indicate that it's older than the others.
>
> The late age of these mantras in general has been noted by several
> scholars, from Leopold von Schroeder in 1900 to Peter C. Bisschop
> in 2018. It is impossible to infer the date of their composition
> on the basis of their Vedic “source” texts. In a paper I gave at
> the DICSEP last year, I argued that the modified or adapted
> Gāyatrīs probably did not come into being before the 2nd century
> CE at the very earliest. You can find an early draft of my talk
> and further references here:
>
> https://www.academia.edu/43771517/_G%C4%81yatr%C4%AB_as_a_Name_of_%E1%B9%9AV_III_62_10
> <https://www.academia.edu/43771517/_G%C4%81yatr%C4%AB_as_a_Name_of_%E1%B9%9AV_III_62_10>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Dominik
>
>
> __________________
> *Dominik A. Haas, BA MA*
> DOC Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences | PhD Student, University
> of Vienna
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> Am 19.10.2021 um 01:58 schrieb Harry Spier via INDOLOGY:
>> Dear list members,
>> Verse 26 (Sheftelowitz's edition) of the śrīsūktam (in the
>> rg-veda khilas) is the gayatri mantra
>>
>> mahālakṣmī ca vidmahe viṣṇupatnī ca dhīmahi |
>> tan no lakṣmīḥ pracodayāt |
>>
>> Would that make it older than the gayatri mantras at
>> Maitrāyaṇī-Saṃhitā 2-9-1. Does that make it the oldest gayatri
>> mantra in the form
>>
>> ... vidmahe
>> ... dImahi
>> ...pracodayAt |
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Harry Spier
>>
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