Ancient Sanskrit Online Series Introduction
Karen Thomson and Jonathan Slocum
Karen Thomson and Jonathan Slocum
By Ancient Sanskrit we mean the oldest known form of Sanskrit. The simple name 'Sanskrit' generally refers to Classical Sanskrit, which is a later, fixed form that follows rules laid down by a grammarian around 400 BC. Like Latin in the Middle Ages, Classical Sanskrit was a scholarly lingua franca which had to be studied and mastered. Ancient Sanskrit was very different. It was a natural, vernacular language, and has come down to us in a remarkable and extensive body of poetry.
Note: this page is for systems/browsers with Unicode® support and fonts spanning the Unicode 3 character set relevant to (Romanized) Sanskrit. Versions of this page rendered in alternate character sets are available via links (Romanized and Unicode 2) in the left margin, and at the bottom of this page. 1. The earliest Indo-European poems.
The earliest surviving anthology of poems in any of the Indo-European languages is in Ancient Sanskrit. Composed long before Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, it consists of over a thousand songs of considerable merit celebrating the riches of nature, whose forces are frequently deified. The relationship that the poets describe with their environment is a sophisticated one. Their hymns serve as talismans, ensuring that the natural world will continue to provide welfare and shelter for man. The power of poetry and song is their primary theme. They indeed were comrades of the gods,
Possessed of Truth, the poets of old:
The fathers found the hidden light
And with true prayer brought forth the dawn. (VII, 76, 4) The circumstances of the original composition of these poems remain unknown. Believed to be of divine origin, this large body of material, in an archaic and unfamiliar language, was handed down orally, from generation to generation, by priests in ancient India. The highly metrical form of the poems, together with their incomprehensibility, made them ideally suited to ritual recitation by a religious elite. Faithfully preserved through the centuries as a sacred mystery, the text has come down to us in a state of considerable accuracy.
Note: this page is for systems/browsers with Unicode® support and fonts spanning the Unicode 3 character set relevant to (Romanized) Sanskrit. Versions of this page rendered in alternate character sets are available via links (Romanized and Unicode 2) in the left margin, and at the bottom of this page. 1. The earliest Indo-European poems.
The earliest surviving anthology of poems in any of the Indo-European languages is in Ancient Sanskrit. Composed long before Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, it consists of over a thousand songs of considerable merit celebrating the riches of nature, whose forces are frequently deified. The relationship that the poets describe with their environment is a sophisticated one. Their hymns serve as talismans, ensuring that the natural world will continue to provide welfare and shelter for man. The power of poetry and song is their primary theme. They indeed were comrades of the gods,
Possessed of Truth, the poets of old:
The fathers found the hidden light
And with true prayer brought forth the dawn. (VII, 76, 4) The circumstances of the original composition of these poems remain unknown. Believed to be of divine origin, this large body of material, in an archaic and unfamiliar language, was handed down orally, from generation to generation, by priests in ancient India. The highly metrical form of the poems, together with their incomprehensibility, made them ideally suited to ritual recitation by a religious elite. Faithfully preserved through the centuries as a sacred mystery, the text has come down to us in a state of considerable accuracy.
2. 'The Veda'.
Over time a body of dependent and scholastic material grew up around the poems, known loosely as 'the Veda'. Perhaps around 1000 BC (all dating in prehistoric India is only approximate), editors gathered the ancient poems together and arranged them, together with some more modern material, into ten books according to rules that were largely artificial (see section 4 below). They gave the collection the name by which it continues to be known, 'Rig-veda', or 'praise-knowledge'. Other collections came into being, based on this sacred material, and they were given parallel names. The editors of the 'Sāma-veda' arranged the poems differently, for the purpose of chanting, and introduced numerous alternative readings to the text. The sacrificial formulae used by the priests during their recitations, together with descriptions of their ritual practices, were incorporated into collections to which the general name 'Yajur-veda' was given. Later still, a body of popular spells was combined with passages from the Rigveda, again with variant readings, and was given the name 'Atharva-veda'. A continuously-growing mass of prose commentary, called the Brāhmanas, also came into being, devoted to the attempt to explain the meaning of the ancient poems. To the later Brāhmanas belongs the profusion of texts known as the Upanishads, which are of particular interest to Indologists, as Sanskrit scholars today often describe themselves, because of their important role in the development of early Indian religious thought.
