The Pravargya Brahmana of the Taittiriya Aranyaka: An Ancient Commentary on the Pravargya Ritual.

• Author: Brereton, Joel P.
• Position: Review

By JAN E. M. HOUBEN. Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 1991. Pp. xv + 146. Rs 125.

This work, which is based on the author's dissertation at the University of Utrecht, is an extensively annotated translation of Taittiriya Aranyaka 5 (Andhra) with an introduction principally on the Pravargya rite, an optional, introductory rite for the soma sacrifice. The Pravargya consists of rites accompanying the manufacture of a special clay pot, which is heated and filled with milk, and the offering of this milk primarily to the Asvins. Houben reproduces the text of this section of the TA based on three printed editions of the TA in its two extant recensions. The introduction briefly considers the age of the TA in relation to the TS and the TB and to the two other Yajurvedic interpretations of the Pravargya in Katha Aranyaka 2-3 and Satapatha Brahmana (M) 14.

Houben's principal interest is not in textual issues, however, but in the interpretation of the Pravargya rite. There has been extensive discussion of this rite, in recent years especially, by van Buitenen and Kashikar, and Houben begins by reviewing this discussion. He does not attempt a complete reconsideration of arguments and evidence, but draws particularly on the content of the Pravargya mantras and the interpretations of its rites in the TA to support his understanding of the rite. He defends the view that the Pravargya was an originally independent rite primarily directed to the sun and argues that its principal purpose was to give "the participants the power and lustre of the sun" (p. 11). It is an interpretation that has been challenged, and Houben briefly considers some of the alternative views. In particular, he rejects the view of Luders that the Pravargya was intended to strengthen the celestial waters and hence the rains, principally on the grounds that this is not the interpretation of the Yajurvedic texts.

Houben is right to look for dominant themes in relatively self-contained rites like the Pravargya and in being guided by discussion of themes in various brahmanas and aranyakas. It is certainly a more reasonable approach than denying meaning to the ritual forms or viewing Vedic commentary as an incoherent jumble. His emphasis on the solar symbolism of the Pravargya is also justified. Visually, the dramatic constituents of the rite - the glowing Pravargya pot, the flames that shoot up around it, the liquids that overflow the heated pot - suggest an association with the sun. Vedic...