Sanskrit Kazana

Ṛgvedic All-Comprehensiveness

N. Kazanas

0. Argument. The Ṛgveda contains or preserves more elements

from the Proto-Indo-European Culture than any other branch of

the family. Here, the focus is on language and poetry and

philosophy. This indicates that the Vedic people, as they

themselves state in the hymns, did not immigrate into

Saptasindhu c1700-1500 BCE as mainstream doctrine would have

it, but were indigenous and the Ṛgveda is much older than 1200

BCE. But the bulk of the essay examines various grammatical and

poetic aspects in the RV.

1. Indo-Āaryan Indigenism

For more than 10 years I have been writing articles and

giving lectures arguing against the AIT (=Aryan Invasion, now

Immigration, Theory) and in favour of Indo-Āryan indigenism

within the frame of the IE (=Indo-European) branches. The

present study belongs to this general effort. For when I studied

thoroughly the literature connected with this subject, mainly

archaeological and historical but also linguistic, I found not one

scrap of evidence of any kind to indicate, let alone prove, that

c1700-1500 BCE the IAs (=Indo-Āryans) entered Saptasindhu, the

18 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

region of the Seven Rivers in what is today N-W India and

Pakistan. Different kinds of evidence show, on the contrary, that

the IAs are much more indigenous in India than Americans

(except Red-Indians) in North America, English in England,

French in France, Germans in Germany etc. These evidences

come from Archeology, Anthropology, Genetics, Literature and

Linguistics (Kazanas 2009).

Fig 1: Map of the IE branches and the alleged journey of the IAs

In Literature, in the RV, with whose language and virtues I

shall be dealing shortly, we find no memory at all of any journey

southward across Eurasia. On the contrary, in one hymn of the

Angiras family (4.1.3) and another of the Vaśiṣṭhas (7.76.4) the

ṛṣis state that their ancestors lived here, in Saptasindhu. In other

hymns we read that the Āryan laws should be and are diffused

over the earth: e.g. asmākasaś ca sūráyo víśvā āśās tarīṣáṇi ‘that our

sages pervade all regions’ (5.10.6) or Suryam divi rohayantaḥ nava

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 19

sudā āryā vratā visṛjanto adhi kṣami ‘the bounteous ones made the

sun mount heaven and diversely released (vi-sṛj-) the Āryan laws

over the earth’ (10.65.11). Then, in one of the older hymns the

poet proclaims that the five Vedic tribes (Anus, Turvasas,

Druhyus, Pūrus and Yadus) have spread out beyond the Seven

Rivers : RV 6.61.9, 12 :

sā no víśvā ati dviṣaḥ She [Sarasvatī] has spread us all

svasṝ anyā ṛtāvarī beyond the other [7] sister[-rivers]

atannaheva sūryaḥ as the sun spreads out days.

This is the situation approximately:

Fig 2 : The Five Vedic tribes expanding beyond Saptasindhu.

This early IA expansion covered Bactria and beyond

according to Baudhāyana’s Śrauta Sūtra 18.14. Many scholars

mention this westward movement in the Purāṇas (e.g. Bryant

2001: 138, 328, n37) and dismiss it since these texts were very late

but do not refer to the Ṛgvedic or Baudhāyana texts. Some use

20 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

the isoglosses as a counter-argument and the difficulty of having

them move out of the northwest narrow mountain passes

Saptasindhu (Bryant 2001: 146-7; Drinka 2009: 30-31); Jamison

likened it to toothpaste spilling out of a tube (2005). Drinka,

Jamison and Bryant lay emphasis on Hock’s presentation of the

isoglosses (1999) and all invoke “Occam’s razor” which means

that the right solution is the simplest one, all ignoring the simple

facts that real life does not always behave in simplistic events and

sequences and that “Occam’s razor” had been refuted even in

Occam’s own time. Then, Hock himself repeatedly pointed out

that even in historical times at least four languages emigrated out

of N-W India, one of them, the Gypsy language reaching England

(Fraser 1995).

However, linguists (not historians, mind you, nor

archaeologists) insisted dogmatically that the IAs not merely

came but actually invaded and conquered the Saptasindhu c-

1700-1500.