Over time a body of dependent and scholastic material grew up around the poems, known loosely as 'the Veda'. Perhaps around 1000 BC (all dating in prehistoric India is only approximate), editors gathered the ancient poems together and arranged them, together with some more modern material, into ten books according to rules that were largely artificial (see section 4 below). They gave the collection the name by which it continues to be known, 'Rig-veda', or 'praise-knowledge'. Other collections came into being, based on this sacred material, and they were given parallel names. The editors of the 'Sāma-veda' arranged the poems differently, for the purpose of chanting, and introduced numerous alternative readings to the text. The sacrificial formulae used by the priests during their recitations, together with descriptions of their ritual practices, were incorporated into collections to which the general name 'Yajur-veda' was given. Later still, a body of popular spells was combined with passages from the Rigveda, again with variant readings, and was given the name 'Atharva-veda'. A continuously-growing mass of prose commentary, called the Brāhmanas, also came into being, devoted to the attempt to explain the meaning of the ancient poems. To the later Brāhmanas belongs the profusion of texts known as the Upanishads, which are of particular interest to Indologists, as Sanskrit scholars today often describe themselves, because of their important role in the development of early Indian religious thought.
2.1. The continuing influence of 'the Veda'.
This vast body of derivative material remains the subject of extensive study by Indologists. However, from the point of view of understanding the earliest Sanskrit text -- the Rigveda itself -- it has always been, and continues to be, crucially misleading.
Because the poems were put to ritual use by the ancient priests, much of their vocabulary was assumed by the authors of the later texts to refer in some way to ritual activity. The word paśú 'beast, cattle' came to designate a sacrificial victim in texts of the Brāhmanas, for example, and juhū́ 'tongue' was thought to mean 'butter ladle'. Abstract words of sophisticated meaning particularly suffered. The compound puro-ḷā́ś 'fore-worship' (from purás 'in front' and √dāś 'worship') acquired the specific sense 'sacrificial rice cake', despite the fact that the word vrīhí 'rice', found in later texts, does not occur in the poems of the Rigveda. The complex noun krátu 'power, intellectual ability', discussed in the introduction to Lesson 7, was misunderstood to mean 'sacrifice' by the authors of the commentaries. Similarly, a number of important verbs of abstract meaning were thought by the editors of the Sāmaveda to be related solely to the production of milk, and to refer to cows (see section 50 of Lesson 10). Indology has always used the word 'Vedic', 'of the Veda', to describe pre-Classical Sanskrit, and the poems to which the name 'Rig-veda' had been given are studied in the context of 'the Veda'. Many ancient mistranslations continue to be maintained with unshakeable conviction by Vedic scholars. With major pieces of the jigsaw firmly in the wrong place, the rest, inevitably, refuses to fit, and the comparison of passages in the attempt to establish word meanings appears to be a fruitless exercise. Indology has concluded that the Rigveda is not only uninteresting, "describing fussy and technical ritual procedures" (Stephanie Jamison On translating the Rig Veda: Three Questions, 1999, p. 3), but that it is also intentionally indecipherable. "One feels that the hymns themselves are mischievous translations into a 'foreign' language" (Wendy O'Flaherty The Rig Veda. An Anthology, Penguin, 1981, p. 16). Stephanie Jamison vividly portrays the frustrations inherent in the indological approach for a conscientious scholar. "The more I read the Rig Veda, the harder it becomes for me -- and much of the difficulty arises from taking seriously the aberrancies and deviations in the language" (op. cit. p. 9). Viewed through the eyes of Vedic scholars, this most ancient of Sanskrit texts is by turns tedious, and unintelligible: "One can be blissfully reading the most banal hymn, whose form and message offers no surprises -- and suddenly trip over a verse, to which one's only response can be 'What??!!'" (Jamison, op. cit. p. 10). The sophistication of the earliest Indo-European poetry lies buried beneath a mass of inherited misunderstandings that overlay the text like later strata at an archaeological site. Not surprisingly, few Sanskrit scholars today are interested in studying the Rigveda...
This vast body of derivative material remains the subject of extensive study by Indologists. However, from the point of view of understanding the earliest Sanskrit text -- the Rigveda itself -- it has always been, and continues to be, crucially misleading.
