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Poetics and Pragmatics in the Vedic Liturgy for the Installation of the Sacrificial Post
Author(s): Theodore N. Proferes
Reviewed work(s):
Source:
Journal of the American Oriental Society,
Vol. 123, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 2003), pp. 317-
350
Published by:
American Oriental Society
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Poetics and Pragmatics in the Vedic Liturgy for the
Installation of the Sacrificial Post
THEODORE PROFERES
N.
SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES
INTRODUCTION
Research over the course of the past two centuries has established that between the com-
position of the great majority of material in the Rgveda and the composition of the earliest
of the later Vedic texts, there was a chronological interval of some duration. The recitation
of RV verse is, however, a crucial element in most of the srauta rites characteristic of the
classical Vedic period, insofar as the srauta rites incorporate a large amount of Rgvedic
material within their liturgies. For this reason, scholars have debated the degree of conti-
nuity between the liturgical function these hymns served within the rites for which they
were composed in the Rgvedic period and their application in the rites of the later age.
Were the verses composed for the same liturgical context which they serve according to the
ritual manuals of the post-Rgvedic rites, or were they adapted secondarily to a new ritual
environment?
The substantive debate of this issue began in 1884 with the publication of a short article
by A. Hillebrandt entitled "Spuren einer alteren Rigvedarecension."1 In this article, Hille-
brandt claimed that in certain instances the liturgy prescribed in the srauta sutras2 reflected
a recension of the Rgvedic material contemporaneous with or even predating the canonical
samhita recension. Unlike the extant samhita, the "ritual recension" postulated by Hille-
brandt would have been arranged according to the sequence in which the liturgical portions
were recited within a given ritual performance, in the same way as the mantras of the Ya-
jurvedic samhitas. Thus, according to Hillebrandt, when the RV srauta sutras prescribe that
certain verses of a RV hymn are to be omitted or their order inverted when recited in the
course of a given rite, this does not reflect a secondary reworking of the RV material. In-
stead, it is a more accurate reflection of the original intent of the composer who produced
the liturgy.
According to Hillebrandt's theory, the full text of the "ritual recension" has not been pre-
served, but can be partially reconstituted on the basis of the ritual prescriptions of the RV
brdhmanas and srauta sitras.3 Similarly, scholars after Hillebrandt have noted that the log-
ical ritual order of the stanzas of a particular hymn is broken in the samhita arrangement,
but recorded in the prescriptions of the sutras.4 This suggests that a tradition concerning
I would like to thank Stephanie Jamison, Joel Brereton, and Arlo Griffithsfor their insightful criticisms and
helpful suggestions.
1. Hillebrandt1884: 195-203. See also Hillebrandt1889: 418.
2. Hillebrandtwas working with the SahkhdyanaSrauta Sutra.
3. Hillebrandtdoes not call attention to the hautra portions of the schools of the Black Yajurveda,in which
portions of the Rgvedic recitationsintended for certainrites are recordedin full accordingto their sequence in the
classical ritual.The hautrasections do constitute a partial"ritualrecension,"thoughthey cannothave been contem-
poraneouswith or have predatedthe canonical Rksamhita.
4. See Renou 1947: 5. In referenceto the Atharvaveda,Bloomfield (1889: xli-xlii) notes that "Whenan Athar-
in
van hymn is evidently of a composite character, otherwordswhen severalhymns have been fused by the redactors
Journal of the American Oriental Society 123.2 (2003)
317
318
Journal of the American OrientalSociety 123.2 (2003)
the ritual application of particularsets of stanzas was preserved independently from the
samhita recensions from a very early date.
However, as Renou has correctlypointed out, it is not necessary to assume the existence
of a separaterecension, but only of a traditionrelating to the ritual applicationof the stan-
zas contained in the samhita, as we find later codified in the sutras.5 Neither does it follow
that the complete liturgies presentedin the sutras were coeval with or earlier than the sam-
hita recensions. On the contrary,the known facts exclude this possibility. As Oldenberg
pointed out in his rebuttalof Hillebrandt'sthesis, the liturgical use of Rgvedic materialin
the laterritualreflects an amalgamationof elements from separateRgvedic clan traditions.6
In the period of the composition of the Rgvedic hymns, the clan was the fundamentalsocial
institutionresponsible for the production,preservation,and transmissionof hieratic poetry.