“At some time in the second millennium BC... a band or

bands of speakers of an Indo-European language, later to be

called Sanskrit, entered India over the north west passes. This is

our linguistic doctrine which has been held now for more than a

century and a half. There seems to be no reason to distrust the

arguments for it, in spite of the traditional Hindu ignorance of any

such invasion.” (M.B. Emeneau 1954: emphasis added).

Note here that this distinguished linguist does not bother to

follow the discipline of historians and examine the actual sources

for this mater. Although he deals with an historical event (an

alleged invasion) he writes about a “linguistic doctrine” and

“arguments for it”, not about original texts, archaeological

evidence and other relevant data used by historians. The next

excerpt from another linguist is even worse because the man

ought to know better.

“The Āryan invasion of India is recorded in no written

document and it cannot yet be traced archaeologically but it is

nevertheless established as a historical fact on the basis of

comparative philology” (Th. Burrow 1975:21)

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 21

The arrogance of both was belied by archaeological finds.

Indeed, 12 years after Emeneau's statement and 9 years

before Burrow's, George Dales published in 1966 his seminal article

showing that there had never been an invasion nor fighting and

destruction in Saptasindhu. All expert archaeologists of the ISC

(=Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation) insist now on the unbroken

continuity of the culture there. It developed naturally without

any significant entry of foreigners. (Gupta & Lal 1984, Shaffer &

Lichtenstein 1995, 1999, Allchin B & R 1997, Kenoyer 1998,

Chakrabarti 1999, McIntosh 2001, Possehl 2002, Lal 2002, 2005,

2009) Anthropological studies also show that there was no change

in the cranioskeletal features of the ISC inhabitants from at least

4500 to c600 BCE. (Kennedy 1995).

Then, in their own field, geneticists affirm in various studies

that there was no significant flow of foreign genes into the Indian

sub-continent before the sixth cent BCE: Oppenheimer 2003;

Sahoo et al 2006; Chaubey 2009. To take the last reference, Dr G

Chaubey worked with a team under Thomas Kivisild for four

years in the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of

Tartu (Estonia): they analysed 12.200 samples from all over India

and found only common genetic traits on the basis both of the

paternal Y chromosome and the maternal DNA’s; there was no

significant influx other than the arrival of people from Africa c60

000 BP. (See Chaubey 2009.)

Summary of the evidences

Archaeologists stress the unbroken continuity of ISC.

Anthropologists find no change in the cranioskeletal features of

the ISC inhabitants 4500-600 BCE.

Genetic studies assure us of no inflow of genes into Saptasindhu

before 600 up to 60000.

Linguistics also support indigenism:

Sanskritisation of whole area (names of rivers, etc: e.g. Sarasvatī,

Himavat, Viśvamitra, Bharadvāja, Vaśiṣṭha, and so on).

Sanskrit more archaic than others (Burrow 1973).

22 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

A bad historian, but great sanskritist, Burrow wrote in his

authoritative study The Sanskrit Language: Sanskrit is a “language

which in most respects is more archaic and less altered from

original Indo-European than any other member of the family”.

Later he adds: Root-nouns are “very much in decline in the

earliest recorded IE languages” but “in Sanskrit they are

preserved much better” (1973: 34,123).

Nonetheless, linguists persisted in their “doctrine” writing

profusely about invasion and conquest even in the mid 1990’s

(e.g. O’Flaherty 1981, Winn 1995). In the late 1990’s the “invasion”

became “(im-)migration” and because archaeologists would have

none of this, linguists concocted small waves of immigrants who

had already absorbed the indigenous culture (but not the

language) and so would not show up on the archaeological

record! Some even claim that these waves could bring in the

Vedic language without showing up in the genetic record! But

they don’t explain ever how such insignificant numbers would

have āryanised/sanskritised an area as large as France and

Germany together. Nonetheless, despite the massive evidences

against any entry from all disciplines that deal with historical

facts like History, Genetics, Anthropology and literary sources,

linguists continue to regard the matter of linguistic affair and pay

no attention to the others (e.g. Drinka 2009, Jamison 2005, Huld

2002, etc, etc) as if they do not exist!

