The Teetotaller

Not much to say about here, but I’ve setted up XeTeX input maps for transliterated Unicode Tibetan (U+0F00), which could be found here. For usage details please consult the Readme, and test/*.tex. Some improvements coming up, soon, so please watch the Github commits (here) and/or further comments on this post. Enjoy! Free Tibet!

One of the advantages of the Emacs¹ editor is that there are much great extensions available². Among them, one of the true gems is definitely Org-mode (thanks Manuel for pointer!). The developers of Org are proud that their extension actually brought many people to deal with the Emacs, and thereafter to discover its ingenuity. Emacs’ high availability and expandability through Elisp is certainly of its advantages, and it acts like a cross-OS virtual machine for applications which have been putted on this Editor as a platform.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{comment}

\begin{document}
Hello, world!

% BEGIN RECEIVE ORGTBL foo
\begin{tabular}{lllll}
Monday & Tuesday & Wednesday & Thursday & Friday \\
Rain & Rain & Rain & Rain & Rain \\
\end{tabular}
% END RECEIVE ORGTBL foo

\begin{comment}
#+ORGTBL: SEND foo orgtbl-to-latex :splice nil :skip 0
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| Rain   | Rain    | Rain      | Rain     | Rain   |
\end{comment}

\end{document}

import random
out="| %s | %s |"
for x in range(0, 300):
        pair=(random.randrange(1000), random.randrange(1000))
        print out % pair

Here's a Python script prints out a random tabular of integer pairs:

#+srcname: foo
#+begin_src python :results output raw :exports code
  import random
  out="| %s | %s |"
  for x in range(0, 300):
          pair=(random.randrange(1000), random.randrange(1000))
          print out % pair
#+end_src

An here's the resulting graph:

#+begin_src gnuplot :var data=foo :file gnuplot.png :exports results
  reset
  set terminal png size 500,375
  plot data u 1:2 notitle
#+end_src

By the way, here are the preceeding lines of the Org source:[7]

The legacy of the lightweight markup languages is on: Markdown and reStructuredText (reST) documents (I’ve written on both markups before) are highly fit for multi target publishing, the markup is pretty intuitive and extremely easy to read, high class documents (not only for software documentation) could be created with minimal effort, while having all the advantages of simple, source code like, most portable plain text files (applying revision control, using patches for corrections and suggestions, using programming tools like grep and sed, etc.), like with LaTeX. The Emacs Wiki claims about reST: perhaps the smartest smart ASCII yet devised.

Markdown: Basic lightweight-ing with Pandoc

Markdown originated as Perl tool for the convenient writing of HTML pages. If you would like to employ that plain text formatting syntax [1] for you own e-documenting toolchain you are going to come across the excellent markup converter Pandoc [2] (thanks Edgard for pointer!). Next to reST and other markups, Pandoc accepts Markdown and puts out several formats like HTML, LaTeX, Open Document Format (.odt), and EPUB. The wrapper markdown2pdf which is shipped with Pandoc creates PDFs right from the Markdown source with LaTeX, and a processed pandoctest.md results in this PDF here [3]. With Pandoc, another decent way to get a proper typesetted output is of course to save the Open Document Format and to employ e.g. LibreOffice to typeset a PDF out of it (through its PDF export function), like this one here. Please note that the original Markdown syntax lacks things like tables and footnotes, but Pandoc employs an own set of extensions [4].

[1] A complete syntax sheet of the core Markdown (for the extensions sets see [4]) is available on the project page. On the console, there is a manpage pandoc_markdown.

[2] In Tugboat 32,11, there is an article on Markdown with Pandoc by Axel Kielhorn). In Linux User 12 of 2010, there is a German article of Pandoc. On PhilTeX there is a nice post on using Markdown/Pandoc instead of LaTeX.

[3] Alternatively, foo.pdf could be given as output file. Next to pdfTeX, XeTeX could be chosen as LaTeX engine (through the –xetex switch). By the way, pandoc -f markdown -t latex -o pandoctext.tex pandoctest.md puts out only the raw LaTeX body, for a full fledged document the switch -s (standalone) must be given. pandoc -D latex spits out the full LaTeX template (the templates are developed independently, see here).

[4] There are several Markdown expansion sets around – if you would need some of them that certainly has its influence on your tool chain. Pandoc itself employs some Markdown extensions (see the Pandoc extensions), which could be suppressed with the option –strict. Another set of extensions was invented for Multimarkdown (note: the converter itself isn’t yet available for Debian, see here, but the MMD extensions are available through the Perl module Text::Multimarkdown, see here).

reST: Generating classy booklets with Sphinx

reStructuredText [5] originated in Python source code documentation, and so the Docutils suite comes with several self standing markup conversion tools like rst2html, rst2latex, etc. Pandoc – like said – is also capable of working with reST markup. But especially the Python documentation system Sphinx is highly capable of creating high-end electronic documents from reST source [6]. After the Sphinx package has been installed, switch into a random folder and to sphinx-quickstart to create a full Sphinx environment (you can accept the suggested default values throughout, but of course the title and author, and also a revision number have to be given). After that, some files and folders appeared. The file conf.py contains the Options for LaTeX output, which could be modified here. To create a nice booklet from an example.rst (which has been converted from Markdown to reST with Pandoc), that file must be added to index.rst below toctree, and after that a make latexpdf builds a PDF out of it in _build/latex – of course the basic LaTeX packages are needed for that. Sphinx is highly expandable through extensions which makes a pretty versatile document preparation system also beyond Python source documentation.

[5] See the Docutils primer, and the also the more exhaustive specification. Also the Sphinx documentation of course includes a reST primer.

[6] On e-documenting with Sphinx, see sampledoc tutorial from the Matplotlib guys, the article of Sphinx on IBM developer works, and (most sophisticated on documenting Python stuff) Doug Hellmann’s marvelous blog post.

reST: Lightweight markup for ultra productive presentations

Another way to get a PDF from reST source is the converter rst2pdf, which makes use of the ReportLab PDF library for Python [7]. That makes up a lean, very effective e-document solution because it totally saves from running even a basic LaTeX distribution in the background to render the PDFs. Lately I came across a very nice blog post on creating presentations with reST and rst2pdf in an ultra effective manner which is very useful and which certainly beats Beamer and the others in terms of effectiveness – if you can spare things like breaks in lists and you just need simple and robust presentations slides on PDF bases very quickly it looks like there isn’t nothing better [8]. A crucial feature of rst2pdf for this purpose is the use of custom templates resp. themes. For everything, please check out Alexis’ example and the rst2pdf manual.

[7] I’ve written on ReportLab before, see here. Rst2pdf have be announced lately to get proper further developed in the future, see here, which is all right because it’s a very fine piece of software! By the way, rst2pdf could be also employed as engine for Sphinx.

[8] As a matter of fact, Pandoc supports S5 and other browser based slide show formats. Sniffing around for reST stuff I came across the presentation framework Bruce, which makes use of reST and which renders directly to the display, but unfortunately the project looks pretty dead (the pip download fails, latest uploads was and the given copyrights expired 2009, etc.). By the way, another very fine piece of Python based software for presentations is Impressive, the “Chuck Norris of presentation software” – a luxurier for PDF based slides with pure sex-like high-end features (like an expiring time bar which changes its color!) really makes a king of a conference!

Lightweight-ing with the Emacs

Things like lightweight markup-ed plain text files are certainly the domain of the Emacs editor, and there are of course modes available for reST (rst.el, part of python-doctutils), as much as for editing Markdown (markdown-mode.el, part of emacs-goodies.el). These modes put some convenience into editing reST and Markdown. In a random buffer, switch to the rsST mode with M-x rst-mode, and after that, things like syntax highlighting, helpers for decorations (like underline completion), a helper for the table of contents, and many other things are available. But really helpful is Emacs when it comes to tables, which – following the paradigm of classic ASCII tables – are a real pain to write because the whole thing has to be “painted” [9]. But as a matter of fact, the Emacs table mode handles ASCII tables pretty well, like it is explained on the mode’s homepage and in the table.el tutorial on the Emacs Wiki [10].

[9] While within reST, tables are part of the specification (cf. the reST specification), but tables are extensions of Markdown (e.g. cf. Tables in the Pandoc manual).

[10] The table mode is part of a standard current Emacs, but to get it into charge you have to add the line (require ‘table) to /etc/emacs/site-start.el.

Markdown at WordPress

Markdown libraries are available for several programming languages, e.g. for Python, for C there is Sundown, for Ruby there are several ones like Redcarpet and Bluecloth, and for Lua there is a standard library and Lunamark, and finally, also the PHP implementation PHP Markdown. The PHP Markdown library is said to generally work together with WordPress, so I just test drived the latest revision of PHP Markdown Extra (which also employs an own extension set) with a test instance of WordPress 3.3.1: the library markdown.php has to be putted into wp-content/plugins, after that the Plugin Markdown Extra appears and Markdown syntax really becomes available in the HTML editing mode of your blog posts – great!

Karin Steiner, Heidrun Brückner (eds.): Indisches Theater – Text, Theorie, Praxis. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2010 (Drama und Theater in Südasien 8). ISBN 978-3-447-06186-5

In this publication, Heidrun Brückner and Karin Steiner in Würzburg have collected a number of articles, and while most of the contributions are papers which have been presented in the panel Drama und Theater in Indien of the 29th German Congress of Oriental Studies (Deutscher Orientalistentag) 2004 in Halle, articles by Brückner, Leclère and Roland Steiner have also been included in this volume. The articles by Leclère and Tieken are written in English and the others are in German. The book has appeared as number eight in the series Drama und Theater in Südasien edited by Prof. Brückner, and presents a broad spectrum of contemporary research on the texts and performance of the traditional Indian theatre.

In the first article Angelika Malinar (Zurich) deals with the sāttvikāḥ, a group of eight psychophysical reactions of the human body like paralysis (stambha) or sweating (sveda), which have to be in a skilled actor’s repertoire and which are collected together with the constant (sthāyī) and alternating (vyabhicāri) ones to make up a total of 49 bhāvāḥ in the sixth chapter of Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra. Malinar rejects the general interpretation of these acting elements as spontaneous expressions of emotion which are generally deprived from conscious control, which goes back to H.H. Wilson [1]. She first raises the nature of the bhāvāḥ as they – being mostly inadequately translated as “emotions” or “moods” – are able to assume either the role of vibhāva (dramatic situation) or anubhāva (acting device). A sāttvikābhāva like lacrimation (aśrupralaya) for example, is able to express the emotions of a specific dramatic situation, but is also capable of representing smoke. Consequently, it is not justifiable to explain these elements of acting as evoked by the actor through the total internalization of his role, depending on the need, they are also used in dramatic situations which would have a different emotional content. The sattva which determines the group of psychophysical reactions is said in the text to be the product of concentration (samādhi) of the imagination (manas), and Malinar – also taking into consideration the preserved relevant passages of Abhinavagupta’s Bhāratī – comes to the conclusion that in the Nāṭyaśāstra the term sattva refers to the sensitive apparatus of the body which is to be manipulated by the actor through individual imagination in a highly skilled manner.

