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, (Apṃ)-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).
Srya : 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 bhrtṛ, 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 devnām 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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