Madhuvidya

SR No.: 006525
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 762
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Literature, & Philosophy
File Size: 17 MB

Page 143

98
M. A. MEHENDALE
exclusively appeared in Indian Journals. His thesis is that the traditional text of the Rgveda Saṁhitā is a “palimpsest" i. e. a "written-over" text, because it has been redactorially tampered with by the transmitters whom he chooses to call by the collective name the Samhita-Kāra (SK). The question then arises : with all the means that are available to us, is it possible for us to reconstruct the original text as composed by the rsi-kavis ? Fr. E's answer to this question is an emphatic "yes". His guiding principle in this task of text-restoration is that the metre and the so-called archaisms are to be considered paramount and they have a decisive value over the traditionally handed down text.
It has been long recognized that some of the metrical discrepancies in the Rgvedic verses regarding the number of syllables required in a pāda or the structure of a pada can be removed if the sandhis, and the long vowels and diphthongs are resolved or if we resort to svarabhakti. It is also occasionally necessary to change the vowel length for metrical reasons. But these restorations affect only the pronunciation of the text and not its words, or forms of words, or the word-order. These phonetic restorations referred to above do not call for any addition or suppression of the words. Starting from such phonetic restorations Fr. E proceeds to argue that since the SK did not hesitate to disturb the metre for the sake of his later sandhi rules and other matters of pronunciation, metre should be shown paramount consideration wherever it comes in conflict with the present text and that it must be restored at any cost. Fr. E believes in this unquestioned paramountcy of the metre, i.e. he is convinced that the mantras composed by the rşis were metrically perfect throughout and hence, going beyond and even against Oldenberg, he asserts that "...if mere phonetics, pronunciation and samdhi and the restoration of archaic forms are not sufficient to restore the standard pattern, it must be due to the fact that the SK must have made use of other redactorial devices - the most obvious and likely being naturally a change in the order of words." But it is not just for the change in the word-order that Fr. E blames the SK; he also charges him for haying changed the morphological forms of words, for having suppressed or added words, and lastly for having substituted the words of the original Samhità text with his own and all this sometimes even for extraneous reasons.
We are informed by Yāska of the three stages with regard to the composition and the transmission of the Vedic mantras : (1) The first stage was marked by the "seeing" of the mantras (or dharman) by the rșis (sākşātkrtadharmāra ysayo babhūvuh); (2) the second stage was marked by the handing over of these mantras by the rșis to the later generations who did not or could
2 ABORI 50.16. 9 ABORI 50.37.
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