A Vedic Concordance c4.s3: Secondary Uses of the Concordance
A Vedic Concordance c4.s3
- Language
- English
Secondary Uses of the Concordance
c4.s3.1
1. It is a key to the liturgical employment of the mantras.—The above-mentioned uses are plainly the direct or primary ones for which a work like this is expected to serve. The nature of the subsidiary Vedic literature (Brāhmaṇas, Sūtras, etc.), however, and its intimate relation to the fundamental texts, are such that the Concordance may also be readily put to certain indirect or secondary uses, which are scarcely less important for the systematic progress of Vedic study. First, since the Concordance gives not only the places of actual occurrence of a given mantra in the Saṃhitās, but also the places where it is cited in the subsidiary works on ritual and household custom and the like, it furnishes the key to the liturgical or ritual employment of every mantra as prescribed by the ceremonial books. I hope that the Concordance will prove to be a most effective means of advancing our knowledge of the hymns and the ceremonies in their relations to one another. The hymn or prayer, and the ceremony that accompanied it, often serve mutually each as a commentary on the other. The subtle blend of song and rite makes a full knowledge of both necessary for the understanding of either.
c4.s3.2
2. It is virtually a finding-index of rites and practices.—As a corollary to the use just mentioned, I may add that, since a given prayer is liable to be rubricated in similar or identical rites and practices described in the large mass of Hindu ritual texts, the Concordance will incidentally serve, to no inconsiderable extent, as a helpful finding-index of similar or identical rites and practices.
c4.s3.3
3. It is a tool for future editors of Vedic texts.—
c4.s3.4
The future editor of a Vedic text will find in a complete assemblage of all the mantras an auxiliary of the very first importance. In the work of constituting a Vedic text, the mantras are the most intractable part of the material concerned, because they are written in a dialect which—differing, as it does, considerably from the later forms of Sanskrit—was imperfectly understood by the scribes. Since much of the material of this kind with which the future editor will have to deal is quite certain, as experience shows, to be contained in the literature previously published, it is obvious that the Concordance will greatly facilitate the establishment of the new texts and the revision of some that have already been edited. Moreover, since, as has been already said, parallel prayers are to a large extent imbedded in parallel ceremonies, the Concordance will not be without value in establishing the text of the liturgical books themselves.
c4.s3.5
4. It is a repertory of the most archaic Hindu prose.—The Concordance presents, for the first time and in a form ready and convenient for systematic study, the prose mantras as distinguished from the metrical mantras of the Vedic hymns on the one hand, and from the rest of the early prose on the other. It seems to me that these prose formulas are in a dialect or in a style that differs not a little from the narrative or descriptive prose of the Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras. The formulas abound, at any rate, in poetic or other archaisms that deserve to be collected and treated by themselves. There is also good reason to believe that the prose of the formulas is the oldest Hindu prose and so the oldest Indo-European prose. The study here suggested seems to me likely to prove to be a not unfruitful one.
c4.s3.6
5. Miscellaneous uses.—It can hardly be doubted that the Concordance will be of service in the work of determining the relations of the different Vedic schools or çākhās to one another. I am not sure but that the present time is just as opportune for this interesting and fundamental research as any that is likely to present itself within the next fifty years or so. And there are various other interesting questions that will suggest themselves to different scholars, according to their bent of mind and habits of investigation, for the solution of which the Concordance can not fail to be a useful tool. For example, it may be noted that this Concordance assembles an enormous number of passages beginning with the prohibitive adverb mā, and that even a cursory examination of them reveals the interesting fact that only a very few contain verb-forms other than injunctives or augmentless preterits. Or, again, the extreme frequency of mantras beginning with the name of a divinity has as its consequence that mantras concerning a certain deity are here, to a very large extent, grouped together. For instance, the mantras beginning with the name of Agni fill twenty-eight pages, and those beginning with the name of Indra fill twenty-three. Consequently, in this book will very often be found, most conveniently assembled, much of the material for the study of questions relating to Vedic mythology. Nor must I omit to say that the initial words of the mantras form by themselves a very considerable part of a word-index to the mantras.