THE RITUAL PRAGMATICS OF A VEDIC HYMN: THE "RIDDLE HYMN" AND THE PRAVARGYA RITUAL.

• Author: M. HOUBEN, JAN E.
• Position: Critical Essay

Thc present paper explores the relation of the "riddle hymn," Rgveda 1.164, with the Pravargya ritual, one of the few rituals that are explicitly referred to in the Rgveda. Starting from a few verses which have a well-established and generally acknowledged relation with specific episodes in the Pravargya ritual (about which we have detailed information only from later texts), this paper shows that several other enigmatic verses yield a convincing interpretation when placed in the context of the Pravargya. The ritual interpretations can, moreover, serve to clarify and harmonize some of the traditional, more philosophical interpretations of the verses. Thus, the findings have important implications for our understanding of the early development of Vedic ritual and also of Indian thought and philosophical speculation.

The mind of man is framed even like the breath And harmony of music. [1]

1.1 IT IS NOW one hundred twenty-five years since Martin Haug presented his paper on "Vedic riddle-questions and riddle-aphorisms" to the scholars of the Academy of Sciences in Munich. Ever since, Rgveda 1.164 has been a continuous challenge to students of the Veda. [2] Important attempts to understand this hymn stem from Rgveda translators, such as Ludwig, Geldner, Renou, and Doniger, [3] and, indirectly, from those working on two parallel hymns in the ninth book of the Atharvaveda, AV (S) 9.9 and 10--Henry and Whitney. [4] Deussen, Thieme, Kunhan Raja, Janert, Agrawala, Brown, Johnson, and Singh also wrote special studies on 1.164 or parts of it. [5]

1.2 Haug was not only the first to translate the verses of Rgveda 1.164--traditionally attributed to the seer Dirghatamas--and study them in detail, he was also the first to address the problem of the original employment and ritual context of the verses. His suggestion was that the whole hymn is a collection of riddles once employed at the ritualized discussion (brahmodya) in the Asvamedha or similar ritual contexts; for the brahmodya in the Asvamedha the Srauta sources indeed prescribe verses 34 and 35 (or very similar ones). [6] The verses of our hymn, according to Haug, do not form a coherent whole, but he admitted occasional relatedness between small sets of verses (Haug 1875: 457; 460-66).

Some later scholars sought to improve on the interpretation of the verses by trying to discern larger thematic groupings: Deussen saw the whole hymn as a "song of unity," [7] Geldner found that the verses can at least be thematically grouped, [8] and Brown presented the hymn as having "three great themes, which are Agni [Fire], the Sun, and the Sacrifice, all closely interconnected, while the treatment of them is augmented by statements about Vac [Speech] as the Absolute." [9] Other scholars have rather emphasized the unrelatedness of the Verses--e.g., Renou, [10] Edgerton, [11] and Thieme [12]--even if these verses were formulated in the same kind of enigmatic language. [13] A quite loose interconnection between the verses was apparently also assumed by Roth in 1892, when he considered 1.164 to be a collection of riddles, two of which--viz., 30 and 38 [14]--deal with the universal problem of the relation between body and soul. [15] As is well known, Roth's position, according to which the Rgveda is a collec tion of "natural" lyrical poetry having little or nothing to do with later Indian literature, including the ritual texts, [16] was not accepted in its extreme form by later scholars, who highlighted numerous continuities. [17] In the 1892 article, Roth argues especially against construing words in meanings known only from later ritual sources, but he does not explicitly reject Haug's suggestion that the occasion for which the riddle-verses were intended was that of a sacrificial session--thus leaving open the possibility that the hymn and its verses were intended to be recited in a sacrificial context (whether or not corresponding with descriptions in later ritual texts). [18]

Johnson, in 1980, made a useful distinction between a riddle proper and an enigma--the former expressing a "question or verbal puzzle," the latter being "designed to express a meaning intrinsically enigmatic" and "using special means to suggest understandings of reality not ordinarily perceived or experienced" [19]--and discussed a few of the verses of 1.164 (20-22) as enigmas rather than riddles. [20] But as context for these verses he maintained the one proposed by Haug: that of the ritual discussion or brahmodya. Johnson spoke of a "symposium," and described its nature, function, and aim with much imagination, but with few philological data to support his view. [21]

Thus, scholars after Haug have proposed numerous alternative interpretations for problematic verses, but with regard to the problem of the original context, if it was taken into account at all, no one ever seriously challenged Haug's suggestions. [22]