Here, I shall apply what I call the Preservation Principle and

show that apart from root-nouns Sanskrit (or Vedic or Old Indic)

retains many more archaic features than other IE branches.

2. Theonyms: names of deities in the RV and other branches.

There are more than 20 such theonyms in the RV alone

(Kazanas 2009: ch3). Here we shall look at 6 of them only: Agni,

Aryaman, Dyaus, (Apṃ)-Nápāt, Sūrya, Uṣas.

Agní : Hit Agnis; Sl Ogon/Ogun.

Lat ignis, Lith ugnis, Lett uguns - all ‘fire’. Iranians had as

demons Indra, Saurva but, despite their fire worship, preserved

only in proper name Dašt-aγni. For ‘fire’ Ht has paḫḫur, Gk pur and

Gmc fyrand variants; so it would have been more natural for

Hittite to have a fire-god whose name was related to paḫḫur!

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 23

Aryamán : Av Airyaman; Myc Areimene (Gk Are-s?); Celt

Ariomanus (Gaul), Eramon (Ireland); Germanic Irmin.The stem ar-

/or- ‘move, rise’ in most IE branches: Gk or‒numi ‘rise’, Lat orior,

Gmc rinn- ‘run’; Arm y-ar-ne ‘rise’; etc .

Dyàus : Hit D-Siu-s ; Gk Zeus/DiƑa-; Lat Ju[s]-pitar/Iov-; Gmc

Tîwaz; Rus Divu (?); Av dyaoš;

Apā́ṃ-Nápāt : Av Apām-Napā; Lat Nept-unus; Irish Necht|-an (-p

changes to other consonants).

Srya : Kassites Śuriaś; Gk Hēli(F)os ; Lat Sol ; Gmc savil/sol;

Welsh saul; Slavic slunice/solnce: all ‘sun’.

Uṣás : Gk Ēōs ; Lat Au[s]-rora ; Gmc Eos-tre. Av ušah-; Lith

auśra, Lett ausma; Celtic gwaur; etc.

Vedic 6; Greek 4; Latin 4; Germanic 3; Hittite 2; Slavic 2; Celtic 2.

But, moreover, the stem for the natural phenomenon ‘fire’

does exist again in some of them, like ignis in Latin, uguns/ugnis in

Baltic; or the ‘sun’ in Gmc savil/ sol, Celtic saul, Slavic solnce; and

so on. Clearly, the other branches lost the theonyms.

3. Poetic Art

Germanic had alliterative poetry. E.g. in Modern English Roll

on, roll on you restless waves where the r repeats; or Do not go gentle

into the good night where the g repeats. If all would lead their lives in

love like me where the l repeats.

Greek had strict metrical structure. Homer’s heroic

hexameter in his epics and others with variants of iambic,

dactylic, trachaic metre etc.

pán tas gar phi lé es ken ho dōì é pi oi kí a naí ōn

¯ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ˘| ¯ ˘ ˘| ¯ ˘ ˘ |¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ¯

‘he entertained all living in a house on the high road’:

Homer: Iliad 6, 15 (no alliteration).

hós min xeì non e ón ta ka te kta nen hōì e˘nì oí kōi

¯ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ˘| ¯ ˘ ˘| ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ¯

‘he killed him who was a guest in his house’:

24 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

Odyssey 21.27 (some as above) strict metre only.

In Germanic poetry we find the opposite: alliterative verses

but no strict metre. Take an example from The Seafarer 44-45, an

Old English poem:

Ne bi. him to hearpan hyge ne to hring.ege,

ne to wife wyn ne to worulde hyht...

‘His thought is not for the harp nor the receiving

of rings, nor joy in a woman nor pleasure in the world’.

Modern English verse has metre and alliteration:

If all would lead their lives in love like me :

˘ × | ˘ × | ˘ × | ˘ × | ˘ × |

This is the Iambic pentameter with stress, which substitutes

the length of vowels.