Although there is a general similarity between the poetic works of the various clans, each
one maintainedits own artistic traditionsthat distinguished it from others.7 Furthermore,
the core books of the RV itself preserve the distinctions by grouping the hymns into sepa-
rate clan collections.8 According to later Vedic tradition,the clans of the Vaisvamitrasand
the Vasisthas were mutually antagonistic, and there are indications in the RV itself that the
various clans may have been in competition with each other.9When we find the classical
the
liturgyincorporating poetic worksof multipleclans within the same rite, often interspers-
ing stanzas from one clan with those of another, it becomes evident that we are dealing
with a composite productionthat took shape underthe hand of an editor or group of editors
who synthesized in a secondaryway the liturgicalpoetry of differentpriestly circles. 10This
can only have been achieved after the materialhad been producedwithin the separateclans
1
and gatheredtogether in the hands of the editors.
In an article published in 1888, Oldenbergdiscussed a numberof issues involved in the
study of the history of the Vedic liturgies and the transitionfrom Rgvedic ritual practice to
that of the later period.
12
Ludwig had already sought to understandthe liturgical back-
ground of certainRgvedic hymns with reference to their use in the classical ritual.13How-
ever, the first concerted attempt to identify the original liturgical functions of particular
Rgvedic poems and compare them to the use of the stanzas in the later ritualwas not made
until Bergaigne's 1889 article entitled "L'histoirede la liturgie vedique."14Bergaigne be-
gan with the liturgy as constituted in the sutras and then turnedto the text of the Rgvedic
poem in question to determineif internalreferences of various kinds might confirmthat the
of the samhitainto one, then the [Kausika]sutrarecognizes this composite characterby employing each indepen-
dently in its propervalue ... That the traditionof the ritualis in all these cases superiorto that of the samhitacan-
not be doubted."
5. Renou 1947: 5-6.
6. Oldenberg 1888a: 520; also Oldenberg 1907: 218.
7. Witzel 1997: 261.
8. Oldenberg 1888b.
9. See Vasistha's denigrationof the Bhrgus at RV 7.18.6.
10. In his argumentin supportof Hillebrandt'shypothesis, Scheftelowitz (1906: 7-10) fails to appreciatethis
fact.
11. In answer to the objection that a liturgy composed of the works of members of separateclans might also
have been generatedin performancewhen a patronengaged two reciters of differentclans, one need only point to
the geographicaldistance between differentRgvedic clans. See Witzel 1995 and Scharfe 1996. See also Proferes
forthcoming.
12. Oldenberg 1888b: 240-47.
13. Ludwig 1878: 353-551.
14. Bergaigne 1889.
PROFERES:
Poetics and Pragmatics in the Vedic Liturgy
319
poem was composed for the same purpose for which it was used in the later ritual. He then
attemptedto find other compositions in the Rgveda fitting the same pattern,reasoning that
not all materialcomposed for the same ritual purpose by priests of differentclans was nec-
essarily accepted into the later ritual.
To take but a single example, Bergaigne points out that RV 1.2-3 and RV 2.41 are both
turgical recitationperformedin the soma rites.15These poems were composed respectively
by Madhuchandasof the Vaisvamitraclan and Grtsamadaof the Bhargavaclan. Using the
structureof the compositions of these two authorsto define what a praiigasastra is, Ber-
gaigne compareda similar poem by a member of anothergroup, the Kanvas. Although this
third Rgvedic poem was not used in the later ritual, Bergaigne concluded on the basis of its
formulaic characteristicsthat it must have originally been composed for the same ritual
context as the two other poems. Thereforehe affirmed"sanstemeriteque le sukta 1.23, ren-
ferme un veritable pratiga,propre aux Kanvas, et sorti de l'usage."16
By selecting cases in which poems from different clans appearto have been composed
for the same liturgical context, Bergaigne made a claim for the basic structuralsimilarity
between the rites of the differentpriestly clans, while indicatingmany cases where the prac-
tices of the respective clans differ in detail. In addition,he suggested a high degree of con-
tinuity between Rgvedic practice and the principalrite of the later ritual,known both as the
Agnistoma and the Jyotistoma, asserting that
designated by the Asvalayana Srauta Sutra as examples of a praiigasastra, a particular li-
il parait
des
sansdistinction
entreceux
possibled'etablir la plupart hymnesdu Rig-Veda,
que
des diffdrentes
du
la
a
families,ont6etcomposds
pourun sacrifice somaanalogue la cdermonie
plus simple, aujyotishtoma ..
