Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c6.50

c6.50

Epic and Purāṇic tradition unanimously and repeatedly declares that the Veda was ‘arranged’ by the great rishi, Parāśara’s son Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana, who was consequently renowned by the name Vyāsa.² Yet Vedic literature is remarkably reticent about him, for the Vedic Index mentions no such Kṛṣṇa, no Dvaipāyana, and the only Vyāsa noticed is Vyāsa Pārāśarya, and all it says about him is that this ‘is the name of a mythical sage who in the Vedic period is found only as a pupil of Viṣvaksena in the Vamśa (list of teachers) at the end of the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa and in the late Taittirīya Āraṇyaka.’³ The Mahābhārata and Purāṇas are full of Vyāsa and habitually refer to him as ‘Vyāsa’, and it is incredible that all they say about him is pure fiction. It is beyond doubt that the Vedic literature has deliberately ignored him; there is a conspiracy of silence in it both about the compilation of the Rigveda and about the pre-eminent rishi who is declared to have ‘arranged’ it. The reason is patent. The brahmans put forward the doctrine that the Veda existed from everlasting, hence to admit that any one had compiled or even arranged it struck at the root of their doctrine and was in common parlance, ‘to give their whole case away.’