Vedic has both alliteration and fairly strict metre: e.g. from

RV 6.47.29, with Triṣṭubh structure, i.e. eleven syllables and strict

cadence ¯ ˘ ¯ ¯

sa dundubhe sajūrindreṇa devair

˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯ ¯

dūrād davīyo apa sedha śatrūn

¯ ¯ ˘ ¯ ¯ ˘ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ¯

‘O drum, along with Indra and the gods, do

drive our foes to farthest distance’.

(It has both alliteration and the fairly strict metre of

Tṛṣṭubh 11 syllables in each quarter of the stanza and also

assonance u,u,ū,e,e,e;ā,a,a,a,a,a.)

Riddles are found in all traditions, all nations. Here are two from

RV 8.29.5:

tigmam eko bibharti hasta āyudhaṁ

śucirugro jalāṣabheṣajaḥ:

‘One, bright [and] fierce, with cooling remedies,

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 25

Carries in his hand a sharp weapon’. (Jalāśabheṣajaḥ)

trīṇyéka urugāyo vicakrame

yatra devāso madanti: (8.29.7)

‘One, far-going has made three strides

to where the gods rejoice’. (urugáyaḥ)

The two clues signal Rudra and Viṣṇu respectively.

I close this section with the words of Calvert Watkins: “The

language of India from its earliest documentation in the Ṛgveda

has raised the art of the phonetic figure to what many would

consider its highest form” (2001: 109).

One of many splendid stanzas: 3.54.8

víśvedete janimā sáṁ vivikto

maho devān bibhratī no, vyathete;

ejaddhṛvaṃ patyate víśvamekaṁ

carat patatri viṣuṇaṃ vi jātam.

ʻThe two truly encompass (saṃ-) and sift all births/beings,

bearing the mighty devas, yet do not stagger. Moving yet fixed,

the One governs the whole, what walks and flies- the manifold

manifest creation.ʼ

Apart from alliteration and rich assonance with vi

especially, note that the neuter gender affords multiple

interpretations (viśvam ekam). Or take 4.40.5:

haṁsaḥ śuciṣad vasurantarikṣasád

hotā vediṣad atithir duroṇasat;

nṛṣad varasad ṛtasad vyomasad

abj gojā ṛtajā adrijā ṛtam.

‘The swan in the clear brightness, the Vasu in midsky, the

summoner at the altar, the guest in the house; what is in men,

what is in excellence, what is in Natural Order, what is in heaven;

what are born of Waters, of light, of Cosmic Order, of the

Unbreakable – that is the Law’.

26 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

Here the art is based on the repetition of -sat ‘being,

dwelling, sitting in’ and –já ‘born of’. In the first two pādas we see

a descent from the brightness of the sky down to a house; then in

each of the other two we see an ascent. Of course go commonly

means ‘cow’ but often denotes ‘light’ and this must be the sense

here; similarly ádri- usually means ‘rock, stone, mountain’ even

‘cloud, lightning’ but the basic sense is ‘unbreakable’ (probably

from a form of √dṝ ‘breaking (through), piercing’ and the negative

á-). Natural Law shapes and runs through all phenomena and this

alone has permanence – it is implied – whereas all else is like a

passing guest.

There are many other passages I can cite, like 2.21.1 where

we find the repetition of-gite or 10.67.13 with repetition of svasti

etc. We find also all figures of speech that form fine poetry from

atiśayokti (eg 3.55.7 etc) and upamā (with iva, na, etc) to yamaka

(4.1.2 etc) and śleṣa (6.75.17 etc) but discussing them would

lengthen this essay unnecessarily. The words of Watkins would

suffice.

4. Grammar

Sanskrit, according to Burrow is “more readily analysable,

and its roots [=dhātu] more easily separable from accretionary

elements than is the case with any other IE language” (1973: 289).

Indeed, consider how from simple dhātus, that are also nominal

stems, arise nouns and adjectives and verbs in tenses and moods.

Or as Elizarenkova put it, “the verb-root is basic to both inflexion

and derivation … it is irrelevant that for same roots such nouns

are not attested” (1995: 50) – except that simple “root” and even

“seedform” would be better translations for dhātu.

a) Dhātu or root-form and derivatives.

