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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s1: The Categories and Chronology of Vedic Literature

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s1

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English

The Categories and Chronology of Vedic Literature

c9.s1.1

Important literary documents of Vedic ideology are four-fold: the *Rig*, the *Sāma*, the *Yajus* and the *Atharva Samhitās* or collections. The question cannot be taken to have been finally closed as to whether these four Vedic *Samhitās* represent any chronological sequence or only four different principles of classification or indexing. One should be justified in holding that the *Sāma* *Veda* which = *Rig Veda* for the purposes of chanting cannot be taken to belong to a later period of time than the *Rig Veda*. The recital of hymns and the chanting of the hymns must have constituted one institutional complex and therefore belonged to the same age. Similarly there is no sense in believing that the ritualistic material of the *Yajurveda* which is nothing but formulæ for the priests in connection with the hymns and chants of the sacrifice could have originated separately from or later than either the recital or the principles of chanting. The materials of the three Vedas constitute one organic whole, being but three aspects of one and the same socio-cultural *Gestalt* or form-complex. The synchronism of the three collections or *Samhitās* may be taken therefore to be an ideological, nay, a factual necessity.

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The hymns of the *Sāma Veda* are not however to be taken as direct' reproductions from those of the *Rig Veda*. The *Sāma Veda* has strung each one of its hymns together by taking verses out of the *Rig Veda* from here and there and everywhere. The *Sāma Veda*, besides, does not cover the entire ground of the *Rig Veda*.

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As for the *Atharva Veda* it seems to be a specialized collection of certain items and incidents in the "folk lore" of the age of which the "culture lore" was collected in the three other *Samhitās*. One can easily understand that the *Rik Samhitā* wanted to bring together the *Riks* (hymns) exclusively. This is why the charms, incantations, medical recipes, the manners and customs of the people etc., did not happen to find a place there. It is in these aspects of Vedic life that the *Atharva Samhitā* specialized. But simply because one specialization led to the collection of the *Riks* and the other to that of spells and incantations etc. we cannot be automatically forced to believe that the world of *Ṛiks* had nothing to do with the other items of life. Normally speaking, we should hold that the material of the *Atharva Veda* is as old as that of the *Rig Veda*. Oldest Vedic life comprised the experiences embodied in both these collections.

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Nay, one may take the *Rig Veda*, as does the French Indologist, Barth, to be younger than the *Atharva Veda*.¹ Only a part of the faiths of the period is opened up by the *Rig Veda*. The authors of the *Ṛiks* or rather their compilers have overlooked or ignored many of the institutions such as are to be found, for instance, in the *Atharva Veda*.

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¹ De la Vallée Poussin : *Indo-Européens et Indo-iraniens* (Paris 1924), p. 252.

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There is another problem to attack. Each of these four collections or *Samhitās* is incomplete as literature without certain appendages. These appendages are known as *Brāhmaṇas*. The *Brāhmaṇas*, again, are incomplete without the *Āraṇyakas*, and these last again are incomplete without the *Upaniṣads*. Logically, therefore, we should expect the four items, the *Samhitā* of a *Veda*, the *Brāhmaṇa* of the *Samhitā*, the *Āraṇyaka* of the *Brāhmaṇa*, and the *Upaniṣad* of the *Āraṇyaka* to go together, and constitute one complex. Naturally, therefore, the *Upaniṣad* may be taken to be as old as the *Veda*. It is almost senseless to believe that during certain periods people took interest only in the *Samhitā*, that afterwards they began to take interest in the *Brāhmaṇas*, that later they cultivated the *Āraṇyakas*, and that several hundred years after the compilation of the *Samhitā* people composed or compiled the *Upaniṣads*. From the standpoint of social experience a process of successive emergence of new classes of literature within the orbit of the same *Samhitā* would have hardly any meaning. Sociologically, we should rather be prepared for the circumstance that the *Upaniṣads* were being composed or compiled while the *Samhitās* were being brought together. The process was perhaps that of *pari passu* collection rather than of chronological sequence.

