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Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c6.s2.t1: A. — Brahmanical literature

Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c6.s2.t1

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A. — Brahmanical literature

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² B.IS. III², 5 f.; M.M.HASL. 497 ff.; L.IA.², 1, 1008 ff.; B.ESIP. 1 ff.; WEBER, Ind. Streifen 3, 348 f.

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Among Vedic works, the Vāsiṣṭha Dharmasūtra, which according to Kumārila (about A. D. 750) originally belonged to a school of the Ṛgveda, and which is younger than the lost Mānava Dharmasūtra but older than the existing Manusaṃhitā,³ offers clear evidence for the widely spread use of writing during the "Vedic" period. Vasiṣṭha in XVI, 10, 14—15, mentions written documents as legal evidence, and the first of these sūtras is a quotation from an older work or from the traditional lore. Further, Pāṇini's grammar, which belongs to the Vedāṅgas, contains, besides the term *yavanānī* mentioned above, the compounds *lipikara* and *libikara*, "writer" (III, 2, 21), which sometimes have been rendered errroneously, against the authority of the Koṣas, by "maker of inscriptions."⁴ In addition to these few certain passages, the later Vedic works contain some technical terms, such as *akṣara*, *kāṇḍa*, *paṭala*, *grantha*, &c., which some scholars have quoted as evidence for writing. But others have explained them differently, and it is indeed not necessary to consider them as referring to written letters and MSS.⁵ Similarly, opinions are much divided with respect to the force of some other general arguments for the early use of written documents and MSS., drawn from the advanced state of Vedic civilisation, especially from the high development of trade and the complicated monetary transactions mentioned in Vedic works, from the use of prose in the Brāhmaṇas from the collection, the methodical arrangement, the numeration, and the analysis of the Vedic texts, and from the grammatical, phonetic, and lexicographic researches in the Vedāṅgas.⁶ Though some of these points, especially the first and the last, undeniably possess considerable weight, they have yet not gained general recognition, as will always happen if an *argumentum ex impossibili* is used, even if it should be supported by fuller special enquiries than Sanskrit scholars have hitherto devoted to these subjects.

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³ SBE. 14, XVII ff.

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⁴ M.M.ṚV.², 4, LXXII.

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⁵ M.M.HASL. 521 ff.; GOLDSTÜCKER, Mānava Kalpasūtra, Intr. 14 ff.; W.IS. 5, 16 ff.; M.M.ṚV.², 4, LXXII ff.

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⁶ WHITNEY, Or. and Ling. St. 82; J.AOS. 6, 563; BENFEY, ZDMG. 11, 347; BÖHTLINGK, Bull. Pet. Akad. 1859. 347: PISCHEL and GELDNER, Vedische Studien, 1, XXIII, XXVI; J. DAHLMANN, Das Mahābh. 185; against these views, M.M.ṚV.², 4, loc. cit.; Letter in Takakusu's transl. of Itsing, X ff.; W.IS. 5, loc. cit.

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While this kind of evidence will probably not be generally accepted very soon, it is to be hoped that the *argumentum ex silentio*, — the inference that a Vedic work which does not mention writing must have been composed when writing was unknown in India, — will be dropped. The *argumentum ex silentio* is certainly not conclusive, because the Hindus even at present, in spite of a long continued use of writing, esteem the written word less than the spoken one, because they base their whole literary and scientific intercourse on oral communications, and because, especially in scientific [4] works, writing and MSS. are mentioned very rarely. Though MSS., being *Sarasvatīmukha*, "the face of the goddess of speech," are held sacred and are worshipped, the Veda and the Sāstras exist, even for the modern Hindu, only in the mouth of the teacher, whose word has more weight than a written text, and they can only be learned properly from a teacher, not from MSS. Even in our days, the Hindus esteem only the *mukhasthā vidyā*, the learning which the Pandit has imprinted on his memory. Even in our days, learned discussions are carried on with reference to living speech, and even the modern poets do not wish to be read, but hope that their verses will become "ornaments for the throats of the learned" (*satāṃ kaṇṭhabhūṣaṇa*). As far as our observation reaches, this state of things has been always the same since the earliest times. Its ultimate cause probably is that the beginning of the Hindu Sāstras and poetry goes back to a time when writing was unknown, and that a system of oral teaching, already traceable in the Ṛgveda, was fully developed before the introduction of written characters. The reasons just stated do not permit us to expect many traces of the use of writing in the works of the schools of priests or Pandits, or to look in them for frequent references to letters and written documents. But, on the other hand, there is nothing to bar the conjecture, repeatedly put forward, that, even during the Vedic period, MSS. were used as auxiliaries both in oral instruction and on other occasions. And, as an argument in favour of this conjecture, it is now possible to adduce the indisputable fact that the Brāhmī alphabet has been formed by phonologists or by grammarians and for scientific use.¹

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¹ See below, page 17.

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But such Brahmanical works as the Epics, Purāṇas, Kāvyaṣ, dramas, &c., which describe actual life, or the metrical law-books which fully teach not only the sacred but also the civil and criminal law, as well as compositions such as the Nīti-, Nāṭya-, and Kāma-śāstras which exclusively refer to worldly matters, contain numerous references to writing and to written documents of various kinds, and likewise evidence for the occurrence of MSS. of literary works. Unfortunately, however, it is not possible to assert of any of the existing books of these classes, — excepting the two Epics, — that they are older than the period to which the oldest inscriptions belong. And even the evidence of the Epics may be impugned, since we cannot prove that every word of their texts goes back to a high antiquity. Professor JACOBI's examination of the several recensions of the Rāmāyaṇa has shown that the greater part of the verses, now read, did not belong to the original poem.² As far as is known at present, the MSS. of the Mahābhārata do not show equally great variations. But the existence of the majority of its chapters can be proved only for the eleventh century A. D.³ Though the testimony of the Epics can, therefore, only be used with due reserve, yet it is undeniable that their terms regarding writing and writers are archaic. Like the canonical works of the Southern Buddhists,⁴ they use the ancient expressions *likh*, *lekha*, *lekhaka*, and *lekhana*, not the probably foreign word *lipi*.

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² JACOBI, Das Rām. 3 ff.

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³ KIRSTE in B. IS. II, 27 ff.

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⁴ See below, under B.

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The most important passages of the Epics, concerning writing, have been collected in the St. Petersburg Dictionary under the words mentioned, and by J. DAHLMANN, Das Mahābhārata, 185 ff. Regarding the passages on writing in Manu, see the Index in Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXV, under "Documents," and for the legal documents, described in the later Smṛtis, see Vol. II. of this Encyclopedia, Part 8, Recht und Sitte, § 35. An interesting collection of statements regarding MSS. in the Purāṇas is found in Hemādri's Dānakhaṇḍa, Adhy. 7, p. 544 ff. (Bibl. Ind.). The Kāmasūtra I, 3 (p. 33, Durgāprasād) enumerates *pustakavācana*, "the reading of MSS.," among the 64 kalās.

Cites (7)