[1] In the introduction of the Select Specimen (the full reference of the original publication is: Select Speciment of the Theatre of the Hindus. Vol. 1. Calcutta: Asiatic Press 1827): „The Sátwika Bhávas are the involtunary expressions of emotion, natural to a living being“ (p. 46).

Basil Leclère (Lyon) deals with medieval Sanskrit plays from Gujarat and Rajasthan in the period between the 11th and 13th century, such as those by Rāmancandra and Yaśaścandra, and using a very rich compilation of textual evidence for them actually having being staged, the author rejects the virulent notion that after the climax of the Sanskrit theater in the first century AD those plays remained pieces merely for reading or recitation. From the prologues and stage directions in the texts, but also from relevant chronicles like the Prabandhacintāmaṇi and the Prandhakośa, as well as from inscriptions, the author at first puts together passages which express the nature of the plays as being visually performed (1). In the texts there is evidence for stage performance (2), such as instructions for hand gestures and postures (2.1), and there are also references to costumes, makeup and props (2.2). But a large part of this rich contribution takes up the issue of the places of performance (3). The author claims that also in this area of South Asia, not only the premieres of plays did take place in temples (3.1), and presents three theses: “plays were not performed inside any architectural structure but in an open area like a courtyard or a field adjacent to the temple” (p. 42), “that a temporary pavilion was built for once and only once performance, and removed afterwards” (p. 44), and “that a permanent wooden or stone building (or even constructed from these two materials) was built within the temple precincts for staging plays”. In a lengthy passage, the author then follows the question of the meaning of the terms nṛtyamaṇḍapa and raṅgamaṇḍapa as they appear to designate certain halls in the architectural vocabulary of Jaina temples in the prevailing Māru-Gurjara style, and compares his results with the preserved theatre temples in Kerala. It follows a chapter of collected evidence for the staging of plays in palaces (3.2), in streets and other places of open access (3.3). Finally, he considers the occasion for performing plays (4), and from the the fact that these performances were “rituals or festivals in honor of Hindu gods or Jain holy men” (p. 54) Leclère concludes: “thus, it did not matter that Sanskrit was no longer understood by most of the human audience” (p. 59) [2].

[2] The lacking reference for „Dundas 2002“ is: Paul Dundas: The Jains. 2nd edition. London, New York: Routledge 2002 (Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices).

In the third article Hermann Tieken (Leiden) examines the bhaṇitāḥ, being songs ending with the mentioning of their supposed author, and he observes that their apparently somewhat random insertion into plays mostly elicits a jar effect. The author puts the Gorakṣavijaya from the Mithila tradition of the 14th century into the center of the inquiry, being attributed to Vidyāpati solely on the grounds of the extant bhānitāḥ. He compares collections of songs of similar nature, the Padāvalī of the same author, Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda as well as the Old Tamil Caṅkam Kalittokai. Tieken refers to previous contributions in which he showed that the Kalittokai consists of lāsyāḥ – minor dance scenes as defined by the Nāṭyaśāstra – and comes to the conclusion that the bhānitāḥ in the Gorakṣavijaya, as vernacular songs, differ from them as much as from the catuṣpādāḥ, as found for example in Kalidāsa’s Mālavikāgnimitra. Because the bhānitāḥ could not be reconciled even with the dhruvāḥ as songs which are generally not part of the text, Tieken concludes that the Gorakṣavijaya with its bhaṇitāḥ should be considered an innovation at peak of the song genre, which had subsequently affected the Newari tradition, and the development could be summarized as: “drama had become musical” (p. 74).

For the next contribution, Roland Steiner (Marburg and Halle) has collected some philological notes for the Bhavadajjuka/īya, a short comedy (prahasana) from the 6th or 7th century which is transmitted in South India and which is next to the Mattavilāsa of Mahendravarman the oldest representative of this genre [3]. A translation of the text which has been created in Marburg appeared together with its original text in 2006 as affordable paperback, and this philologically high quality publication with its appeal to a broader audience may well be compared to the volumes of the Clay Sanskrit Library [4]. The rich and detailed notes are very useful for a comprehensive examination of the text, which could be improved compared to the previous editions, and the publisher kindly makes the article together with additional corrigenda available as an offprint on its homepage [5]. A great deal could be learned from paragraph 53, with its mentioning of guliā/gulikā as an antidote for snake bite, which is quite interesting for the history of Indian medicine, and Steiner comes to the conclusion that here it doesn’t refer to the so-called “snake stones”.

[3] Towards the ascription of this text to Mahendravikramavarman resp. Bodhāyana, cf. Roland Steiner: Untersuchungen zur Harṣadevas Nāgānanda und zum indischen Schauspiel. Swisttal-Odendorf: Indica et Tibetica Verlag 1997 (Indica et Tibetica 31), p. 255 sq. Steiner comes to the conclusion that the play most probably couldn’t be ascribed to Mahendravikramavarman, even if it isn’t possible to ascribe it to another known author.

[4] Ulrike Roesler, Jayandra und Luitgard Soni, Roland Steiner, Martin Straube: Die Heiligen-Hetäre. Bhagavadajjukam. Eine indische Yoga-Komödie. München: P. Kirchheim 2006.

[5] http://www.kirchheimverlag.de/belletristik/die%20heiligen-hetaere.htm (05/12/2011).

In the next article Katrin Binder (Würzburg) discusses the theoretical foundations of her research on the recent Yakṣagāna dance theatre tradition in Karnataka [6], in which field research and textual research complement each other. After a brief introduction and a survey of the state of research and translations, Binder deals first with the philological approach and the subject here is the so-called prasaṅga (episode). The early examples of these songs ,which are in verse, can be traced back to medieval Kanarese adaptions of the epics. However, Binder explains that it is not possible to penetrate the Yakṣagāna completely on the basis of textual research, because, for example the performances contain elements which are orally transmitted and certain parts are to be improvised. Thus she argues for a method of complementary text-based field research, “Textarbeit alleine misst dem geschriebenen Text zuviel Bedeutung bei, Feldforschung allein zu wenig [textual work alone attaches too much importance to the text, field research alone too little]” (p. 125).

[6] Dr. Binder (formerly Fischer) has written already her Magister thesis on that issue, which has been published: Yakṣagāna: eine Einführung in eine südindische Theatertradition. Mit Übersetzung und Text von „Abhimanyu Kāḷaga“. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz 2004 (Drama und Theater in Südasien 3).

The following articles deal all with the so called “Trivandrum plays”, a corpus of 13 Sanskrit plays from Kerala which have been named after the place of their first publication. They have been attributed by their discoverer Ganapati Śāstrī to “Bhāsa”, as that name is mentioned by Kālidāsa as one of his predecessors in the prologue of the Mālavikāgnimitra, which would of course give them a fairly advanced age [7]. Those plays and their performances in the still existing Kūṭiyāṭṭam (“acting together”) tradition of theatre in Kerala [8] have been the subject of research projects at the University of Würzburg funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). First, in the period from 1994 to 2000, there was a comprehensive collecting of manuscripts alongside video documentation of performances [9], and after that in another project spanning 2003-2008 a multimedia database has been created from the collected materials [10]. The employment of XML markup techniques for the creation of electronic texts of the plays has already been explained by Mathias Ahlborn (Würzburg) extensively in his dissertation on the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa [11], and in this volume he sketches the technical background of the creation of that database of the Trivandrum plays. From 2010 onwards, textual criticism, aesthetics and the performance of the plays are the subject of another DFG-funded research project in Würzburg.

[7] On that problematic issue cf. Tieken: The so-called Trivandrum plays attribute to Bhāsa. In: WZKS 37 (1993), p. 5-44, and Steiner, op.cit, p. 265 sq.

[8] Cf. Farley R. Richmond: Kūṭiyāṭṭam. In: Richmond/Swann/Zarrilli (eds.): Indian theatre – tradition of performance. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1990, p. 87-117.

[9] Cf. Brückner: Manuscripts and performance traditions of the so-called „Trivandrum-Plays“ ascribed to Bhāsa – a report on work in progress. In: BEI 17-18 (1999-2000), p. 501-550.

[10] http://www.indologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/bhasa/rahmen.html (05/12/2011).

[11] Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. Digitalisierte Textkonstitution, Übersetzung und Annotierung. Dissertation. Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg 2007.

Anna Aurelia Esposito (Würzburg) in her contribution deals with some details of writing in the collected Malayalam manuscripts, with which she dealt extensively in her dissertation [12]. Detailed discussions of the writing of the Trivandrum plays are generally interesting for people who deal with Malayalam script for any reason, but Esposito points to the fact that not at last the discussions of the features of the Prakrit of those plays must be grounded on that textual level. She explains that apparently much of what has been highlighted as being rather peculiar by Printz in his Bhāsa’s Prākrit from 1921 must be withdrawn on palaeographical grounds, which underlines again how crucial constant manuscriptological backreference is for philology [13].

[12] Cārudatta – ein indisches Schauspiel. Kritische Edition und Übersetzung mit einer Studie des Prakrits der ‘Trivandrum-Dramen’. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2004 (Drama und Theater in Südasien 4).

[13] The lacking reference for „Murthy 1996“ is most probably: R.S. Murthy: Introduction to manuscriptology. Delhi: Sharada Publishing House 1996.

In the next article Karin Juliana Steiner deals with the Pañcarātra, which draws its theme like most of the other Trivandrum plays from the Mahābhārata, and which is mainly based on its Virāṭaparvan. The main issue under examination is the ritual which stands in the background of the story, and Steiner mainly argues against what has been brought forward by Tieken on that issue [14]. It is undisputed that although some significant vocabulary of Śrauta ritual did not appear in the text, it could be concluded from certain details that a ritual following the paradigm of the Soma ritual takes place here. Steiner disputes Tieken’s assertion that it is a Rājasūya which is portrayed, but rather a Vaiṣṇavayajña, like it suggested to Duryodhana in the Mahābhārata as a replacement for the Rājasūya he is forbidden to execute (3.241.32). To support her notion she examines the above mentioned cattle raid and the arrow episode of the play, and finally the role of the period of five nights during the ritual (p. 163 sq.), which has given the play its name. Steiner comes to the conclusion that this doesn’t refer to the kṣatrasya dhṛti ritual which is connected with the Rājasūya as suggested by Tieken, but refers to that Viṣṇuite school. The ritual allusions found in the play are all strict implementations of the epic, and Steiner argues that the thesis that the Pañcarātra together with others builds a special genre of plays associated with the Śrauta ritual – as Tieken has claimed – cannot be maintained.