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The chief documents of Vedic literature may now be indicated as follows :

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| *Samhitās* | *Brāhmaṇas* | *Āraṇyakas* | *Upaniṣads* |
| *I. Rig Veda* | *1. Aitareya* | *Aitareya* | *Aitareya* |
| | *2. Kausitakī, or Sāmkhyāyana* | *Kausītakī* | *Kausītakī* |
| *II. Sāma Veda* | *1. Panchavimśa* | X | *Chhāndogya* |
| *= Rig Veda for chanting purposes* | *2. Jaiminīya* | *Jaiminīya* | *Kena* |
| *III. Yajur Veda* | | | |
| *(a) Black* | | | |
| *1. Taittirīya* | *Taittirīya* | *Taittirīya* | *Taittirīya* |
| *2. Kaṭhaka* | | | |
| *3. Maitrāyaṇī* | | | |
| *4. Kapiṣṭhala* | | | |
| *(b) White : Vājsaneyī* | *Śatapatha* | X | *Brihadāraṇyaka* |
| *IV. Atharva Veda* | *Gopatha* | X | X |

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But the problems of chronology cannot be dismissed or dealt with in a naïve manner simply because of logical or sociological necessity. The fact remains that we are dealing with long periods and extensive regions.

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To a certain extent the problems of Hellenic culture from the earliest pre-Homeric and Homeric times down to Lycurgus of Sparta (c 650 B.C.) and Solon of Athens (c 550 B.C.) may be taken as parallel to those of Vedic and pre-Vedic culture down to Bimbisāra, Mahāvīra and Sākyasimha (c 550 B.C.). The subsequent periods in Greece and India for about two centuries were likewise more or less similar both in form and content. The Socratic, post-Socratic, and Sophistic speculations down to Aristotle and Alexander (c 300 B.C.) might be easily treated as synchronous with the Upaniṣadic and post-Sākyan or "Buddhist" and other speculations of the Hindus down to Kauṭalya and Chandragupta Maurya (c 300 B.C.).

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The regional and racial factors of the Vedic culture-complex are essentially similar, although on a much larger scale, to those of the Homeric. The theatre of the Homeric culture-complex is furnished by such heterogeneous elements as Asia Minor, the islands and the mainland of Greece. And in the problems of chronology also Vedic India does not present a special case. These considerations might suggest relatively modest conjectures as to the antiquity of the most ancient strata of the Vedic texts. We have to fix our attention on the fact that Hesiod is generally assigned the ninth century B. C. and that Homer is not placed anywhere previous to the middle of the eleventh century B.C.

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Until the researches in the Mohenjo Daro fields compel the archæologists to push back the epochs of Vedic India in point of time it may not be reasonable, therefore, to think of the oldest Vedic texts as older than 1200-1000 B.C.

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Vedic literature may be conveniently although somewhat arbitrarily taken to be a literature of nearly a thousand years from, say, 1500-1200 B.C. i.e. the epoch of the Bharatas, the Tritsus and the Yadus etc., to the beginnings of Jainism and Buddhism, say, c. 600 B.C.² i.e. to the powerful kingdoms of Kāsī, Kośala, Magadha, and so forth. This is an extensive period and the literature indicates the rise and fall of myriads of races or tribes as well as the gradual submission of virtually the whole of Northern India to Vedic institutions and ideas.

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² *Supra*, pp. 62-65; N. C. Bandyopadhyaya: *Development of Hindu Polity and Political Theories* Part I. (Calcutta 1927), pp. 66-73, 129-152.

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In regard to the region and epoch of origin, each and every hymn, *sūkta*, rite, ruling, ceremony, incantation, magic and what not will have to be treated on its own merits. A generically Vedic culture can hardly be a sociologically scientific category. It presents a sub-continental *Gestalt* of multi-racial morphology and diverse socio-regional ecologies.

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Although the question is anything but clear, Vedic chronology can for certain purposes be tentatively taken to be as follows³ :

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³ *The Cambridge History of India* Vol. I. (1922), pp. 112-113, 147-149. Although the dates are being adapted from Keith's two papers in this *History* the interpretation of the Vedic complex as presented' here is fundamentally different from his (cf. pp. 114-116).

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| 1. | *Rig Veda Samhitā* | : | c 1200 B.C.—1000 |
| 2. | *Other Samhitās* | : | 1000 B.C.—800 |

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| 3. | *Brāhmaṇas* | : | 800—600 B.C. |
| 4. | *Upaniṣads* | : | 600—400 B.C. |
| 5. | *Sūtras* (i. *Srauta*, ii. *Gṛihya*, iii. *Dharma*) | : | 400—200 B.C. |

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While it is extremely difficult to avoid using the term Vedic in a generic manner as covering practically everything from the *Samhitā* to the *Upaniṣad* and the *Sūtra* it should be proper always to mark out the precise text and let it speak for itself. One word, "Vedic", must not be permitted to cover the most varied transformations or revolutions, racial and social, institutional as well as ideological, that took place in Northern India during nearly one thousand years from Sudāsa to Bimbisāra.

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