Is There An Inner Conflict Of Tradition

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

Page 11

JOHANNES BRONKHORST
IS THERE AN INNER CONFLICT OF TRADITION? 53 by hanging on to their own ways of magical thinking. The question whether this way of thinking is one of the contributions of the Aryans to India may have to remain unanswered.
oppositions that make themselves felt in the early texts of the Sramanic religions, in the late-Vedic texts, and to some extent in the Mahabharata. This division may continue an opposition that at one time opposed Aryans and non-Aryans. How to decide whether this is actually the case, I do not know.
Abbreviations
AAWL
ABORI
ame
AS
BK BORI BOS CHSS ContrIndSoc HR
Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Klasse Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona Ardhamagadhi Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques, Bem Bukkyo Kenkyu, Buddhist Studies, Hamamatsu Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona Bhandarkar Oriental Series, Poona Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, Varanasi Contributions to Indian Sociology, New Delhi History of Religions, Chicago Indo-Iranian Journal, Den Haag, Dordrecht Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay, Bombay Journal of Indian Philosophy, Dordrecht Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeling Letterkunde, Amsterdam Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
JBBAS
ЛР
To conclude, I would like to cite a short passage from a recent article by G. FUSSMAN (1989: 529):
...l'on peut légitimement se demander ce que les Aryas ont apporté a l'Inde, outre leur
Leur apport est certain en matière de religion, même si le RV ne rend pas compte de l'ensemble de l'idéologie Arya aux moments de l'entrée des Aryas en Inde: l'unification cultuelle, si elle a jamais été réalisée, est un phénomène beaucoup plus tardif (constitution de la samhild et plus encore Brahmanas). Ceci dit, autant qu'on puisse en juger, les cultes védiques doivent peu à l'Inde pré-aryenne: aucun des emprunts supposés n'est prouvable, et beaucoup sont plus que douteux (par exemple, le protoSiva des sceaux de l'Indus, D. Meth-Srinivasan). Les réels bouleversements que l'on constate (sentralisation de l'incinération, par exemple) et qui semblent s'être produits en
Inde même ne semblent pas explicables en termes de substrat. If the opposition between Vedic and non-Vedic which I have discussed continues an old opposition between Aryan and non-Aryan, then the non-Aryan element in post-Vedic developments becomes very visible indeed. This, however, is far from certain, as I have already repeatedly emphasized. Less uncertain is, I submit that real and fundamental differences existed at the lateVedic period between at least two, perhaps more, segments of the population. The nature of these differences justifies, as it seems to me, some other conclusion, which may or may not have anything to do with Aryans and nonAryans. The magical, or magico-religious, nature of Vedic thought, as it expresses itself primarily in the Brahmanas and Upanişads, has often been commented upon. One might be tempted to think that this way of thinking is characteristic of early human societies, that we find it in the Veda because the Veda is very old. The evidence discussed in this paper suggests something different. It suggests that, at least in late-Vedic times, there were other segments of society where this kind of thought was not at all prevalent. The so-called magical, or magico-religious, way of thinking of the Vedic segments of society may therefore have been consciously cultivated, not be cause people didn't know how to think otherwise, but because they believe that only this way of thinking enabled them to enter into contact with the true nature of things, with mythological reality which is hidden behind ordinary reality. The late-Vedic Indians, seen this way, were in contact with others who did not think like them. They distinguished themselves from those others
MKNAWL
PAL
OAW pa. PEFEO PICI SAWW
SHI Suppl. WI
Publications de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, Paris Publications de l'Institut de Civilisation Indienne, Paris Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Phil.-hist. KI, Wien Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik Supplement Word Index to the Prasastapadabhasya: a complete word index to the printed editions of the Prasastapadabhasya, by Johannes Bronkhorst & Yves Ramseier, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1994 Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Sudasiens, Wien Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Sud- und Ostasien, Wien Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Wien Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Leipzig, later Wiesbaden
WZKS WZKSO WZKM ZDMG
42. If one accepts, with SERGENT (1997: 355 ff.). that the similarities between Greek
medicine and Ayurveda must be explained by assuming that they both go back to IndoEuropean roots, one is almost obliged to think that the non-Vedic traditions identified in this paper have Aryan roots. However, these similarities we explained by others as due to early contacts between the two cultures, so PILLIOZAT 1949: 161 ff: ZIMMERMANN 1989: 177 fr.