[14] Three men in a row – studies in the Trivandrum plays II. In: WZKS 41 (1997), p. 17-52.

The concluding contribution of this volume is a German translation accompanying a new Sanskrit text [15] of the one-act Karṇabhāra, being the shortest of the five one-acts of the Trivandrum plays, all of which are inspired by the Mahābhārata [16]. The piece issues the bad destiny of the army commander of the Kauravas, who finally got his armor wheedled away next to his miracle ear rings on the way to his last battle, and issuing “Karṇa’s burden” the author artistically refers to widely separated parts of the epic. This really is a precious addition to the other chapters in the volume.

[15] It’s a improved version of the Sanskrit text which has been published before in the Indologica Taurinensia 28 (2004), p. 127-141.

[16] In 2010 also appeared Esposito’s Dūtavākya – die Worte des Boten. Ein Einakter aus dem „Trivandrum-Dramen“. Kritische Edition mit Anmerkungen und kommentierter Übersetzung. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2010 (Drama und Theater in Südasien).

Indisches Theater is in my opinion a rewarding lecture, and a great number of rich and profound papers on the different aspects of recent research towards traditional Indian theatre have been collected here. Seeing how much of the current research is related to the name “Würzburg” it again shows again the importance of the impulses that come from third-party funded research projects like those which could be organized there. The book certainly could be used also as a broad introduction into this interesting topic, which is able to evoke an own engagement with matters already very close to the debates now taking place. The book, which could fortunately be made available as an affordable paperback, aims as said in the introduction at a wider interdisciplinary audience, which is no doubt generally a crucial approach for the welfare of German Indology. However, more of the articles could have been in English, so that a wider international audience could also be reached.

[Thanks dude for proof reading!]

The “racial evidence” of the Ṛgveda consists of certain words and expressions in the Ṛgvedasaṃhitā understood in a racial sense. As shown by Thomas Trautmann in 1997, the racial reading of the Ṛgveda was established by the famous Oxford scholar Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900) in 1854 [1]. In his contribution Max Müller finds historical evidence for the existence of two distinct human races in the prehistory of the Indian subcontinent in what is the oldest transmitted text of this region (346):

All these epithets [ánagnitrā-, kravyā́d-] seem to apply to hostile, and most likely aboriginal races, but they are too general to allow us inference of any ethnological conclusions. The Vaidik Rishis certainly distinguish between Arian and non-Arian enemies. […] But there is no allusion to any distinct physical features such as we find in later writings. The only expression that might be be interpreted in this way is that of “susipra,” as applied to Arian gods. It means “with a beautiful nose.” As people are fain to transfer the qualities which they are most proud of in themselves, to their gods, and as they do not become aware of their own good quality except by the way of contrast, we might conclude that the beautiful nose of Indra was suggested by the flat-noses of the aboriginal races. Tribes with flat or even no noses at all, are mentioned by Alexander’s companions in India, and in the hymns of the Rigveda Manu is said to have conquered Vi-sisipra (Pada-text, visi-sipra), which may be translated by “nose-less.” The Dâsa or barbarian is also called vrishasipra in the Veda, which seems to mean goat or bull-nosed, and the “Anâsas” enemies who Indra killed with his weapon (Rv. V, 29, 10), are probably meant for noseless (a-nâsas), not, as the commentator supposes, for faceless (an-âsas) people.

This passage already shows that the text already was examined where it proves the presupposition, and it could be seen that in the case of ambiguous passages a racial interpretation has been favoured as the just most plausible one. A condition for the assumption of two clearly distinct human races in Early India has been that the homogeneity of the non-Indoaryan languages of India – like it was the leading opinion of that time – was understood as implying the homgeneity of the aboriginal population prior to the arrival of the Āryas, like Max Müller called them the “Niṣādas”. This idea was brought forward in the 1840s and 50s mainly by Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801-1894) and Reverend John Stevenson (1798-1858) like Max Müller draws upon both. This remained the state of research until Robert Caldwell (1814-1891) rejected the thesis of the aboriginal unity in recognizing the homgeneity of the Dravidian language family in distinction to Indo-Aryan but as much to the Munda and Austro-Asiatic languages in the Indian subcontinent in his Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages from 1856. Throughout, language groups and ethnicity have been understood as equivalent in this epoch of research [2]. Max Müller’s contribution had a significant impact on the ethnographer and 1901 census commissioner Herbert Hope Risley (1851-1911), who established nasal anthropometrics as a basic ethnographic category for India [3]. In the article The study of ethnology in India of 1891 Risley presents his ethnographical program, and writes (249 sq.):

It is believed that a tall, fair-complexioned dolicho-cephalic and presumably lepto-rhine race, whom we have now Professor Sayce’s authority for calling them Aryans, entered India from the north-west and slowly fought their way, conquering and colonizing down the valleys of the great rivers. At an early stage of their advance they came into collision with a black snub-nosed race, who were driven away into Central and Southern India, where we find their descendants at the presents day […] No one can have glanced at the literature of the subject and in particular at the Vedic accounts of the Aryans advance, without being struck by the frequent references to the noses of the people whom the Aryans found in possession of the plains of India. So impressed were the Ayans with the shortcoming of their enemies’ noses that they often spoke of them as “the noseless ones”.

Contrary to the claim that “noseless” appears often, solely only one, maybe two instances of anās- are to be found in the text of the Ṛgveda (see below), and also the other terms which have been considered to have a racial sense are actually pretty rare. Nevertheless, the “racial evidence” became a true success story. In the translations and in secondary literature there is actually hardly anything else to be found when it comes to the characteristics of the opposing and hostile Dāsas and Dasyus in the text, which are beyond the vivid socio-religious [4] markers such as ápavrata- / anyávrata- / avratá- (“beyond/having another or no proper conduct” [5]), ayajñá- (“without sacrifice”), aśraddhá- (“without devotion”), māyā́vant- (“having sorcery”), śiśnádeva- (“having a phallus as god”), like they occur frequently in the text of the Ṛgveda. As a matter of fact the racial evidence provides a consistent explanation for the remainder of expressions related to the Dāsas and Dasyus in the text of the Ṛgveda which do not unambigously refer to the socio-religious sphere, and which are in comparison rather difficult in exegesis.

However, a racial reading of these expressions and hence the “racial evidence” as a whole stands on vague grounds because phrases that have been marked to have a racist sense could very well be read differently. This could be demonstrated easily with regards to the verse 1,100,18, where the poet praises the war god Indra: “The often-called (puruhūtáḥ), as always (évaiḥ), killed (hatvā́ the Dasyus and Śimyus (dásyuñ chímyūṃś ca), and conquers (sánat, inj.) the area (kṣétram) together with the white companions (sákhibhiḥ śvitnyébhiḥ)”. In the Altindisches Leben of 1879 Heinrich Zimmer sen. (1851-1910) writes (113 sq.):

[...] waren die arischen Stämme von weißer Hautfarbe: am grellsten wird der Unterschied gewesen sein in den ersten Zeiten der Einwanderung, als das Klima Indiens auf die Farbe der Arier noch nicht viel eingewirkt hatte. […] er erkämpfte das Land mit seinen weißen Freunden (sakhibhiḥ śvitnyebhiḥ) […] Rv. 1,100,18. [6]

The same interpretation is given in the Vedic Index [7]. However, it could very be well be that the Maruts – a class of gods who are commonly assisting Indra in his battles [8] – were meant. This is what the medieval commentator Sāyaṇa understands when he explains here: “With the whitish (śvintyebhiḥ), white-coloured (śveta-varṇa-), those whose limbs (aṅga-) are shining (dīpta-) by ornaments (alaṅkāra-), the companions (sakhibhiḥ), the group of friends (mitra-bhūta-), together with (saha) the Maruts he divided (sanat meaning: samabhākṣīt) the ground (kṣetram meaning: bhūmim) of the enemies (śatru-) which had become his own (sva-bhūta-)” [9]. A further indication that it is the Maruts who are mend here is the refrain of the last line of verses 1-15 in this hymn, which goes: marútvān no bhavatvíndra ūtī́ – the whole hymn is evidently praising Indra’s connection with the Maruts. It must be emphasized that both lexemes, śvitnyá- and śvítna- (both: “white, light”) are hapax legomena, so their meaning cannot be determined with precision. The “reddish ones”, who are – most probably denoting the same – are said to be in the company of Indra in 3,31,21 (aruṣaír dhā́madbhiḥ, see below), should be grouped together with the “white companions” of 1,100,18 [10]. To my opinion, these passages and Max Müller’s exegesis of Indra’s epitheton suśiprá- (most likely untenable as “beautiful nose”, see below) fail even as possible topic of the discussion of a “racial evidence” in the text. The expression “Āryan colour” (ā́ryaṃ várṇam, see below) remains as the only point which could be discussed as racial indication of the Āryas, and is the only probably racial expression which could be found in relation to the self designation ā́rya- itself. So, it must be underlined that in the main the discourse is towards what is said in the text relating to the lexemes dā́sa-/dāsá- and dásyu-.

That the “racial evidence of the Ṛgveda” is not merly an issue for the history of Vedic studies and Aryanism of the 19th century could be seen on the fact that reference to a racial rendering of the relevant passages in the text of the Ṛgveda can be found even in present-day literature [11]. This especially is the case when it comes to what Trautmann calls the prevailing “racial theory of Indian civilization”, and also in the discourse towards the Aryan migration theory the question if a consistent reading of the oldest Indian text in a sense of two different confronted races – one of them supposed to be coming out of totally different plains – could be maintained or not plays a significant role for the remaining question if the spreading socio-religious setup of the people which called themselves ā́rya- came from outside the Indian subcontinent, or if it has been developed indegeniously – although the category of race already has already been abandoned in the scientific discourse towards the question how the sudden presence of Indo-European culture in Early Indian history could be explained [12]. Of course these are sensitive grounds, deeply affecting Indian identities. In the notion that a consistent racial reading of the Ṛgveda cannot be maintained – following the argumentation of Maria Schetelich (1991) [13], Thomas Trautmann (1997) [14], and Hans Henrich Hock (1999) [15] – I want to deepen the deconstruction of that faulty paradigm in this posting and I want to try to work out further arguments against it in re-reviewing the relevant passages . More than adjudicating upon an autochthonous Aryanism with this I am arguing from the position that human races are social constructions of the modern age and not essential fact.

