> Any such counter-evidence needs to prove (1) that the brahmin community holds no position of special intellectual and cultural prestige in Indian society (this is impossible), and (2) that persons from the brāhmaṇa varṇa have not been the traditional custodians of the Vedic heritage (I think that this is impossible too).

> (2) that persons from the brāhmaṇa varṇa have not been the traditional custodians of the Vedic heritage (I think that this is impossible too).

You are absolutely right about #2. If you remember, I said traditionally that is how it was. I also said that all castes were traditionally custodians of their respective caste occupations.

If #1 does not mean that the brahmin community is the only one holding a special position of prestige and it dies not mean that to get a prestige, to be associated with brahminness is the only way and that is why people resort to Vedic etc or that is the only reason why people resort to Vedic etc., then #1 should have no objections.

If these are the (only) two antarvaakyas ( with #1 having only the meanings as specified above) implied in your mahaavaakya, I am sorry to have misunderstood your vaakya.

Much before these recent posts in this thread, in some other context, while discussing the MN Srinivas and his Sanskritization, one of the western - born members of the list was asking me off the list ( to make the point that the brahmin community is not the only one holding a special position of prestige and imitated by other castes for that reason), "why only a few specific castes claimed the name Brahmana for their castes , why others including the 'upper' castes such as Reddies and Kammas in the Telugu region or many other castes considered to be with lower prestige did not ask for such names or features? "

There are claims for Kshatriyahood and Vaishyahood across the castes. Many castes and tribes got Kshatriyaized too. In fact, I mentioned this in one of my recent posts on military ranks too. The name ending Setti which is typical of 'Vaishyas' is used by many other castes.

Many castes without such claims for the names of any of the traivarNika varNas hold a high prestige.

Many castes considered not to hold such high prestige do not make claims for the names of any of the traivarNika varNas.

In any case, I am sorry that I did not realize that you were just saying that Brahmins traditionally deciding what is Veda or Vedic was not unnatural or objectionable. (How can not any fieldwork based culture- researcher know that all traditional lore , all traditional oral texts are preserved in all the traditional societies at least in India, if not all over the world, by a certain specific community that takes up or is expected to preserve those traditional oral texts ?)

On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 9:37 PM, Robert Zydenbos <zydenbos@uni-muenchen.de> wrote:

Nagaraj Paturi wrote:

> "the association of vaidikatva with brāhmaṇatva and social prestige seems beyond debate."
>
> is no argument. It is just a restatement of a claim to which sufficient counter evidences have been provided.

I am very sorry, but: where is that counter-evidence? To explain this question:

What I have seen is that there are non-brahmin groups that nowadays study and recide the Vedas (which is nothing new). The historical question (why should they care at all? what is the value of vaidikatva for them?) has not been answered (except in my own recent comment on the Arya Samaj).

On the contrary, I have given explanations for 'Vedic astrology' and 'Vedic bhakti', and nobody has provided real, relevant counter-evidence. I will explain:

Any such counter-evidence needs to prove (1) that the brahmin community holds no position of special intellectual and cultural prestige in Indian society (this is impossible), and (2) that persons from the brāhmaṇa varṇa have not been the traditional custodians of the Vedic heritage (I think that this is impossible too). These are the two points of my statement which (to use terminology from Karl Popper's theory of science) need to be falsified if my statement is to be disproven.

Any 'counter-evidence' that fails to address these two points is simply irrelevant, अहैतुक.

Until these points are addressed, I will assume that my statement holds good, and I would like to refrain from further comments.

> Study of Indian society has gone more intricate and more nuanced than this old obsolete understanding of the early modern studies.

Not all the conclusions of "early modern studies" are obsolete.

Besides, we are dealing with something (viz., social prestige) which any casual observer of Indian society can confirm. There is a Jaina sub-community in southern India called "Jaina brahmins". The founder of ISKCON insisted that his American followers should be allowed into temples in India because according to his definition they were brahmins. The Viśvakarma community (artisans) claims brahmin status for itself. The list goes on and on. This cannot be denied. This is not obsolete. And 'Vedicness' has everything to do with this.

Therefore, we read about 'Vedic astrology', 'Vedic bhakti', etc. etc.

RZ

Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of Liberal Education,

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )