History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c81.9

v6.c81.9

Prof. Apte complains that scholars were content as to *vrata* with the meanings 'law, statute, command, sacrifice, vow, fixed purpose, duty' and did not take enough notice of the important part that the sense of 'route or circular path' plays in the Ṛgveda. He opines that the divine vratas often mentioned in the Ṛgveda rather mean 'the heavenly routes, the divine rounds, the periodical movements round the sky closely adhered to by the gods themselves' rather than 'holy laws' laid down by a particular deity. Adopting a suggestion of Tilak in 'Orion' (p. 154) that the path of ṛta sometimes mentioned in the Ṛgveda is the broad belt of the Zodiac which the luminaries never transgress, Prof. Apte sets out to prove that the word 'ṛta' in the Ṛgveda primarily means the belt of the Zodiac (vide his paper in the Silver Jubilee volume of the Annals of the B O. R. I., pp 55–56). This theory has failed to appeal to eminent Vedic scholars In my humble way I endeavoured to show in the 4th vol of the H. of Dh. (pp 2–5) that 'ṛta' has three senses in the Ṛgveda, one of which is 'the course of nature or the regular general order in the cosmos'. "The path by which the group of Ādityas reaches ṛta' in Ṛg. I. 41. 4³ or the statement in Ṛg I. 164. 11 'the wheel of ṛta, that has twelve spokes (12 constellations or months), continually goes round the sky without being worn out' are only illustrations of the first meaning of ṛta But this meaning of ṛta by itself sheds hardly any light on the meaning of vrata Ṛta and vrata are not synonyms and it is difficult to see how, conceding for argument that 'ṛta' is the belt of the Zodiac, vrata means, as Prof. Apte obviously thinks, the same thing. Ṛta is an Indo-European word but so far as I know 'vrata' is not even shown to be Indo- Iranian, much less Indo-European.