[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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>     <https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ikga/>
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>
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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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