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 nivids and praiṣas and the Standardisation of Vedic Ritual.” IIJ 57 (2014): 199–221, doi: 10.1163/15728536-05703013.

Best,

D. Haas

__________________
Dominik A. Haas, BA MA
DOC Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences | PhD Student, University of Vienna
dominik@haas.asia | ORCID 0000-0002-8505-6112 | academia.edu/DominikAHaas | @DominikAHaas | ÖGRW | DMG | SDN


Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Austrian Academy of Sciences
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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@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 

Best regards,

Dominik


__________________
Dominik A. Haas, BA MA
DOC Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences | PhD Student, University of Vienna
dominik@haas.asia | ORCID 0000-0002-8505-6112 | academia.edu/DominikAHaas | @dominik_a_haas
ÖGRW | DMG | SDN


Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hollandstraße 11–13, 1020 Vienna, Austria
oeaw.ac.at/ikga


The Initiative for Fair Open Access Publishing in South Asian Studies
foasas.org
| contact@foasas.org | tweet #FOASAS




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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