√cit ‘perceiving, being conscious of’ > cit adj ‘one cognizant,

perceiving’ or (f) ‘awareness, cognizance, perception’; ʼciti

‘understanding’, citra ‘bright, excellent, variegated’, cetas

‘splendour, intelligence’ caitanya ‘consciousness’; verb forms –

cétati, cittá, cikéta, ácait etc etc, where the principal or vowel

gradation (i>e>ai) unfolds in regular order. We could take also √ad

‘eating’, √√īś ‘ruling’, √√ṛc ‘praising, reciting’, √√krudh ‘anger’, √√jñā

‘knowing’ etc etc. But compare S hu and Greek cheō. S √√hu

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 27

‘sacrificing, pouring into fire’ > verb and noun forms jú-hu-ati,

hutá, hótum, hótṛ, hóma, áhauṣit – etc, etc, where the principle of

vowel gradation (u>o/au) unfolds regularly and beautifully. Now

compare this with the chaos in –

Greek ché-ō 'I pour': che-û-ma ʻflow,streamʼ; chû-ma ʻfluidʼ;

cho-ḗ ʻlibation,pouringʼ; choû-s ʻearth, soilʼ:

Root? che-, cho-, chū- (=S hu > juhóti)?

Sanskrit: √dhṛ > dhariṣyáte, dadhré, dhṛtvā, dhṛtí, dhṛti, dharā,

dhārtṛ, dharṇaṣi, dharma, dhārā, dhāraṇa etc.

Greek: thranío ‘stool’, thrónos ‘throne’, with vowels a, o but no

root or verb.

b) Negation & prohibition

Some IE branches have na/ne/no for ‘do/must not’ (e.g. Latin,

Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic).

Some have mᾱ/mi/mē (e.g. Tocharian, Armenian, and Greek).

Sanskrit and Avestan have both na and mᾱ.

c) The Augment in past tenses.

Armenian have it (with initial consonant in monosyllabic

stems only) and Greek have it: e.g. Arm e-likh ‘left’, Gk é-lipe ‘left’.

On the other hand Hittite (dais ‘he set’), Gothic and Old English

band ‘one bound’) and others did not have it.

Vedic has both forms : ábhet/bhét ‘one feared’‘, ádur/dúr

’they gave’ etc.

d) Perfect.

Some branches did not have one (Toch, Arm).

a) Reduplicated perf: Av ta-taš-a ‘has fashioned’; Gk dé-dork-a

‘I have seen’; Gmc hait-hait ‘has been named’

b) Simple perf: Av vaēδa, Gmc wait ‘has known’;

Lat gnōv-it ‘has learnt, knows’ (=S jñā-) etc.

28 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

c) Periphrastic perf: (fem. form of) main verb + auxiliary verb

–as in Engl ‘have’ aux + ‘gone’ main. Ht: markan (main)

+ harteni (aux) ‘cut you have’.

Vedic and Avestan have all three perfect forms.

e) Significant difference between Vedic and Avestan.

Vedic redupl: ta-takṣa ‘has fashioned’, da-darśa ‘has seen’; Av

tataša;

simple: veda ‘has known, knows’; Av vaēδa;

Periphr: gamayām cakāra ‘has caused someone to go’

(AV 18.27.2);

mantrayām āsa (Brāhmaṇas etc) ‘has advised’: i.e. main

verb, fem. acc sing +auxiliary kṛ- ‘do’, as- ‘be’. BUT in this form –

Av has only with ah- (=S as-) ‘be’: āstara yeintīm + ah- ‘must

have corrupted’. Since Av has only verb + aux ah-, this indicates

that Av separated from Vedic after Vedic developed as- as

auxiliary. Otherwise Vedic would have aux as- first! Let us see.

Mainstream doctrine teaches that original homeland of IEs

is the Pontic (South Russian) Steppe, just above the Black Sea. But

the direction of movement should be reversed.

Fig 3.

