Indo European Sodalities In Ancient India

SR No.: 269732
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: W B Bollee
Publisher: W B Bollee
Total Pages: 20
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 3 MB

Page 20

The Indo-European Sodalities in Ancient India 191 reason is -- as was correctly seen by HAUER142 -- that the older waves of invaders, to whom the Vratyas belonged, had taken possession already of Magadha before the bearers of Vedic civilisation joined them. It is not surprising, therefore, that this region should show unmistakable traces of the once widespread sodalities. The ancestors of the Vratyas probably were a marginal group already in the Aryan period. In the environment and period described by Vedic literature, the brotherhoods were translated into a supernatural existence in heaven, whilst they were still a reality on earth among the "backward" societies in the East.148 According to CHARPENTIER, the rejection of Karna at Draupadi's svayamvara even though he had bent the bow (for this was the feature required of the suitors), was due to the arrogance of "Westerners" looking down on the peoples of the east.144 The institutions of the sodality system survived nevertheless in the religious orders and in the aristocratic republic of the Mallas. Abkurzungen BHSD = F. EDGERTON: Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary. Vol. 2: Dictionary. New Haven 1953; COD = Concise Oxford Dictionary. Oxford 1911 u.o.; CPD = A critical Pali Dictionary. Vol. 1 ff. Copenhagen 1924 ff.; LIDDELL & SCOTT = H. G. LIDDELL and R. SCOTT: A Greek-English Dictionary. New Ed. Oxford 1940/61; MW = M. MONIER-WILLIAMS: A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Oxford 1899; PED = T. W. Rhys DAVIDS and WILLIAM STEDE: The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary. London 1921-25; PSM = HARGOVIND DAS T. SHETH: Paiasaddamahannava. A comprehensive Prakrit Hindi Dictionary. Calcutta 1923-28. 142 Der Vratya, p. 23. 148 J. CHARPENTIER: Paccekabuddhageschichten. Uppsala 1908, p. 133. 144 CHARPENTIER, loc. cit.