dā́sasya vṛṣaśiprásya

In verse 7,99,4 Viṣṇu and Indra are flattered, when it is sung: “You have destroyed (jaghnathúḥ) the tricks (māyā́ḥ) even (cid) of Dāsa vṛṣaśiprá, men! (narā), in the battles (pṛtanā́jyeṣu)”. Towards the meaning of the compound vṛṣaśiprá- the first member vṛ́ṣan- does not make problems meaning „bull“ throughout. More problematic is śíprā-, and the interpretation of this word is uncertain: it denotes something in the face and on the head [16], so it is comprehensible that Max Müller has taken this word for also meaning “nose”. Frisk in his article of 1936 has assorted the different groups of possible meaning according to the gods who are refered to: related to the Maruts the śíprā- is a golden object which they put on their head [17], in 4,37,4 the compound áyaḥśiprāḥ occurs relating to the Ṛbhus, obviously meaning a copper/bronze helmet [18], but most of the times śíprā- occurs realating to Indra as a Soma drinker, obviously meaning something of the mouth [19]. A sound etymology is always preferable to the assumption of homonyms. Frisk understands śíprā- as “tailing and flowing object” like the mustache of Indra [20], so that vṛṣaśiprá- probably should be taken as “bull-mustache” following this approach. Following the alternative etymology of Schlerath [21] the word would mean “bull-lipped”, which would fit well to the personal name dáśaśipra- – the „ten-lipped“ of 8,52,2 – obviously another renowed Soma drinker. Anyway, the Ṛgvedic vṛṣaśiprá- is also regarded to be a personal name [22], and so does not typify the individual Dāsa which is meant here. This word of course came to the attention of scholars seeing a racial interpretation of the text, like Basham writes in The wonder that was India of 1954 (32):

[…] there is, underlying this intertribal rivalry, a sense of solidarity against the Dāsas or Dasyus, who evidently represent the survivors of the Harappā Culture, and kindred peoples of the Panjāb and the North-West. The Dāsas are described as dark and ill-favoured, bull-lipped, snub-nosed, worshippers of the phallus, and of hostile speech.

anā́so dásyūn

In verse 5,29,10 the word anā́s- appears when again Indra is praised: “With the weapon (vadhéna) you have crushed (amṛṇaḥ) the Dasyus, which are anā́s. Those who are having contemptuous speech (mṛdhrávācaḥ) you turned (ní āvṛṇak) into the grave (duryoṇé)”. It could be seen already in Max Müller’s contribution of 1854 towards the “Turanian language”, that anā́s- immediately got into the focus in the search for a “racial evidence” in the Ṛgveda: because read as a-nā́s- it would of course mean that the Dasyus are “noseless”, and not only Risley had taken this as a clear evidence for that the so-called “aboriginal population of India” was of a platyrhinic phenotype. The same reading could also be found for example in the translation of Ludwig [23], of course in the Vedic Index [24], and even in the Oxford History of India of 1958 [25].

Also the other possibile separation of this word as an-ā́s- – “mouth/faceless” is well attested in the translations and the secondary literature. Some exegets take it in the sense of “faceless” as meaning “misfeatured” [26], but also often one comes across the reading “mouthless” in the sense of “voice/speechless”, and such an understanding is also supported by Sāyaṇa [27]. Geldner for example translates it without further comment as “mundlos” (“mouthless”), Wilson translates it also taken as an ethnological marker as “not speaking Indo-Aryan” with “voiceless” [28], and Bollensen understands it as meaning “dumb” the same way [29]. Besides, the appositional mṛdhrávāc- was brought forward to support this to read anā́s- as “voice/speechless” like Sāyaṇa understands this word as “having defect organs of speech” [30]. To doubt such a meaning would of course favour a reading of a-nā́s-, maybe with the alternative connotation of untrustworthiness and falseness, like Levitt suggested (1989: 52 sq.).

As a matter of fact, a second instance of anās- in the Ṛgveda might exist depending on how the difficult rujā́nāḥ in 1,32,6 – the famous hymn of Indra’s fight against Vṛtra – is read, and it is most likely the evil demon which is designated by that word [31]. Due to its popularity the passage has been treated extensive: a participle rujānáḥ – “having been broken” would require an unacceptable emendation [32], and also the other previously raised proposals are untenable [33], so a reading of rujā́ ánāḥ has been suggested [34]. Thieme translates that “faceless by crushing”, and explains that this refers to the mutilation of the enemy’s body beyond recognition to impede his afterlife (loc.cit.). It is also possible to read rujā́nāḥ as “nosebreaker” here [35]. Anway, there is no reason to doubt that the poet alludes to the anā́s- of 5,29,10, which pulls dásyu- into the context.

aryaṃ várṇam

It could be called the “core” of the “racial evidence” that in verse 3,34,9 it is sung: “Indra, in slaying (hatvī́) the Dasyus, supported (prá āvat) the (literally:) ‘Āryan colour’ (ā́ryaṃ várṇam)”. This expression simply denotes the Āryan “group” or “party”, which is opposed to the dā́saṃ várnam [36], the “Dāsic colour” – “the group of the Dāsas”. It is comprehensible that this expression has been understood as having the connotation of skin colour, as Heinrich Zimmer writes in 1879 (113):

Der äußere Unterschied beider Stämme drückte sich deutlich in der verschiedenen Farbe des Gesichts und Körpers aus, daher [konnten] āryaṃ varṇam „arische Farbe“ und dāsaṃ varṇaṃ „dāsische Farbe“ concret zur Bezeichnung beider Nationen verwendet werden. [37].

Geldner translates ā́ryaṃ várṇam with “arische Rasse”, and the same could be found for example even in relatively recent publications like Hale’s Asura [38]. The question why “colour” in Early India refers to social groups is of course reasonable, but there are certainly alternatives to the view that it it skin colour what was mend. The discourse towards this passages is charged with the fact that várṇa- in later, unhieratical texts designates the classical system of social classes, while ārya- outside the Ṛgveda refers to the three upper ones, thus Brāḥmaṇa, Kṣatriya and Vaiśya [39]. Both is not the case in the Ṛgveda where the class system is solely mentioned in the comparatively late tenth book, in the Puruṣasūkta 10,90 (where ā́rya- and váṛṇa- do not even appear!). It is a diffcult problem that out of this context the system of social classes has been understood as having an implicit racial basis, as Max Müller writes in his essay Caste of 1858 (04/12):

At the time when this name of “varna” was first used in the sense of caste, there were but two castes, the Āryas and the non-Āryas, the bright and the dark race […]. This ancient division between Aryan and non-Aryan races, based on an original difference of blood, was preserved in later times as the primary distinction between the twice-born castes and the Sûdras.

That the Indian hierarchical system of social classes was established to preserve a superior Aryan biology could be found expressed very clear in the Vedic Index, “the end point and culmination of the formation of the racial theory of Indian civilization founded upon the study of the Veda” (Trautmann 1997: 206). Here it is stated (II, 268):

The race element, it would seem, is what converted social divisions into castes. There appears, then, to a large element of truth in the theory […] which explains caste in the main as a matter of blood, and which holds that the higher the caste is, the greater the proportion of Āryan blood.

That “race is the true basis of the [caste resp. class] system” has been considered already by Risley (1891: 240). It is comprehensible how this understanding of the text and its impact emerged in the colonial situation [40], but to our view the Ṛgveda actually does not support a notion of race, and does really not support the view of a racial basis of the caste system.

kṛṣṇā́n

The discussion of the connotation of colours in the language of the Ṛgveda continues with respect to the fact that the poets of the text had a concept of “blacks” in the sense of “people” or “folks”, which is quite subtle in appearance, and it is not that easy to collect instances for it. In the literature the passages which express a notion of the “blacks” are often treated indiscriminately together with the ones which include the expression the “black skin”, which I am going to treat next (see below). According to my results a collection of passages speaking of the “blacks” which could be discussed would be [41]:

• 1,101,1: “He aborted (niráhan) those who have blacks in their womb (kṛṣṇágarbhāḥ)”.
• 2,20,7: “The stronghold-breaker (puraṃdaráḥ) has broken (ví airayad) the Dāsic with blacks in their womb (kṛṣṇáyonīḥ)”.
• 3,31,21: “He steps (gāt, inj.) among the blacks (antáḥ kṛṣṇā́n) with the red ones (aruṣaír dhā́madbhiḥ, see above)”.
• 4,16,13: “He subdued (ní vapaḥ, inj.) fifty thousand strongholds (pañcāśát sahásrāḥ púraḥ) of the blacks (kṛṣṇā́ḥ) [42]“.
• 6,47,21: “He expels (ápa asedhat) those all identical black children (sadṛṣīḥ kṛṣṇā́ jā́ḥ) away (anyám árdham) from their domicile (sádmanaḥ)”.
• 7,5,3: “The black clans (víśa ásiknīḥ) went away (āyan) by fear (bhiyā́) of you (tvád), as (yád) you broke (daráyan) the strongholds (púraḥ)”.
• 8,73,18: “Crush (ā́ ruja) the tree (vṛkṣám in 17) like a stronghold (púraṃ ná), like the one besieged (bādhitáḥ) by the black clan (kṛṣṇáyā viśā́!”

It’s defnitely not against the facts to consider púr- – “stronghold” – like it is said to be commonly the possession of the “blacks” – to be the nucleus of these passages. Although the literal term is left out in both verses (in one of them it is brought in by the epitheton), the notorious hapax legomena kṛṣṇágarbha- and kṛṣṇáyoni- are best taken to be related to the púr- [43] in the sense that the “blacks” are entrenched in them, so that “black Dāsic women” (for example Geldner on 1,101,1) most probably could be discarded. A display of the whole sense cluster would be something like this:

Considering who is meant by the “blacks” Gonda takes the term as a collective denomination of all Āryan enemies [44], but it is conspicuous that it is even dā́sa- which appears is this context in 2,20,7.

kṛṣṇā́m tvácam

To challenge the “racial evidence of the Ṛgveda” gets rather difficult when it comes to the “black skin” (kṛṣṇá-/ásita- tvác-) [45], which occurs three times in the text in relation to avratá- and dásyu-:

• In 1,130,8 it is said: “Indra subdued (arandhayat) the black skin (tvácaṃ kṛṣṇā́m), chastising (śā́sad) those without conduct (avratā́n) for Manu (mánave)”.
• In 9,41,1: “Those (yé) who drove away (ghnántaḥ) the black skin (kṛṣṇā́m tvácam)”, and in the following verse then again: “We, overpowering (sāhvā́ṃsaḥ) the Dasyu, who is without conduct (avratám) …”
• Finally, in 9,73,5 it goes: “They blow (ápa dhamanti) the black skin (tvácam ásiknīm), which is hated by Indra (índra-dviṣṭām) away from heaven and earth (bhū́mano divás pári), melting (saṃ dáhantaḥ) those without conduct (avratā́n)”.

