Poetics and pragmatics in the Vedic liturgy for the installation of the sacrificial post.

• Author: Proferes, Theodore N.

INTRODUCTION

Research over the course of the past two centuries has established that between the composition 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 continuity 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, Hillebrandt claimed that in certain instances the liturgy prescribed in the srauta sutras (2) 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 Hillebrandt 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 Yajurvedic 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. Instead, 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 preserved, but can be partially reconstituted on the basis of the ritual prescriptions of the RV brahmanas and srauta sutras. (3) Similarly, scholars after Hillebrandt have noted that the logical 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 the ritual application of particular sets of stanzas was preserved independently from the samhita recensions from a very early date.

However, as Renou has correctly pointed out, it is not necessary to assume the existence of a separate recension, but only of a tradition relating to the ritual application of the stanzas contained in the samhita, as we find later codified in the sutras. (5) Neither does it follow that the complete liturgies presented in the sutras were coeval with or earlier than the samhita recensions. On the contrary, the known facts exclude this possibility. As Oldenberg pointed out in his rebuttal of Hillebrandt's thesis, the liturgical use of Rgvedic material in the later ritual reflects an amalgamation of elements from separate Rgvedic clan traditions. (6) In the period of the composition of the Rgvedic hymns, the clan was the fundamental social institution responsible for the production, preservation, and transmission of hieratic poetry. Although there is a general similarity between the poetic works of the various clans, each one maintained its own artistic traditions that distinguished it from others. (7) Furthermore, the core books of the RV itself preserve the distinctions by grouping the hymns into separate clan collections. (8) According to later Vedic tradition, the clans of the Vaisvamitras and 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. (9) When we find the classical liturgy incorporating the poetic works of multiple clans within the same rite, often interspersing stanzas from one clan with those of another, it becomes evident that we are dealing with a composite production that took shape under the hand of an editor or group of editors who synthesized in a secondary way the liturgical poetry of different priestly circles. (10) This can only have been achieved after the material had been produced within the separate clans and gathered together in the hands of the editors. (11)

In an article published in 1888, Oldenberg discussed a number of issues involved in the study of the history of the Vedic liturgies and the transition from Rgvedic ritual practice to that of the later period. (12) Ludwig had already sought to understand the liturgical background of certain Rgvedic hymns with reference to their use in the classical ritual. (13) However, 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 ritual was not made until Bergaigne's 1889 article entitled "L'histoire de la liturgie vedique." (14) Bergaigne began with the liturgy as constituted in the sutras and then turned to the text of the Rgvedic poem in question to determine if internal references of various kinds might confirm that the poem was composed for the same purpose for which it was used in the later ritual. He then attempted to find other compositions in the Rgveda fitting the same pattern, reasoning that not all material composed for the same ritual purpose by priests of different clans was necessarily 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 designated by the Asvalayana Srauta Sutra as examples of a praugasastra, a particular liturgical recitation performed in the soma rites. (15) These poems were composed respectively by Madhuchandas of the Vaisvamitra clan and Grtsamada of the Bhargava clan. Using the structure of the compositions of these two authors to define what a praugasastra is, Bergaigne compared a similar poem by a member of another group, the Kanvas. Although this third Rgvedic poem was not used in the later ritual, Bergaigne concluded on the basis of its formulaic characteristics that it must have originally been composed for the same ritual context as the two other poems. Therefore he affirmed "sans temerite que le sukta 1.23, renferme un veritable prauga, propre aux Kanvas, et sorti de l'usage." (16)

By selecting cases in which poems from different clans appear to have been composed for the same liturgical context, Bergaigne made a claim for the basic structural similarity between the rites of the different priestly clans, while indicating many cases where the practices of the respective clans differ in detail. In addition, he suggested a high degree of continuity between Rgvedic practice and the principal rite of the later ritual, known both as the Agnistoma and the Jyotistoma, asserting that

il parait possible d'etablir que la plupart des hymnes du Rig-Veda, sans distinction entre ceux des differentes familles, ont ete composes pour un sacrifice du soma analogue a la ceremonie la plus simple, au jyotishtoma ... (17) Perhaps due to a misinterpretation of this quotation, certain scholars have equated Bergaigne's thesis with that of Hillebrandt, and have considered the former disproven by the rebuttal of the latter. Renou, for instance, wrote that Hillebrandt's hypothesis "avait ete refutee ... par Oldenberg ... d'une maniere qui refute par avance Bergaigne ..." (18) This is not so. Bergaigne was not claiming that the liturgy of the classical soma rite was constituted already in the Rgvedic period, but merely that the basic liturgical structure of the Rgvedic-period rite corresponded to the basic liturgical structure of the classical rite. He recognized that, at the time of their composition, the Rgvedic hymns can have been preserved 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 included a recitation of the type later called a praugasastra, the particular compositions used for this recitational portion were particular to the respective clans. According to Bergaigne's theory, these differences in liturgical use predate the later differences noted between the different ritual schools (sakha). It was only at a later date, but in any case before the oldest of the brahmanas, that the different clan liturgies were assembled and synthesized to manufacture a new liturgy, editorially constituted, eclectic, and composite. It is the liturgical text thus produced that formed the "trunk" from which the different branches (or schools, sakha) of the later hotar liturgies grew. (19)

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 individual 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 employed in the later liturgy are chosen "pour des considerations...