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 29

According to the mainstream Doctrine (the AIT, actually),

the Indo-Iranians formed one unified people then and moved to

Iran passing from the Urals. Then the Indoaryans left the

common Iranian homeland and moved into Saptasindhu. But if

this is true, then they should have had developed first the

periphrastic perfect with auxiliary verb as- ‘to be’ like the

Iranians, and afterwards the aux kṛ-. This evidence shows that

first they developed main verb + auxiliary kṛ- in Atharva Veda and

long afterwards main verb + aux as- in the Brahmaṇas. Since the

Vedics and Iranians are supposed to have been together and since

they certainly appear to share so many features in common, this

means that they, the Iranians, left the common fold, not the IAs!

Avestan & Sanskrit common features.

Avestan Sanskrit

Prohibitive mā mā ‘must not’;

Perfect ta-taša ta-takṣa ‘has fashioned’;

Vaēδa veda ‘has known, knows’;

Noun haoma soma ‘sacrificial drink’;

Ahura asura ‘lord’ (later S

‘demon’);

Country Haptahәndu Saptasindhu ‘land of 7 rivers’

Now consider -hәndu and -sindhu.

In Sanskrit the word síndhu has several related words: e.g.

compounds sindhukṣit, sindhu-ja, sindhu-pati etc and derivatives

like saindhava, and so on. It is thought to derive from the root

syand ‘flowing’ or sidh ‘reaching, having success’. In Avestan -

hǝndu stands isolated, and the word for river is commonly ϑraotah

(=S srotas) and raodah. This again is indicative of the Iranians

moving away from the IAs and taking with them the memory that

they had lived in a region with Seven Rivers. This was spotted

even as early as Max Muller: “Zoroastrians were a colony from

Northern India...[who] migrated westward to Arachosia and

30 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

Persia” (1875:248)1 We shall examine this from another angle in

§7, below.

5. Eight words of closest human relations.

1. brother : S bhrtṛ, Av brātār-; Toch pracar; Arm elbayr; Gk

phratēr; Lt frāter; Celt brathir; Gmc broδar; Sl bratrъ; Lith

broter-; Not Hit.

2. daughter : S duhitṛ́; Av dugǝdar-/duγδαr-; Toch ckācar; Arm

dustr; G thugátēr; lt futir; Gmc daúhtar; Lith dukte Sl dъšti. Not

Hit, Celt.

3. father : S pitṛ́ ; Av pitar/(p)tar-; Toch pācar; Arm hair; Gk patḗr;

lt pater; Celt athir ; Gmc fadar . Not Baltic, Sl, Ht.

4. Husband, lord: S pάti ; Av pai̒tiš; Toch pats;Gk posis ; lt potis

(=capable); Gmc –fa.(s); Lith pats/patis; Sl –podъ. Not Arm,

Celt, Hit (but Hit pat -‘just’).

5. mother : S mātṛ́ ; Av mātār-; Toch mācar; Arm mair; G mḗtēr; lt

māter; Celt māthir; Gmc mōdor; Sl mati., Not Hit; Lith mote

‘wife’.

6. sister : S svasṛ; Av x˅anhar; Toch sar; Arm kʻoir; It soror; Celt

siur; Gmc swister; Lith sesuo; Sl sestra. Not Hit; Gk eór 'daughter'.

7. son : S sūnú ; Av humuš; Gmc sunus; Lith sūnus ; Sl synъ; Not

Toch, Ht, Arm, G (hui-óς?), It, Celt.

8. wife/mistress : S pátnī ; Av paθnī; G pόtnia ; Lith -patni . Not

Toch, Arm, Hit, It, Celt, Gmc, Sl.

Only S & Av have them all. Hit has none! Yet comparativists

persist in calling Hittite the most archaic IE tongue! How is it

possible not to have even one of these nouns for the most

common of human relations yet be the most archaic IE tongue?

Why would all the others innovate suddenly?

1. Müller did make several blunders, of course, in having the Āryans

invade India and in assigning the RV c1200 - something which he

repudiated later giving dates as early as 3000 and even 5000 BCE.

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 31

6. Philosophy: One and Many.

For last, but certainly not least, I have left a philosophical

subject. There are many more issues: cosmogony and

anthropogony, reincarnation, ethics and the like. But

consideration of all these issues would take much much longer.