17
of
Perhapsdue to a misinterpretation this quotation, certain scholars have equated Ber-
gaigne's thesis with that of Hillebrandt,and have considered the former disproven by the
rebuttalof the latter.Renou, for instance, wrote that Hillebrandt'shypothesis "avaitete re-
futee... par Oldenberg ... d'une maniere qui refute par avance Bergaigne . . "18This is
not so. Bergaigne was not claiming that the liturgy of the classical soma rite was consti-
tuted already in the Rgvedic period, but merely that the basic liturgical structureof the
Rgvedic-period rite correspondedto the basic liturgical structureof the classical rite. He
recognized that, at the time of their composition, the Rgvedic hymns can have been pre-
served and utilized only by the members of the clan of the poet who produced them. For
example, though the soma liturgies of the Vaisvamitras, Bhargavas, and Kanvas all in-
cluded a recitationof the type later called a praigasastra, the particularcompositions used
for this recitational portion were particular to the respective clans. According to Ber-
gaigne's theory, these differences in liturgical use predate the later differences noted be-
tween the differentritual schools (sdkha). It was only at a later date, but in any case before
the oldest of the brdhmanas, that the different clan liturgies were assembled and synthe-
sized to manufacturea new liturgy, editorially constituted,eclectic, and composite. It is the
from which the differentbranches (or
liturgical text thus producedthat formed the "trunk"
schools, sakha) of the later hotar liturgies grew.19
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
Caland and Henry 1906: 239; Gonda 1981.
Bergaigne 1889: 125-26.
Bergaigne 1889: 11.
Renou 1962: 162.
Bergaigne 1889: 7-8.
320
Journal of the American Oriental Society 123.2 (2003)
Bergaigne's formulation of the process of transition from the Rgvedic-period liturgies to
those of the later period is not in conflict with Keith's judgment that "we must regard the
whole of the Vedic period as one of steady modification in detail of the rite,"20 or with the
opinion of Barth that "La liturgie des livres rituels n'est plus la liturgie des Hymnes."21
Bergaigne presents us with a theory explaining how these changes were wrought. The in-
dividual clan liturgies of the Rgvedic period conformed to a generic pattern. This pattern
was preserved to a great extent in the formation of the classical soma rites, except that the
separate clan productions were synthesized, and new verse liturgies were no longer created.
Bergaigne does not deny that Rgvedic verses are sometimes used in the classical ritual in
environments with which they originally had no connection. He merely emphasizes that the
fundamental trend in the transition from the RV to the later liturgies is one of synthesis, not
adaptation.
Renou expressed a different view, concluding that the portion of the Rgveda that are em-
ployed in the later liturgy are chosen "pour des considerations exterieures a leur contenu et
a leur refdrence hymnique."22 According to Renou, the primary criteria for the inclusion of
a Rgvedic verse in a given portion of the classical liturgy rested upon metrical and numer-
ical considerations, requiring in addition only that the verse be devoted to the proper deity.
For Renou, the transition from the Rgvedic-period rites to those of the classical liturgy is
characterized by secondary adaptation of verses to new ritual contexts. It follows from this
view that the individuals responsible for selecting the verses used in the classical rite need
not have had an intimate knowledge of the separate clan rites that predated their own litur-
gical creation. Only an intimate knowledge of an early Rgvedic recension would be re-
quired to meet the conditions of verse selection identified by Renou, and not a knowledge
of how the separate clans utilized the verses in their own rites.
Gonda, in his Vedic Literature published in 1975, generally accepted Renou's judgment.23
Yet in his study of the liturgy for the Sautramani rite24 published five years later, Gonda
concluded that25
One of the most importantfacts that have (sic) emerged in the course of these investigationsis
the high degree of suitabilityof almost all mantrasprescribed,a result which once again contra-
dicts the assertionsof those scholars who are inclined to take the inapplicabilityof a consider-
able numberof stanzas quoted in the sutraworks for granted.26
In his study of the mantras of the Pravargya rite, published a year earlier, Gonda iden-
tified those verses which he believed constituted part of the "original pravargya formulary"
composed specifically for this rite, and those which were added to this original liturgy at a
later date.27 Gonda's study of the mantras of the Pravargya is an important step in the
methodological approach to the history of the Vedic liturgies, for it shows that the views
represented by Bergaigne and Renou are not incompatible. It follows from Gonda's find-
ings that it is possible that the core of the liturgy for a given rite is constituted by verses
originally composed for it, as Bergaigne stressed, while additional verses, originally un-
connected with the rite, were included later to elaborate and embellish this core, which
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
Keith 1925b: 252.
Barth 1914: vol. 1, 367.
Renou 1962: 162; also Renou 1948.
Gonda 1975: 84.
See the review of Gonda's work by Witzel 1982-83.
Cf. also the introductionto Gonda 1965.
Gonda 1980: 69.
Gonda 1979: 262. For the Pravargya ritual in the Rgvedic period, see J. E. M. Houben,forthcoming.

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