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 144

THE RGVEDA-SAMHITAKARA AND FATHER ESTELLER
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not "see" the mantras for themselves (te 'varebhyo 'sākşaikytad harmabhya upadešena mantrant samprāduh ); (3) the third and the final stage was marked by the arrangement of the mantras and the composition of the Vedängas (upadeśāya gläyanto 'vare bilmagrahanaya imam grantham samamnāsişuk vedan ca vedangāni ca. )."
When Fr. E speaks of the redactorial activity by which the original text of the rsis was turned into a palimpsest, he probably has in mind the activity of the second stage and the beginning of the third stage mentioned above. What we should note in this regard is the fact that the persons involved in the first and the second stages are clearly distinguished by a very important characteristic - those to whom the dharman was sākşat and those to whom it was not. This would necessarily mean that those who merely received the text from those who had 'seen' it must have looked upon it from the very beginning as very sacred. We have no reason to doubt this. This sacredness of the text was marked by two formal features - the words in the text were looked upon as fixed + (niyatavacoyukti) and their order was also considered fixed (niyatānupūrvya)' - and in this respect they markedly differed from any other text. I do not think that the Vedic texts were supposed to have these characteristics only after the third stage noticed above. They were looked upon as revealed " and hence sacred in the second stage already.
Fr. E blames the SK for having disturbed the metre of the original text for the sake of his later grammar, But he also says that if the SK could "dodge" the sandhi by changing the word-order he did it and thereby avoided doing any damage to the metre. Changing word-order of the received sacred text meant, according to Fr. E, a minor evil to the SK than reduce the number of syllables in a pāda as a result of sandhi. To me the matter seems to be exactly the opposite. Since the SK at numerous other places tolerates a metrically deficient pāda, he would have easily tolerated it in a few more cases, but would not have changed the word-order of the " revealed" text. He would do the sandhi if his grammar required it and rest content there.
Niruka 1.20. 6 ABORI 51.61. 6 Nirukta 1.15.
Ibid. Fr. E himself notes that the SK "lived in a traditional conservative atmosphere" where mantras were looked upon as sacred and religious texts (ABORI 50.20-21). But he fails to draw the necessary conclusion from this fact. Moreover, when Fr. E evaluates the different solutions suggested by him for a given line of the Samhita text, while preferring one to the other solutions, he speaks of "the advantage of preserving every letter of the transmitted text quite in tact" or "of the very weighty advantage of keeping the traditional order" (IL Bagchi Mem. Vol. 65). If Fr. E feels occasionally concerned about the preservation of the text in the 20th century how much more must the SK be in the centuries before Christ.
Madhu Vidyā/119