These passages are not easy, and two of them occur in the ninth book of the Soma-Pavamāna songs which is generally rather difficult to penetrate. Schetelich treated these verses in her article and is led to the formula “the Dasyu is subjugated while the ‘black skin’ is driven away” [46]. Due to the difficulty of these verses I wouldn’t set me here regarding a simple statement like this, but it is certainly true that participles are to be found in every one of the three sentences, possibly expressing causal relations. To accept that “the ones without conduct” – most likely a paraphrase for the Dasyus – are not identical with the “black skin” would lead to the conclusion that this expression denotes something different, and should be taken as not denoting Āryan enemies in their visual appearance [45]. That kṛṣṇá-/ásita- tvác- is a metaphorical expression for „darkness“ is maintained by Schetelich, Hock, and others, and tvác- could be even taken as meaning “cover” in this context [48].

Concluding remarks

I agree with the view that “the Vedic evidence that has been brought forward has been subjected to a consistent overreading in favor of a racializing interpretation, and that the image of the ‘dark-skinned’ savage is only imposed on the Vedic evidence with a considerable amount of text-torturing” (Trautmann 1997: 208). My aim here was to demonstrate that the relevant passages are far from being clear, that a racial understanding of them is not without alternatives, and that it is quite likely a wrong interpretation of the text. For that I have grouped the relevant passages and sorted these groups towards how hard a rethinking would be. I think the racial interpretation of a number of passages could be casted into heavy doubt easily on philological basis, but the argumentation is difficult when it comes to the connotation of the “blacks”: it must be admitted that the “black skin to-be-battled” is mentioned quite clearly in the text, and this of course could be a stronghold for the advocates of Aryanism. The Ṛgveda certainly must be understood as a hierartical text, that means the vocabulary is used here in a different sense than it would be used composing other texts, and this might be true especially for the meaning of colours [49]. The idea of colours in the Ṛgveda is that they consist of different mixture relations of lightness and darkness which represents the categorical good/bad dichotomy. So “black” could be taken meaning “bad” throughout in the text, as Kuiper puts it (1991: 5 sq.):

The idea of hatred fostered against the non-Aryans was based on those RV passages that refer to Ārya as distinct from Dāsa, but the distinction was an ideological one, based on a dichotomy of the universe. ‘Aryans’ were in general those, who maintained the world order by means of sacrifices and gifts. In this dual world these ‘Aryans’ were on the side of light vs. darkness, of Devas vs. Asuras, etc.

However, unfortunately this cannot be the final argument on this matter. What is said in the Ṛgveda might be exclusively celestrial business, and Dāsas and Dasyus might be actually demons, but given the historical information which the texts transports [50] it must not be ignored that a historical situation and historical folks could be meant. In that way for example John Muir understood what is said about Dāsas and Dasyus (1860: 380):

There is no doubt that in many passages […] the word Dasyu and Dāsa are applied to demons of different orders, or goblins (Asuras, Rākshasas, etc.); but it is tolerably evident from the nature of the case, that in all, or at least some of the texts which have been hitherto adduced, we are to understand the barbarous aboriginal tribes of India as intended by these terms.

If “the blacks”, if the “black skin” or even “black blanket/cover” in the sense of “evil ones” or “darkness” denotes a specific historical group or not, if this group would have had a dark complexion or not – all that unfortunately cannot be judged from the text and a philological examination has its natural limits here. It must be admitted that this fact makes it difficult to argue against the paradigm of a “racial evidence of the Ṛgveda“, but in view of the heavy doubt that could be forwarded these difficulties can only serve as a defence because the notions of the “racial evidence” has been the established one.

Footnotes

[1] For the background of this contribution cf. Trautmann 1997 (194 sq.) and 1999 (being a forerunner of his book held as conference paper in 1996). Many authors refer esp. to this contribution towards a racial reading of anā́s-, e.g. Muir in the Original Sanskrit texts, cf. 1874: 394, and Wilson in his translation, cf. 1866-88 III: 276, fn. 3.

[2] Cf. Trautman 1997: 155 sq. However, in later works Max Müller has distanciated himself from attempts to draw ethnological conclusions on the basis of linguistic data: “I have declared again and again that if I say Aryas, I mean neither blood nor bones […]; I mean simply those who speak Aryan language. […] To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood […] is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a doliocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar” (1888: 120). Towards the rivalry of Indo-European Linguistics and Ethnology in the 19th century cf. also Rabault 2004.

[3] Cf. Martini 2008: 10 sq., and Trautmann 1997: 198 sq.

[4] I’ve taken this expression from Erdosy 1989: 37.

[5] Lubin 2001, 565: “This paper distinguishes three aspects of the word’s meaning [...]: (1) ‘rule’ in the general sense of a fixed articulation of will or authority; (2) as the attribute of a god, it denotes the distinct natural and social laws that the god ordains and maintains; (3) in verses in which the god’s vratá is closely linked with specific rites […] it acquires the sense of ‘rule of ritual observance’”.

[6] “… the Aryan tribes have been of white compexion: most glaring the difference would have been in the early times of immigration, when the climate haven’t effected the colour of the Aryas … he won the land together with his white friends (sakhibhiḥ śvitnyebhiḥ) … Rv. 1,100,18″ (all translations are mine).

[7] Macdonell/Keith 1912 I, 356, fn. 6: “the ‘white-hued (śvitnya)’ friends who, in i,100,18, aid in the conquest of the Dasyu and Siṃyu are doubtless Āryans”.

[8] For example they also supported Indra in his fight against the demon Vṛtra, cf. Chakravarty 1991/92 and Oberlies 1998: 206 sq. (1.6.2.11: Marut). A monographical treatment of the Maruts is still a desideratum.

[9] Max Müller 1980-1892 I, 445: śvitnyebhiḥ śvetavarṇair alaṃkāreṇa dīptāṃgair sakhibhir mitrabhūtair [misprint: mitrabhūaitar] marudbhiḥ saha kṣetraṃ śatrūṇāṃ svabhūtām bhūmiṃ sanat. samabhākṣīt.

[10] Dhā́man-is a diffcult word in many contexts. Gonda 1967, 40: “by the agency of (the) reddish ones, i.e. of the representatives, ‘seats’ or impersonations (of the reddish colour), i.e. of light”. In the understanding of the Vedic poets white and red together reside on the light side of the light-dark dichotomy, which represents the good-evil difference, Elizarenkova 1994/95, 82: “One can see that in certain mythological contexts […] white and red can function as two variants of one invariant bright colour which is opposed to black”. A monographical treatment of colours in the Ṛgveda is also a desideratum.

[11] Furthermore, the general surveys of Early Vedic times based on the texts like Muir’s Original Sanskrit Texts, Zimmer’s Altindisches Leben, the Vedic Index, and the Oxford History of India were not only very influential in propagating racial interpretations, but as much like the translation of Geldner most of the contributions could not be replaced completely, and are still broadly in use.

[12] Cf. Witzel 2001: 8 sq. Bryant 2001, 60: “However, the quest for textual evidence of the Aryan invasion caused the racial interpretation to be favored, and it is this interpretation that has continued to surface up to the present day”.

[13] An English summary could be found in: Sen Gupta/Pathak (Eds.): M.M. Vidhuśekhar Śāstrī Commemoration Vol. II. Santiniketan 1990, 244-249.

[14] Cf. esp. 211 sq.

[15] A later version of the article appeared in: Bryant/Patton (Eds.): The Indo-Aryan controversy. Evidence and inference in Indian history. London, New York 2005, 282-308: Philology and the historical interpretation of Vedic texts.

[16] Cf. Mayrhofer 1991-2001 II, 636. I will leave out issues of accentuation in order not to overburden this posting with long philological digressions, although the accent is of course crucial for the comprehensive evaluation of words.

[17] 5,54,11 and 8,7,25: śíprāḥ hiraṇyáyīh, 2,34,3: híraṇyaśiprāḥ. A headdress (another alaṅkāra)?

[18] Towards the distinction of híraṇya- (precious metal) and áyas- (use metal) cf. Rau 1973, 18 sq.

[19] Uncompounded in the dual, five times śípre, and śíprābhyām in 10,105,5. Frisk 1936, 81: “offenbar ein Gesichtsteil dualischen Charakters” – “obviously a dualistic part of the face”. Indra carries also several related epitheta: śiprín-, śípravant-, śipríṇīvant-, háriśipra-, hiriśiprá-, suśiprá-.

[20] A “schweifender, wedelnder, wallender Gegenstand” – “tailing, wagging and flowing object” from the root *śip- – “tailing, wagging”, and so the (sides of the) mustache of Indra, and helm crests, meaning the helms of the Maruts and Ṛbhus themselves, cf. 1936: 85.

[21] Schlerath defines *śip- as “schnappen, schlürfen” – “to snatch, slurp”, and so śípre, etc. as “lips” or “jaws”, cf. 1955: 321. Futhermore, Schlerath puts *śipi- next to *śiprá- (along Caland’s -ra- > -i- rule), which would result in the meaning “catching with the lips/jaws” (with an active ta-participle) for Viṣṇu’s epithet śipiviṣṭá-.

[22] Cf. Mayrhofer 2003: 88 (2.1.483).

[23] 1876-88 II, 109 (no. 530): “die nasenlosen Dasyu”. In the commentaries he explains this with the flat-noseness of the Indian natives (V, 95 – not available to me, the reference is taken from Macdonell/Keith 1912: 347, fn. 7).

[24] Macdonnel/Keith 1912 I, 347 sq.: “… but the other rendering, ‘noseless’ (a-nās), is quite possible, and would accord well with the flat-nosed aborigines of the Dravidian type”.

[25] Smith 1958 I, 32: “From the Vedic hymns it has been possible to piece together a reasonably coherent picture [own italics] of the Aryan invaders on their first impact with the black, noseless (flatnosed) dasyus who comprised their native opponents and subjects”.

[26] Graßmann 1876-77 I, 181: “hässliche Dämonen” – “ugly demons”. Although the Peterburger Wörterbuch just states “ohne Mund, ohne Gesicht” – “without mouth/face” (cf. PW I: 189), it is refered to that meaning “misfeatured” by Macdonell/Keith (1912 I, 347, fn. 6: “‘misfeatured’, which seems that of Roth, St. Petersburg dictionary”) and Zimmer (1879, 115: “Roth im Wtb. sagt ,ohne Mund, ohne Gesicht’; er sucht wohl den Sinn ,missgestaltet’ darin” – “Roth in the dictionary … seems to seek a sense of ‘misfeatured’ with that”).

[27] Max Müller II, 549 sq.: kiṃ ca anāsa āsyarahitan. āsyaśabdena śabdo lakṣyate. aśabdān mūkān dasyūn asurān vadhenā yudhena vajreṇāmṛṇaḥ. – “Anāsaḥ are without (rahita-) a mouth (āsya-). With the word ‘mouth’ (āsya-śabda-) voice (śabda-) is denoted (lakṣyate). With the weapon (vadha-), the Vajra, you crushed the Asuras, the dumb (mūka-) Dasyus, which are without voice (a-śabda-)”.

[28] Wilson 1866-88 III, 276, fn. 3: “alluding possibly to the uncultivated dialects of the barbarous tribes, barbarism and uncultivated speech being identical, in the opinion of the Hindus”.

