Dear François,
just a short addition: The Rājguru of Savāī Jaisingh, Ratnākara
Dīkṣita Mahāśabde, was given the title Samrāṭ and Puṇḍārīka (or
Pauṇḍarīka). The titles are linked to the Vājapeya- and
Puṇḍarīka-sacrifices performed in 1709 and 1713.
See: Horstmann, Monika. 2009. Der Zusammenhalt der Welt. Religiöse
Herrschaftslegitiation und Religionspolitik Mahārājā Savāī Jaisinghs
(1700-1743). Harrassowitz. On Ratnākara pp. 24-39.
P. 25, fn. 41 "Bei dem Puṇḍarīka-Opfer handelt es sich um ein
einundzwanzigtägiges Soma-Opfer". So now we have to check whether 11
or 21 days is correct.
Best
Joerg
Am 02.04.2012 14:08, schrieb Jan E.M. Houben:
Dear François,
It must be the same as pauNDarIka: e.g. .Sa.dvB 4.3.4, K;S
23.5.37; Hillebrandt does not refer to it particularly but
generically under ahIna.
Jan
On 2 April 2012 12:09, Francois Voegeli
<francois.voegeli@gmail.com>
wrote:
Dear Members of the Indology List,
I recently stumbled on a sacrifice called "puNDarIka-" in a
Gupta inscription edited by Fleet (Corpus Inscriptionum
Indicarum vol. III, No. 59, pp. 252–254, "Bijayagadh Stone
Pillar Inscription of Vishnuvardhana").
In this inscription it is said that having performed the
"puNDarIka", king ViSNuvardhana erected a yUpa: "kRtau
puNDarIke yUpo yam pratiSThApitas [...] zrI
ViSNuvarddhanena" (Fleet op. cit. p. 253, l. 3). This post
seems to be the stone pillar where this inscription is found
and which is shaped like a vedic yUpa, set up on a platform
near the south wall of a fort now located at Bayana in the
Bharatpur District of Rajasthan.
I cannot see exactly what kind of sacrifice this "puNDarIka"
is. It is nowhere to be found in the lexicons devoted to
Vedic ritual (Renou 1954, Sen 1978, Mylius 1995), or in
fundamental textbooks on ritual like that of Hillebrandt
(1897, repr. 1981), or in the section of Kane's Hist. of Dh.
devoted to sacrifices and rituals (Vol. II pp. 976–1255).
The dictionaries (MW, PW) give, among the possible meanings
of puNDarIka, "a kind of sacrifice/ein best. Opfer" with
references to the MahAbhArata, among which the most
significant I could find seems to be:
MBh 3.13.16 azvamedho rAjasUyaH puNDarIko 'tha gosavaH /
etair api mahAyajJair iSTaM te bhUridakSiNaiH.
There it is said to be a "great sacrifice". In this context
this qualification seems to imply that it is a zrauta
ritual, as it is mentioned together with other well known
zrauta sacrifices described by the ZrautasUtras, most of
them regalians, but the ZrautasUtras do not, to my
knowledge, describe any kind of puNDarIka rite.
A puNDarIka sacrifice is otherwise mentioned a number of
times as bringing some unspecified but usually great reward
in the "tIrtha" section of the MBh (3.81–82; e.g. ), where
we also learn that there was a "puNDarIka" place of
pilgrimage, and that going there rewards the pilgrim with
the fruits of a... puNDarIka sacrice (MBh 3.18.69 zuklapakSe
dazamyAM tu puNDarIkaM samAvizet, tatra snAtvA naro rAjan
puNDarIkaphalaM labhet).
In this section of the MBh the puNDarIka sacrifice sometimes
appears close to, or is contrasted with, the azvamedha, e.g.
in MBh 3.82.24ff., or the vAjapeya in a surprising passage
where a yUpa appears, but we do not know if it was erected
for/as a result of a sacrifice and which kind it could have
been:
MBh 3.82.74–75 tato brahmasaro gacched dharmAraNyopazobhitam
/ pauNDarIkam avApnoti prabhAtAm eva zarvarIm [74] tasmin
sarasi rAjendra brahmaNo yUpa ucchritaH / yUpaM pradakSiNaṃM
kRtvA vAjapeyaphalaM labhet
Another passage of the MBh where puNDarIka and vAjapeya
appear side by side is 2.5.89 kratUn ekacitto vAjapeyAMz ca
sarvazaH / puNDarIkAMz ca kArtsnyena yatase kartum AtmavAn.
Both MBh 2.5.89 and 3.28.74–75 seem to rule out the
possibility that "puNDarIka" may sometimes have been a
synonym of "vAjapeya" in the MBh, as I first thought could
have been the case.
The data I have collected so far nevertheless suggest that
this "puNDarIka" sacrifce was a zrauta ceremony of some
kind, that involved the erection of a yUpa, and thus an
animal sacrifice following the Vedic norms.
Could anyone on the list tell me more about this sacrifice?
All help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Dr François Voegeli
Senior FNS Researcher
Institut d'Archéologie et des Sciences de l'Antiquité
Anthropole, bureau 4018
Faculté des Lettres
Université de Lausanne
CH-1015 Lausanne
--
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Directeur d Etudes « Sources et Histoire de la Tradition
Sanskrite »
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, SHP,
A la Sorbonne,45-47, rue des Ecoles,
75005 Paris -- France.
JEMHouben@gmail.com
www.jyotistoma.nl
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Priv.-Doz. Dr. Jörg Gengnagel
Heidelberg University
Interim Professor (Professurvertretung)
Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia (Classical Indology)
Collaborative Research Center 619 "Dynamics of Ritual"
Head of Subproject B5 "Court Ritual in the Jaipur State"
Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures
www.ritualdynamik.uni-hd.de
www.benares.uni-hd.de
South Asia Institute
Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia (Classical Indology)
Im Neuenheimer Feld 330
D-69120 Heidelberg
phone: +49(0)6221/54-8906
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