Because the poems were put to ritual use by the ancient priests, much of their vocabulary was assumed by the authors of the later texts to refer in some way to ritual activity. The word paśú 'beast, cattle' came to designate a sacrificial victim in texts of the Brāhmanas, for example, and juhū́ 'tongue' was thought to mean 'butter ladle'. Abstract words of sophisticated meaning particularly suffered. The compound puro-ḷā́ś 'fore-worship' (from purás 'in front' and √dāś 'worship') acquired the specific sense 'sacrificial rice cake', despite the fact that the word vrīhí 'rice', found in later texts, does not occur in the poems of the Rigveda. The complex noun krátu 'power, intellectual ability', discussed in the introduction to Lesson 7, was misunderstood to mean 'sacrifice' by the authors of the commentaries. Similarly, a number of important verbs of abstract meaning were thought by the editors of the Sāmaveda to be related solely to the production of milk, and to refer to cows (see section 50 of Lesson 10). Indology has always used the word 'Vedic', 'of the Veda', to describe pre-Classical Sanskrit, and the poems to which the name 'Rig-veda' had been given are studied in the context of 'the Veda'. Many ancient mistranslations continue to be maintained with unshakeable conviction by Vedic scholars. With major pieces of the jigsaw firmly in the wrong place, the rest, inevitably, refuses to fit, and the comparison of passages in the attempt to establish word meanings appears to be a fruitless exercise. Indology has concluded that the Rigveda is not only uninteresting, "describing fussy and technical ritual procedures" (Stephanie Jamison On translating the Rig Veda: Three Questions, 1999, p. 3), but that it is also intentionally indecipherable. "One feels that the hymns themselves are mischievous translations into a 'foreign' language" (Wendy O'Flaherty The Rig Veda. An Anthology, Penguin, 1981, p. 16). Stephanie Jamison vividly portrays the frustrations inherent in the indological approach for a conscientious scholar. "The more I read the Rig Veda, the harder it becomes for me -- and much of the difficulty arises from taking seriously the aberrancies and deviations in the language" (op. cit. p. 9). Viewed through the eyes of Vedic scholars, this most ancient of Sanskrit texts is by turns tedious, and unintelligible: "One can be blissfully reading the most banal hymn, whose form and message offers no surprises -- and suddenly trip over a verse, to which one's only response can be 'What??!!'" (Jamison, op. cit. p. 10). The sophistication of the earliest Indo-European poetry lies buried beneath a mass of inherited misunderstandings that overlay the text like later strata at an archaeological site. Not surprisingly, few Sanskrit scholars today are interested in studying the Rigveda...
10. Ancient Sanskrit Lessons
Note: there are great disparities in capability among personal computers in contemporary use. Unfortunately, support for Unicode® and/or the repertoire of fonts installed on your personal computer cannot be detected by a web server! Accordingly, we have prepared multiple versions of each lesson; this set of lessons is for systems/browsers with Unicode support and fonts spanning the Unicode 3 character set relevant to (Romanized) Sanskrit. (You may switch to other versions via links below.) Lessons:
Rigveda I, 98
Rigveda IV, 53, 1-6
Rigveda III, 33, 4-8
Rigveda VII, 81
Rigveda VIII, 18, 4-12
Rigveda VI, 21, 2-6
Rigveda X, 37, 5-10
Rigveda V, 42, 13-18
Rigveda II, 42 and X, 58
Rigveda VIII, 27, 10-20
Appendix 1: Sandhi
Appendix 2: Index of examples
Options:
Show full Table of Contents with Grammar Points index
Open a Master Glossary window for these Rigvedic Sanskrit texts
Open a Base Form Dictionary window for these Rigvedic Sanskrit texts
Open an English Meaning Index window for these Rigvedic Sanskrit texts
Switch to Unicode 2.0 character set (Roman letters with combining diacritics), or
switch to non-Unicode character set (Roman letters with few diacritics).
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Last Updated: Thursday, 15 Feb. 2007, 11:48 Linguistics Research Center in The College of Liberal Arts at UT AustinInformation on Copyright Privacy Accessibility Send comments
Note: there are great disparities in capability among personal computers in contemporary use. Unfortunately, support for Unicode® and/or the repertoire of fonts installed on your personal computer cannot be detected by a web server! Accordingly, we have prepared multiple versions of each lesson; this set of lessons is for systems/browsers with Unicode support and fonts spanning the Unicode 3 character set relevant to (Romanized) Sanskrit. (You may switch to other versions via links below.) Lessons:
Rigveda I, 98
Rigveda IV, 53, 1-6
Rigveda III, 33, 4-8
Rigveda VII, 81
Rigveda VIII, 18, 4-12
Rigveda VI, 21, 2-6
Rigveda X, 37, 5-10
Rigveda V, 42, 13-18
Rigveda II, 42 and X, 58
Rigveda VIII, 27, 10-20
Appendix 1: Sandhi
Appendix 2: Index of examples
Options:
Show full Table of Contents with Grammar Points index
Open a Master Glossary window for these Rigvedic Sanskrit texts
Open a Base Form Dictionary window for these Rigvedic Sanskrit texts
Open an English Meaning Index window for these Rigvedic Sanskrit texts
Switch to Unicode 2.0 character set (Roman letters with combining diacritics), or
switch to non-Unicode character set (Roman letters with few diacritics).
NS6 and IE5PC do not stretch the frame div down to encompass the content DIVs
Last Updated: Thursday, 15 Feb. 2007, 11:48 Linguistics Research Center in The College of Liberal Arts at UT AustinInformation on Copyright Privacy Accessibility Send comments
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