So let us look at only one more aspect. There are many

cosmogonies in the RV but underlying them all is the idea of One

from which arise the Many. Obviously there is polytheism with

many gods; also henotheism, as one clan or family gotra worships

a particular deity and ascribes to him (or her, in the case of Aditi

or Jñāna/ Vāc) the emergence of the creation. But there are also

several references to the One from which all deities arise: so

there is also monotheism or the one Absolute.

Summary.

Polytheism: many deities as in all other IE branches.

Henotheism: one clan worships a particular deity and this is

said to be the best (and creator)

Monotheism: all deities, all worlds, all creatures come from

One, which remains unmanifest. Deities have divinity only by

partaking of the power of the One.

3.55.2 mahád devānām asuratvám ékam : ‘single and great is the

high-lord-power of the gods (in which they partake to be

gods or asuras).

1.164.46: ékam sád víprā bahudhá vadanti (also 10.114.5): ‘it is

One but the sages call it by many expressions.’

10.90 : everything is produced from Puruṣa's parts.

10.129 Nāsadīya: ā́nid avātám svadháyā tád ékam :‘that One

breathed without air of its own.

8.58.2 ékam vā idáṃ víbabhuva sárvam. ‘Being One it became

all’.

3.54.8 éjad dhruváṃ patyate ékam víśvam, ‘Moving yet unmoving

the One carát patatṛi víṣuṇaṁ víjātám. Rules the whole, what

walks and flies, all this manifest multiplicity’.

32 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

Obviously, when the IE speakers that emerge from the mists

of pre-historic Europe and come to be known as Greeks, Germans,

Celts etc, they are barbarians, fond of war, pillage and conquest.

The RV also speaks frequently of war and battles. Here the

weapon of victory is more often than not bráhman, the mystic

power inherent in ritual and prayer, an inner force of the spirit

or “silent meditation” as Puhvel calls it (1989: 153) in referring to

sage Atri’s rehabilitation of the sun (RV 5, 40,6). This is the power

used by the sage Vaśiṣṭha when helping King Sudas defeat his

numerous enemies (RV 7.33) and, of course, by the Ṛbhus when

accomplishing the wondrous deeds that earned them godhood.

And hymn 6.75.19 says “My closest/inner armour is bráhma”

(=this same mystic power). This very word brahman becomes, not

without good reason, the name of the Absolute in post- Ṛgvedic

literature, mainly the Upanishads. Yet, the Absolute is not

entirely absent from the RV, as Keith observed: “…India

developed the conception of a power common to the various gods

… just as the unity of the gods even by the time of certain

Rigvedic hymns” (1925: 446).

Hymn RV 10.90. shows how creatures and world-elements

are produced from different parts of the Puruṣa, the primordial

Man: thus multiplicity comes from unity. More so, the nāsadiya

hymn 10.129. describes the evolution of the whole creation

including the gods from the One ekam. Taking cosmogonic myths

from Iran, Greece, Rome and/or North Europe, some scholars

rightly state that the creation arises from two primordial

elements, “the action of heat on water”, and that this “reflects a

multi-layered dualism that pervades Indo-European myth and

religion” (Stone 1997, ch 5; see also Puhvel 1989: 277). But in the

RV Creation Hymn 10.129. it is out of the One alone, breathing

without air, of Its own power (ā́nid avātáṃ svadháyā tád ékam),

that arose all else; only in the third stanza appears salilám

(water?) and tápas (heat?)2 within támas ‘darkness’, within tuchyá

2. I put question-marks because I feel certain, against the received

notions, that salilá here does not mean ‘water’ but ‘flux (of energy)’

generally and tápas ‘power of transformation’ – as I argue in my

2009 (pp 86-7 and note 1; or ch 2, §11). I repeat here that there is

still nothing material in this third stanza within ‘darkness’ támas

and ‘void’ tuchyá.