[29] Bollensen 1887, 496: “insofern die Dasyu die Sprache der Arier weder verstanden noch sprachen, nannten die Arier jene stumm (an-ās)” – “the Āryas called the Dasyus dumb because they did not spoke nor under-stood their language”.

[30] Hiṃsitavāgiṃdriyān, cf. Max Müller, loc.cit.

[31] “He couldn’t survive (ná atārīd, s-aor.) the clash (sámṛtim) of his (asya) weapons (vadhā́nām). The rujā́nāḥ, whose enemy is Indra (índra-śatruḥ), was completely crushed (sáṃ pipiṣa, med.)”.

[32] Geldner considers a rujá-anas- as “cartbreaker”, cf. 1957 I: 37. Lubotsky 1997 II, 1203: rujā́nā- follows Graßmann’s dictionary, cf. 1873: 1174.

[33] Bloomfield suggested a haplologic *rujā[ná]-nās- – “having a broken nose”, cf. 1896: 412 sq. Caland/Henry 1906 the same: “it ne put affronter la recontre de ses armes; les naseaux brisés, il fut broyé, celui qui avait encouru l’hostilité d’Indra” (311).

[34] With a root noun rúj- “crushing”, cf. Oldenberg 1909-12: 31 sq., and Thieme 1957: 89.

[35] “Trasá-Dasyu compound” *rujá-Hnas- – “nosebreaker”, cf. Mayrhofer 1992-2001 II: 452, already suggested by Geldner, loc.cit. It would fit that Vṛtra in 4,18,9 (mend here by vyàṃsa-) is said having injured the jaws of Indra, cf. Schmidt 1963: 301.

[36] Appears in 2,12,4: “He, who (yáḥ) has made (akaḥ) the dā́saṃ várṇam inferior (ádharam)”. Furthermore, in 1,104,2 the expression no várṇam – “our group/party” appears.

[37] “The outward difference of both tribes was a different colour of face and body, so the expressions ‘Āryan colour’ and ‘Dāsic colour’ have been used to refer to the two parties”.

[38] 1986, 147: “In some of these verses the singular of ā́rya- must either be understood as a collective term or have a words such as ‘race’ (várṇa-) supplied in order to make full sense of the verse”. Geldner’s translation was already completed in the early 20s, cf. Jamison 2000: 2.

[39] Weber 1868, 4: “An Stelle der alten Gegenüberstellung von ârya und dâsa tritt in dieser Periode die von ârya und çûdra. Unter ârya sind die drei oberen Kasten zu verstehen … Und zwar wird der ârya varṇa dem çûdra gegenübergestellt” – “The old contrast of ārya- and dāsa- in this [the later literary] period is replaced by that of ārya- and śūdra-. Ārya- means the three upper castes [classes]. It is the śūdra- who is confronted with the ārya- varṇa-“.

[40] Cf. Martini 2008.

[41] Geldner translates Indras epitheton aruśahán- in 10,116,4 as “Töter der Schwarzen” – “killer of blacks”, but a *a-ruśant- “not white” = “black” is probably a bit too far-fetched. Indra’s epitheta are commonly related to the context, and 10,116 is a drinking song – I leave that out for now.

[42] Literally: “black strongholds”, but genitive and adjective in the Ṛgveda are showing possession without functional difference, cf. Zimmer 1978: 41.

[43] Following Oldenberg, cf. 1909-12: 96 sq.

[44] Cf. Gonda 1967: 41.

[45] On t(u)vác- cf. Jamison 198: esp. 167 sq., and Malamoud 1974: 78 sq.

[46] 1991, 159: “Der Dasyu wird untertan gemacht, während die ‘schwarze Haut’ verjagt wird”.

[47] Max Müller 1856, 04/12: “The dark race is sometimes called by the poets of the Veda ‘the black skin’”. Geldner in the comments towards 9,41,4: “Die Unholde oder die unarische Rasse” – “the fiends or the unaryan race”.

[48] Hock 1999, 153: “not necessarily designate human or animal skin, but can also refer to the surface of the earth”. Graßmann 1873, 564: “die schwarze Decke, d.h. die Finsternis” – “the black blanket, i.e. the darkness”.

[49] Elizarenkova 1994/95, 85: “The semantics of colour code in the RV is often determined by its mythology, and therefore cannot be supposed to reflect the real state of things”.

[50] Cf. Witzel 1995, 308: “This information can then be comnined in a grid of places, poets and tribes. […] Finally, this grid can be combined with a chronological grid established on the strengh of a few pedigrees of chiefs and poets available from the hymns”.

References

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Sir Henry Thomas Colebrooke’s (1765-1837) essay On the Vedas of 1805 [1] certainly should be regarded as the initial work of scientific study of the Veda of the Abendland. It took 25 years until the first edition of Ṛgvedic text appeared, and that is Friedrich August Rosen’s Rig-Vedae specimen of 1830, which contains a couple of hymns [2] next to notes and a latin translation on 27 pages. The Orientalist Rosen was appointed to the chair for for Sanskrit at the London University already with 22 years (sic!), and in a letter to his teacher Franz Bopp he wrote that for this work he has read a manuscript which was deposited in the British Museum by the collector Colonel Polier [3]. That one is the very first one recorded in Bendall’s catalogue of 1902 [4], the manuscript is written in Devanāgarī and dated vikrama saṃvat 1838 (approx. 1781). The Swiss Antoine Louis Henry Polier (1741-95) served in the East India Company between 1759 and 1789 and in a letter to the trustee Sir Joseph Banks from 1789 – it is kept together with his collection of manuscripts (Add. 5346-56) – he wrote that the items were copied on his behalf in Rajasthan (cf. op.cit.). Rosen’s specimens appear later again in Christian Lassen’s Anthologica Sanscrita from 1838 next to notes [5].

After that in the year 1833 the missionary John Stevenson published an edition of the first 39 hymns of the Ṛgveda next to extracts from commentaries and a paraphrase in Bombay under the title The threefold science printed at the American Mission Press [6]. Otto von Böhtlingk (1815-1904) examined this edition – which was pretty rare in Europe – for his Chrestomathie of 1845 and was quite disappointed [7].

Rosen’s new edition of the complete first aṣṭaka (- 1,121) in unaccented Devanāgarī next to the padapāṭha in transliteration and a latin translation appeared in 1838 under the title Rigveda-Sanhita liber primus sanskritè et latinè. The rich annotations are breaking with verse 28,1 in the Śunaḥśepa cycle (1,24-30) because Rosen unfortunately died already with 32 years on his birthday in 1837. The preface tells that two other manuscripts in London have been used for that edition, one was in the Library of the East-India Company [8], the other one was a manuscript of the padapāṭha in the possession of the widow of Sir Robert Chambers (1737-1803) – that time the huge collection of precious manuscripts collected by the judge wasn’t even sold to the Königliche Bibliothek in Berlin but later in 1842 [9]. Of course Rosen’s edition was widely used in the following years before the more complete editions of Müller and Aufrecht appeared [10]. Given also the limited resources Rosen could use his work nowadays only plays a role for research history [11]. The text of the first adhyāya (- 1,19) appeared later in Böhtlingk’s Chrestomathie of 1845 next to notes in accented form while the accents have been added by Albert Hoefer again from manuscripts of the Chambers Collection which has got to Berlin in the meanwhile [12].

Roth (1821-95)

By the way, in the time after Rosen’s edition editions of the other Vedic collections also appeared: Theodor Benfey’s edition of the Sāmaveda appeared 1848 [13] and Albrecht Weber’s epochal edition of the Black Yajurveda in three parts in the years 1852-59 [15]. Rudolf von Roth – who was appointed as Extraordinarius in Tübingen in 1848 and promoted to Ordinarius later in 1856 [15] edited together with his pupil William Dwight Whitney the Śaunaka Atharvaveda in 1856. Die Hymnensammlungen of 1845, the first Abhandlung of his Habilitation Zur Litteratur und Geschichte des Veda could be seen as a successor of Colebrooke’s essay on the Vedic literature and Windisch points out that this it was a kind of a manifest for the whole subsequent research [16]. Since there weren’t much printed text available this time Roth – who has been stimulated to work on the Veda in Paris by Eugène Burnouf – has gained his knowledge mainly from the manuscripts [17]. By the way, Weber did the same for his Akademische Vorlesungen über indische Literaturgeschichte of the Wintersemester 1851/52 at the University of Berlin, which he had seen as a kind appendix to his first manuscript catalogue of 1853 which covers mainly the Chambers Collection. Roth also started the seek for proper understanding of the content of the Ṛgveda. A special role for that plays the Wortforschung (lexical semantics) including the method of etymology – as a broadly educated Orientalist he was able to take into account also the linguistically related texts from the neighbouring culture of the Old Iran. Roth – who also contributed to the Petersburger Wörterbuch towards the Ṛgveda and who has dealt with Yāska’s Nirukta – has set up theoretical bases here. He also had taken a position towards the role of the native commentators – the question how to evaluate them, among them foremost Sāyaṇa, has been an issue also for the later generations of Western scholars – and he positioned himself independent from them [18] (for me this is the fact from which I believe the Western involvement with these texts gets its reason). Roth has also established the understanding of the Ṛgveda as a historical document. To have a more comprehensive edition of the Ṛgveda was one of the major issues of these days and this task was first approached by Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) who was assay master of the Calcutta mint and later in 1832 became first Boden Professor in Oxford [19]. Roth was also involved in this endeavour like he has announced on the constitutional meeting of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in 1845 [20].

Müller (1823-1900)

A plan for editing a complete edition of the Ṛgveda including Sāyaṇas commentary, the Mādhavīyavedārthaprakāśa, was also pursued by Friedrich Max Müller, who was also a student of Eugène Burnouf, who has teached the Ṛgveda in Paris from Rosen’s edition of the first aṣṭaka and who also pointed out that a complete edition of the text would be the next important task. For that Müller first got into contact with Böhtlingk in St. Petersburg who managed it to got the huge Wörterbuch (published 1852-71) – somewhat comparable in its extension – financed by the Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, but this collaboration never took place [21]. The was a strong aversion between Roth and Müller [22] which somehow lead to the fact that Roth got out of this project, and Müller moved to London in 1846 to work on this edition. The first volume, the awesome monument of German diligence and British liberalism [23], finally appeared already in the year 1849, and up to 1874 the other five followed [24]. The book was first financed by the East-India Company and from the 4th volume on published on the behalf of the Secretary of State for India. A notable promoter of this project was the Prussian ambassador in London Chevalier Christian K.J. von Bunsen (1791-1860) [25]. By the way, the sharp Christian Lassen, wo looked through Rosen’s transcripts from the bequest, already noted that in the Ṛgveda manuscripts – a quite remarkable fact – there are solely orthographic and phonetic differences to be found but no factual textual variants at all [26], and that phenomenon is again described by Müller in the preface of his edition. For that the hymns of the Ṛgveda deserve a special status in manuscriptology, a theory for explaining that phenomenon it could be assumed that Ṛgvedic manuscripts have not been copied but have been repeatedly written new out of the oral tradition, in which the text was given special protection through its sub-versions like the padapāṭha. Anyway, the first edition of 500 copies was sold out quickly and the book became also very popular in India where Müller got great fame and the paṇḍits gave him the title “Mokṣamūla“, the „root of salvation“ – though some have seen the printed text as a degeneration. A second edition of Müller edition in four volumes – much better to work with – appeared in the years 1890 and 92 [27]. That edition contains an improved text of Sāyaṇa’s commentary which has been printed in a much smaller type and offers critical additions. The publication was financed by the Mahārāja of Vijayanagara, Pasupati Ananda Gajapati Raz.