2.1 After more than a century of research on the Rgveda and vedic ritual it is time to take a fresh look at this problem. We start with a consideration of the applications which the vedic ritual tradition recognizes for RV 1.164 or parts of it. Although these became solidly established only in a post-rgvedic age, they may very well continue some older tradition. Under these circumstances, the strongest possible confirmation that this is the case would be a direct reference in the verses to an actual performance of the ritual acts for which the later sources indeed prescribe the verse. Next, a verse may be suitable to but not necessarily connected with a specific rite. Finally, a verse may be entirely unsuitable, In the latter case, its contents may point to another ritual context, or to no specific context at all. [23]

The verses with a strong ritual connection enable us to search for the ritual context that is best suited to the hymn as a whole. [24] This, in turn, may lead to new or additional insights regarding other verses of the hymn. Just as in the case of the direct indications in a verse of a particular ritual context, there is no contemporaneous source that can confirm or disprove alternative interpretations of verses (apart from other, usually multi-interpretable rgvedic verses). The best confirmation we can aspire to regarding such new interpretations is that they lead to mutually reinforcing positive probabilities.

It is here assumed that the presence of ritual forms, which we know must have been involved in certain ways, can provide important directions in the precarious project of interpreting rgvedic hymns. But even the best solutions to problems of understanding the symbolic language of the hymns that can be thus arrived at are "intermediary," to the extent that the ritual itself is a symbolic form. We do not arrive at ultimate referents. The problem pointed out long ago by Derrida (1978) that there is no safe point where the structures of interpretation are anchored in "real presences" remains. The "intermediary" anchoring in the symbolic forms of ritual seems nevertheless one of the few directions in which scientific progress in Rgveda interpretation is still possible. [25]

2.2 With Haug (1875: 460) we can neglect those applications of verses that are clearly secondary, such as that of the first forty-one verses as Vaisvadevasastra in the Mahavrata ceremony (AiA 5.3.2), and the recitation of the whole sukta as expiation by a brahmin who has stolen gold (Rgvidhana l.14; [26] Manusmrti 1l.250). [27]

2.3 It is true that the srautasutras prescribe verses 34 and 35 in a brahmodya in the Asvamedha (see n. 6), as Haug observed. We may even add that the content of the verses--in which one of the four questions is: "what is the seed of the stallion?" and the answer: "this soma is the seed of the stallion"--suits quite well the context of a horse sacrifice, which in its classical form includes the pressing and offering of soma. [28]

2.4 But we find in RV 1.164 also several other verses with a well-established ritual application. In 26ab it is said: upa hvaye sudugham dhenum etam suhasto godhug uta dohad enam "I call hither this cow easy to milk; and a dexterous milker shall milk her." In the Pravargya, according to the srautasutras, this verse is pronounced by the hotr priest when the Pravargya pot is fully heated and has been worshiped, and the adhvaryu sets out to milk the cow. [29] Placed in this context, the statement presents neither a riddle nor an enigma. It is just plain language. Verse 26 continues with a prayer to god Savitr for "the best stimulation" (srestham savam) and concludes with another statement that suits the context in the ritual situation in which it is employed: [a]bhiddho gharmas tad u su pra vocam "the Gharma (pot) is heated: this I hereby announce." [30] With this last pada it has become clear that the verse does not refer to just any milking of a cow, but to the milking of a cow in connection with a Gharma offe ring. This makes the verse exclusively suitable for the Pravargya ceremony (from among the rituals known to us from the srautasutras). [31]

Two subsequent verses, 27-28, and moreover vs. 49 (see Appendix for translations), present no major problem either, if they are placed in the context for which they are prescribed in the srautasutras: the milking of the Gharma cow, to which first a male calf is brought near to trigger the flow of the cow's milk. [32] The milking is done by the adhvaryu, to whom reference is made by the word suhasta in 26b. [33] (See figure 3: the adhvaryu milking the Gharma cow.) Also vs. 40, prescribed in connection with the cow used in the Pravargya, has no direct riddle or enigma character. [34]

2.5 Apart from the verses strongly related to the cow and milking in the Pravargya, there is another verse with a well-established relation with the Pravargya, namely verse 31.

All yajurvedic sources (MS 4.9.6; KathA 2.101i-l15; TA 4.7; VS 37.14-20) make this stanza part of the avakasa mantras, that is, mantras 'accompanying the...