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 33

‘void’; and then follows one existence, desire and so on. Here at

least it is the Unity that is the basic primordial substratum. This

is no different from the Absolute of the Upaniṣhads. And this we

meet in other hymns also. RV 8.58.2 says ékam v idáṃ ví babhūva

sárvam ‘It being One has variously (ví) become this All (and

Everything)’. Hymns 1.164.6 and 10.114.5. say that the wise poets

speak of It, being One, in many ways/forms – naming it Agni,

Yama, Indra, etc. Thus the different divinities are the

manifestations of that One. This is reinforced by the

acknowledgement that the gods are gods by virtue of a single

godhood or god-power, as the refrain in 3.55. states plainly:

mahád devnām asuratvám ékam ‘Single is the great god-power

(asuratvá) of the gods’. Utilizing different material in the Ṛgveda,

K Werner makes the same point (1989).

This notion of a Single One, of which all divine and

mundane phenomena are manifestations, is absent from all other

IE branches. Thus the Vedic Āryas, far from being bloodthirsty or

primitive barbarians deifying out of fear of natural phenomena

like the storm or the fire, would seem to belong among the most

highly cultured people on earth with a culture that consisted not

so much of material artifacts as of inner spiritual power.

7. Finally the true situation.

Thus in all the spheres we have examined the Ṛigvedic all

comprehensiveness is very palpable. As Max Müller put it 150

years ago: the Vedic man "has preserved something of what

seems peculiar to each of the northern [Indo-European] dialects

singly as he agrees with the Greek and the German where the

Greek and the German seem to differ from all the rest, and as no

other language has carried off so large a share of the common

Āryan heirloom - whether roots, grammar, words, myths or

legends" (Müller 1859: 14)3. This indicates that the Vedic people

(or Indo-Aryans) did not move much travelling thousands of

miles: thus they had the leisure to pass on their ancient lore to

the new generations and had no memories of sojourns into alien

lands. But they did preserve the memory of the tribes expanding,

3. Please see note 1.

34 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

of their sages going abroad and of embarking on two migrations

eastward and westward.

Fig 4 (=2): The five Vedic tribes expanding beyond Sapt

As we saw earlier (§1), RV 6.61.9,12 says: The five tribes

spread beyond the Seven Rivers. Other hymns state that the sages

and their ancestors had always been “here” (Aṅgiras family 4.1.3;

Vasiṣṭha 7.76.4). And the vast Vedic corpus does not contain one

single reference to an immigration, not one memory of a

different previous habitat unlike the Hebrews who, in their Old

Testament, record previous homelands , sojourns into other lands

and other people met on the way to their historical habitat.

On the contrary, apart from the Ṛigvedic references of

Āryan sages and laws spreading abroad (§1, above), Baudhāyana’s

Śrautasūtra 18.14 says, there were two migrations of the Āryans:

the eastern one called Āyava moving into the Gangetic plains and

Ṛigvedic all-comprehensiveness 35

further; the western one Āmāvasa engendering the Gāndhāris,

Parśus (=Persians) and Arāttas (=people of Ararat, by the Black

sea, or Urartu, just South of Ararat). Note, that the Iranians

record in Avesta that they had passed from Haptahǝndu

(=Saptasindhu) and Haraxvaiti (=Sarasvatī) whereas the IAs do

not mention any travel from Iran into Saptasindhu, nor, more

important, from northwestern regions into Iran.

Back in 1997 Joahna Nichols, an accomplished linguist and

by no means a supporter of Indo-Āryan indigenism, had

calculated on linguistic types of evidence (loanwords, isoglosses

etc) that the area of dispersal was in Bactria. She probably would

be very pleased to know that Vedic and Avestan literary sources

provide historical evidence as well for her conclusions. Yes, from

Saptasindhu proper the IAs spread west and north but it was

from Bactria, the much wider Saptasindhu, that they dispersed

even farther.

Apparently this then is the final situation. And I certainly

prefer to follow the evidence in the ancient sources, i.e. Avesta,

the Ṛigvedic hymns and Baudhāyana’s sūtras, rather than

superficial and supercilious modern scholars.

Fig 5: Indoaryan migrations, eastward and westward.

36 Sanskrit-Vimarśaḥ

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