[INDOLOGY] Whitney and doubling of "ch"

[Borayin Larios]

Dear Alakendu Das,

With all due respect, what you present in your email is the traditional
view regarding the Vedas which is historically inaccurate. Indeed the oral
tradition of the Vedas has been strong for millennia and continues up to
these days among some Brahmin communities across India. However, the Vedas
were written down in precolonial times and we have enough evidence of this
before any orientalist such as Max Müller ever heard about the Vedas,
let alone compiled them into "books". Indeed, Max Müller never set foot in
India and thus never heard the Vedas first hand. He worked with Indian
manuscripts (while also consulting traditional pandits via correspondence).
This matter has been well documented by previous scholarship and indeed the
excellent work of Cezary Galewicz (and others) is a great place to start
with the complex question raised by Harry Spiers. For those interested in
the relationship between orality and literacy in the Vedas, particularly in
contemporary India can also refer to my OA book: Embodying the
Vedas.Traditional Vedic Schools of Contemporary Maharashtra
<https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110517323/html?lang=en>.


Greetings to all from India.
Borayin

__________________
*Dr. Borayin Larios*
Head of the Indology Department
French Institute of Pondicherry
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On Thu, Oct 19, 2023 at 9:44 PM alakendu das via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

>
> Mr. Spier,
>
> What we have learnt from Indological studies, Vedas were never written. We
> call it "Apaurasheya"... i. e. not written.
> The Vedic Mantras came as revealations to the seers( we call them
> 'Drashta" i. e. one who sees) while in Meditation.
> The hymns or mantras were then recited orally and passed on across
> generations of disciples. who memorised them.
> Finally, sage Vyasa arranged a compilation and  divided them among his 4
> disciples namely, Poilo, Boishampayan, Jaimini and Sumanta.
> Thus we got the 4 Vedas
>
> In the 19th Century, Max Mueller edited the
> Vedas.
>
> Regards
>
> Alakendu  Das.
>
>
>
>
> From: indology at list.indology.info
> Sent: Thu, 19 Oct 2023 19:40:15
> To: "Hock, Hans Henrich" <hhhock at illinois.edu>
> Cc: McComas Taylor via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Whitney and doubling of "ch"
>
>
> Hans Heinrich Hock wrote:
>
>> Whatever the motivation may be for the spelling with a single <ch> in the
>> Rig Veda (and let’s keep in mind that the “real” Rig Veda is oral),
>>
> 1) Can someone point me to some article on when and why the Rg-veda was
> first written down . what script etc.  Was it a British initiative or was
> the whole or parts written down before the colonial period?  I've seen in a
> modern Taittiriya Vedashala the students practicing some of their mantras
> using  written material.  Did the medieval and later Vedashalas also use
> written materials to teach their students?
>
> 2) Is it possible that this  "Rg-veda written spelling gachati etc." is
> just a reflection of what was written when the Rg-veda was first written
> down?
>
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
>
>>
>>
>>
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