Aufrecht (1822-1907)

Among the various people who have worked under Müller on the project over the years there was Theodor Aufrecht [28], who later became Lassens successor in Bonn in 1875 and was one of the most outstanding manuscriptologists in Indology. He came to London 1852 and worked as a cataloguer of the Bodleian Library in Oxford and together with Müller on the edition. Also that time he begun to work on his own edition of the saṃhitā text of the Ṛgveda in which the text is typed in transliteration [29]. This edition, which appeared in 1861 and 63 as part 6 and 7 of Weber’s Indische Studien, became much popular especially among comparative linguists which don’t have to deal with the Devanāgarī accents here, and Hermann Grassmann’s (1809-1877) ingenious dictionary of 1873-75 refers to the enumeration of this issue. Müller has particularly not liked that Aufrecht’s edition was completed before his one. The second edition of Aufrecht’s text appeared in 1877 and has replaced the forerunner completely also because the modified transliteration is more similar to today’s convention, though Aufrecht has given up the continuous enumeration of the hymns which brings difficulties in applying Grassmann’s dictionary, which is still is use.

[1] Reprinted next to valuable notes by Whitney (p. 103 sq.) in the first volume (the second one if the biography volume is counted into a three-volume set) of the Miscellaneous Essays, p. 8-102.

[2] 3,4,10 & 11 (Visvamitrae hymnus in solem), 4,1,1 (Atreyae hymnus in agnim) 5,1,5 (Bharadvajae hymnus in auroram), 5,2,17 (Ad agnim), 18 & 19 (Vasishthae hymnus in agnim), 21 (Vasisthae hymnus in agnim), and 5,7,2 (Vasisthae hymnus in deum pluvium).

[3] „Seit meiner Rückkehr nach London habe ich mein Hauptaugenmerk auf die Vedas, zunächst auf den Rig Veda gerichtet. Ich suchte meine bereits früher gemachten Auszüge aus den Hymnen desselben hervor, und bemühte mich, in der Verständniß derselben einzudringen. An der Polier’schen Handschrift in dem mir benachbarten Britischen Museum hatte ich Gelegenheit, solche Versuche weiter auszudehnen“ (Letter from London of the 26.2.1830, cf. Lefmann 1895, II, p. *191).

[4] Bendall’s catalogue, cf. p. 1 (Add. 5151).

[5] Cf. p. 97-102 and 130-48 (Notae in Hymnos Vêdicos).

[6] Original Sanskrit title: Trividyā triguṇātmikā bhāga 1, cf. Gildemeister’s Bibliothecae Sanskritae, p. 21 (no. 61).

[7] Sanskrit-Chrestomathie, p. VII sq.: „Stevenson mag ein sehr guter Missionär sein, wie er denn auch nicht ermangelt das Werk mit einigen in’s Sanskrit übersetzten Sprüchen aus der heiligen Schrift zu beschliessen, aber ein großer Meister im Sanskrit ist er nicht.“

[8] I would have guesses that „2,133“ – in that form not to be found nowhere else – relates to the early catalogue by Burnell (cf. Janert no. 162 – only hardly available), and probably to a piece of Colebrooke’s manuscripts (probably denoting “no. 133 of the stock’s 2nd layer”) which has been given to the India Office in 1819, cf. Sutton, Guide to the India Office Library, p. 39. But Burkhard Quessel at the British Library (great support there!) was so nice to point me to the fact that there is a shelfmark “2133″ in Eggeling’s catalogue of the Vedic manuscripts in the India Office Library from 1887 (e.g. no. 27).

[9] „the other, from which the text printed in Roman characters is transcribed, belongs to the private collection of Lady Chambers, and is marked in her Catalogue D: it is in octavo“. Lassen tells that the preface was written by Louis Poley and that Lassen was entrusted with several items from Rosen’s bequest incl. transcripts (which gives evidence that Rosen has considered even moren than the two mentioned manuscripts) and more of the annotations next to indexes, cf. Lassen’s recension in the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 3 (1840), p. 467-89.

[10] See Hoefer’s Notizen über die Geschichte des bisherigen Studium der Vêda’s, p. 436 sq.

[11] Windisch, Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie, p. 94: „Verglichen mit Max Müllers und Th. Aufrechts vollendeten Ausgaben des Ṛgveda muß Rosens Ausgabe des I. Aṣṭaka allerdings als mir unzulänglichen Mitteln unternommen erscheinen. Er hat nur zwei Handschriften benutzt […] Die Akzentbezeichnung fehlt. Mancherlei Ungenauigkeiten und Fehler lassen sich nachweisen.“

[12] Nos. 60 & 42 of the Chambers Collection (but both are also padapāṭha manuscripts, see Weber’s catalogue, p. 4 sq. [nos. 9 & 17]). Böhtlingk, op.cit, p. VIII: „Bei zwei zusammengeflossenen Vokalen hat Hoefer auch zwei Pada-Handschriften zu Rathe gezogen.“ The notes in the Chrestomathie are to be found on p. 353-441.

[13] This was preceded by an edition of Stevenson.

[14] Of the Vājasaneyisaṃhitā in 1852, the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa in 1852, the Kātyāyana-Śrautasūtra in 1859. An edition of the 9th adhyāya of the VS appeared before as dissertation in 1845 (cf. that posting here).

[15] Cf. Stietencron, Attraktion und Ausstrahlung: das Wirken Rudolf von Roths, p. 79.

[16] „Indem Roth auf wenigen Seiten in seiner knappen Art, ohne Dialektik und Polemik, die Ergebnisse seiner Studien mitteilte, hat er zugleich ein Programm für die ganze weitere Forschung auf dem Gebiet des Veda aufgestellt“ (Geschichte der Sanskritphilologie, p. 257).

[17] There is a list of regarded manuscripts to be found at the beginning of the first essay, cf. Kleine Schriften, p. 39 sq. It seems that Roth established the method of citing related to the maṇḍalas.

[18] Roth in a letter to his teacher Heinrich Ewald from Paris on the 13.11.1844: „Meine Liebe zu den Weden wächst beständig. Man muß über den glatten, systematisch steiffen Sinn der Eklärer hinauskommen, um in diesen Gesängen eine Fülle poetischer und religiöser Anschauungen zu finden“ (Zeller, R.v.Roth als Schüler, Lehrer und Gelehrter im Spiegel von Briefdokumeten, p. 93). There is a harsh critique of Roth’s methods by Goldstücker in his Páņini of 1861.

[19] Towards Wilson’s Indian years see Kejariwal, The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the discovery of India’s past (1784-1838), p. 118 sq. (4. H.H. Wilson and the expanding frontiers of historical scholarship 1815-32).

[20] Roth presented Die Hymnensammlungen there (cf. the Jahresbericht der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft für 1845-46, p. 35 sq. [Protokoll der dritten ordentlichen Sitzung]). It is said: „Es gereicht mir zu besonderem Vergnügen, mit der Ankündigung schliessen zu dürfen, dass ein solches Werk in England vorbereitet wird. Die Wissenschaft wird dafür Wilson verpflichtet seyn […] Jüngeren Kräften, unter welchen Dr. Trithen in London und Dr. Rieu aus Genf ich mich zählen darf, soll es unter seiner Leitung möglich gemacht werden, dieses ausgedehnte Material zur Erklärung des Weda dem Studium zugänglich zu machen“ (p. 65).

[21] Müller in My autobiography wrote that he has been invited by Böhtlingk to St.Petersburg, but couldn’t overcome his doubts – enforced by warnings of Burnouf – after he never got an official invitation from the academy: „All this, I confess, began to frighten me. For me, a poor scholar, to go to St. Petersburg without any official invitation, without any appointment, seemed reckless“ (p. 182). Müller’s refuse led to a lifelong struggle between the two researchers, e.g. Böhtlingk wrote a harsh Zur Charakteristik Max Müller’s in the Anzeiger der Jenaer Literaturzeitung of 1876 (p. 14: „Auch lerne er endlich sich bescheiden, da es ihm doch nicht gelingen wird, das zu werden und bei competenten Richtern für das zu gelten, was er zu sein scheinen möchte“), and later in 1891 published the harsh lampoon Max Müller als Mythendichter.

[22] Müller puts it: „Roth was my senior by several years, and engaged in much the same work as myself. But we never got well together […] and later on he offered to join me in editing the Rig-veda, I declined, perhaps incluenced by that early impression which I could not get rid of“ (op.cit., p. 171 sq.).

[23] „Sie ist ein großartiges Monument deutschen Fleifses und englischer Liberalität“ (Review of Weber in ZDMG 4 [1850], p. 265-68 = Indische Streifen 2 [1869], p. 8 sq.).

[24] See Windisch’s Geschichte der Sanskritphilologie, p. 272 sq. (270-76: 37. Max Müller. Ausgabe des Ṛgveda).

[25] „The same Bunsen, His Excellency Baron Bunsen, the Prussian Minister in London, on his own accord went afterwards to see the Chairman and the Directors of the East India Company, and explained to them what the Rig-Veda was, and that it would be a real disgrace if such a work were published in Germany; and they agreed to vote a sum of money such as they never voted before for any literary undertaking“ (autobiography, p. 13. sq.). Peter Wyzlic pointed to me before Bunsen as a somewhat obscure person.

[26] „Es kommen nämlich kaum wirkliche Varianten vor; ich meine solche, die in verschiedenen Worten oder Wortformen bestehen und schließe zweierlei aus. Erstens solche, wo die geschriebenen Laute diesselben sind […] Zweitens, was ich orthographische Varianten nennen möchte“ (op.cit., p. 472).

[27] The text of the saṃhitā with the padapāṭha of the editio princeps without the commentary appeared in two volumes before that in 1873.

[28] Something comprehensive on Aufrecht going beyond the anecdotes which are traditioned in Bonn is still missing. Must do it so far: Kirfel’s little piece in the Bonner Gelehrte – Beiträge zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Bonn, Sprachwissenschaften (Bonn 1970), p. 315-18.

[29] His early transliteration scheme follows mainly the system of Brockhaus (Über den Druck sanskritscher Werke mit lateinischen Buchstaben from 1841) which follows Franz Bopp.

Indische Studien – Beiträge [1 (1850): Zeitschrift] für die Kunde des indischen Altertums. Im Vereine mit mehreren Gelehrten herausgegeben von Dr. Albrecht Weber. 1 (1850) – 18 (1898). Berlin: Dümmler (nos. 1-8) / Leipzig: Brockhaus.

This is a DjVu bundle of the whole journal, refined by postprocessing of the scans and equipped with a browsing sidebar Nos. 6 & 7 are not included (Aufrecht’s edition of Die Hymnen des Ṛigveda has more or less become obsolete after the second edition came out in 1877), and also nos. 11 & 12 are left out (Weber’s edition of the Taittirīyasaṃhitā is done already, but I am going to share that otherwise), 6922 pages.

Briefly on Albrecht Weber as a background of the Indische Studien

The silesian Friedrich Albrecht Weber [1] was born on the 17.2.1825 in Breslau (Wrocław). 1841 he began to study at the local University and decided to devote himself mainly to Sanskrit studies under the tutelage of Adolf Friedrich Stenzler (1807-1887), who had become Extraordinarius (associated professor) there in 1833, and who was a friend of the family. In 1844 he studied in Bonn with Christian Lassen (1800-1876) and Johannes Gildemeister (1812-1890, Weber learned Hebrew in the cloister school). In 1845 he spended one semester in Berlin at Franz Bopp (1791-1867), and there he also listened to the famous classicists Karl Lachmann and August Boeckh [2]. In Berlin he became friend to Theodor Aufrecht, Adalbert Kuhn and Rudolf von Roth; namely with the latter (who became Extraordinarius in Tübingen in 1848 and Ordinarius in 1856 as the successor of Heinrich Ewald) a close relationship began these days (later Weber contributed to the Petersburger Wörterbuch towards Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras). 1845 Weber returned to Breslau and finished his dissertation Yajurvedae specimen cum commentario – as far as I know that’s the first edition of a Yajurvedic text (9th Adhyāya of the VS). After that, like it was compulsory for these days, he travelled to London, Oxford and Paris to work with the manuscripts there. He made transcriptions for the planned edition of the White Yajurveda, and in Paris he also met Eugène Burnouf (1801-1852). 1848 Weber moved to Berlin and made his habilitation and became Privatdozent. Berlin was the place to be for the forming up new discipline of Vedic studies in Germany after the acquisition of the famous Chambers Collection of manuscripts for the Königliche Preußische Bibliothek in 1842 (see below), which was outstanding rich even of Vedic texts. In the same year Weber got married. 1849 he begans to publish the Indische Studien (IS) [3]. It took a while until Weber became Extraordinarius of altindische Philologie in 1856, and later in 1867 he was appointed professor for indische Altertumskunde [4]. In Berlin he spended always a diligent, extremely productive academic life. In the last years Weber got almost blind [5], and he died 30.11.1901 in Berlin. His pupil Richard Pischel succeeded him on the chair. Weber educated a whole generation of Indologists and among his students there were Berthold Delbrück, Julius Eggeling, Angelo de Gubernatis, Alfred Hillebrandt, Hermann Jacobi, Julius Jolly, Hendrick Kern, Franz Kielhorn, Ernst Kuhn, Ernst Leumann, Alfred Ludwig, Ivan Pavlovič Minaev, Hermann Oldenberg, and William Dwight Whitney. He is certainly to be considered being one of the greatest Indologists of the 19th century.

Bendall writes that “as a writer no man has explored so many new fields“. Weber is renown for his immane workload and the range of topics he has covered is really impressive [6]. He was a pioneer on many fields of Indology, but it’s right to say that his special subjects were Vedic studies and Jaina literature. Towards the Veda the contribution which has be mentioned first definitely is his edition of the whole White Yajurveda in the Mādhyandina recension in three parts which appeared from 1852 on [7]. Weber also edited the Taittirīyasaṃhitā in IS 11 (1871) & 12 (1872), and these editions remained standard to this day (reprinted several times, see Parpola). In vol. 4 of the IS he published also the Pratiśākhya belonging to the VS, and in IS 13 there is a detailed study of the Padapāṭha of the TS to be found. Weber contributed much to the founding period of Vedic studies, in IS 1 there is a translation and a edition of a survey of Vedic literature from the 16th century by the Vedāntin Madhsūdhana Saravatī. In IS 3 there is a examination of the Caraṇavyūha, an important text on the Vedic schools. A survey of Sāmaveda literature appeared already in IS 1. I’ve got the feeling that Weber also was the first ever to write on Kāṭhaka in IS 3. There are also several pieces on Vedic history, on specific legends, a couple of translations of parts of texts also as articles next to several articles on specific Vedic issues which mostly appeared in a series of Vedische Studien in the Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. From Weber’s deep knowledge of the Vedic ritual as a Yajurvedin he also published a treatise on the Vājapeya in the Sitzungsberichte of 1892, and another one on the Rājasūya in the Academy’s Abhandlungen of 1893. In the IS 10 & 13 there already was a survey of Vedic ritual. He published also a lot towards other Vedāṅgas (Metrics, Astronomy etc.), and there are some articles and editions of Upaniṣads [8] – it would by far go to far to get into more detail (…. hey that’s only a blog posting here).

The development of Weber’s research is closely related to the history of the manuscript stocks in Berlin. Like said above, the acquisition of the Chambers Collection in 1842 brought many unique items even of Vedic literature from Bengal [9]. In 1851 Weber began to compile a manuscript catalogue which appeared 1853 [10], and which is more or less a catalogue on the Chambers Collection. In the semester 1851/52 Weber delivered his first lecture on Indian literature history which appeared as book in 1852, and which could be seen as a kind of supplement to the manuscript catalogue [11]. To obtain a relative chronology of Indian literature is also the background of many of Weber’s articles, for example also of the one on Pāṇini (IS 5), and the one on the Mahābhāṣya (IS 13). Weber was one of the first people in Europe which wrote on Jaina literature, a treatise on the Śatrunjayamāhātmya appeared 1858, and another one on the Bhagavatī in two parts in 1865 and 1866. In the year 1868 a huge manuscript raid began in India and in the years 1873-78 Georg Bühler sended a lot of items to Berlin – among them a whole Śvetāmbara canon. Weber compiled another manuscript catalogue of the growths which appeared 1886-91 in three fascicles as second part of the catalogue of 1853 [12]. This time again as a kind of supplement Weber wrote a survey Über die heiligen Schriften der Jaina in IS 16 & 17. In many articles Weber contributed as a pioneer of Jaina studies as much as of Middle Indo-Aryan literature – up to this time only the Prākṛt passages of the plays have been known. For example he worked intensively on the Sattasaī, Hāla’s compilation of erotic verses in Māhārāṣṭrī [13].

Notes

[1] Obituary in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland January 1901, 228 sq. (previously appeared in *Athenaeum 3867 (1901)). Another one by M. Winternitz is to be found in the Kleine Schriften, Part 2, 919 sq. (originally: *Bibliographisches Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog 6 (1901), 346 sq.). The obituary of Pischel in the Abhandlungen der Königlich-Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften of 1903 I haven’t got at hand (as always: in the Hamburg state library even this volume is missed). See also W. Morgenroth’s article on Weber in the Altorientalische Forschungen 5 (1977), 97 sq. (shorter forerunner of this article in *Indologica Taurinensia 3/4 (1975/76), 321 sq.). The incorrect “Albrecht Friedrich Weber” obviously goes back to Brockhaus’ Conversations-Lexikon, see Parpola’s bibliography, fn. 1.

[2] He remained close to the “Bonn school” of Indology which was somewhat opposing the “Berlin school” these days (the opposition surely is rooted in the respectful enmity between August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Bopp; it seems the term “Bonn school” was introduced in the research history by Windisch in his Geschichte der Sanskritphilologie, although he writes that Burnouf coinined that term). Weber’s dissertation is dedicated to Lassen, Stenzler (also Schlegel’s student) and Gildemeister, and furthermore Weber also took the side against Hoefer [the rivalry of the both schools erupted after Bopp's pupil Albert Hoefer (1812-1883, appointed in Greifswald 1840) attacked Lassen's Anthologica Sanscritica from 1838 in a malice and dimissive tone (Sengupta 33) in the Berliner Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik of 1840, as if would have been in vengeance of Lassen's review of Bopp's Sanskrit grammar (Windisch 217: "wie in Vergeltung von Lassens Anzeige der Boppschen Sanskritgrammatik") in the Indische Bibliothek of 1830. Obviously in return, in the same year Gildemeister published the pamphlet Die falsche Sanskritphilologie am Beispiel des Herrn Dr. Hoefer in Berlin aufgezeigt. The attacks on Hoefer continued after came up with his Chrestomathie in 1850 which was crushed by Weber in the ZDMG 4 (1850), 399 sq. It didn't came to an end, a rejoinder followed and a re-rejoinder, furthermore there was a rivalry between Hoefer's and Lassen's Prākṛt grammars etc. Although Hoefer played an intrumental role in the acquisition of the Chambers Collection (see his remark in the Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft der Sprache 2 (1850), 437) and Weber possibly made use of preliminary works on that collection made by him (see Morgenroth, fn. 4), Hoefer isn't even mentioned in the introduction of his manuscript catalogue of 1853. On that all see Sengupta's excellent work From salon to discipline (Heidelberg 2005), 27 sq.; and Windisch, 216 sq. on Hoefer].

[3] The Indische Studien (which were first planned to be titled Vedische Studien) were mend as follower of the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, which was edited by Christian Lassen (last volume is no 7. in 1850), see Morgenroth fn. 9 and Parpola 193. The journal contains also very useful indices.

[4] Which was a new chair next to one of Bopp’s for “Sanskrit und vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft”, see Alsdorf’s Die Indologie in Berlin von 1821-1945 (Kleine Schriften, 2nd ed., Hamburg 2001), 723 sq. and Morgenroth, 100. Towards the political background of Weber’s appointment see Sengupta, 68 sq. By the way, Webers inaugural speech is available here. The establishment of a new chair in Berlin definitely played a role for the emancipation of Sanskrit resp. Vedic studies from Comparative linguistics resp. Indogermanistik which happened that time.

[5] Eye complaint surely is the Berufskrankheit of philologists, for example also Christian Lassen suffered extreme low vision in his last years. So Weber tells already 1891 that his eyesight had become deteriorated substantially in the introduction to the third part of his second manuscript catalogue (XVII: “Es ist ein mühsames Werk, das ich hiermit abschliefse. Ein gut Stück meiner Sehkraft liegt darin begraben“), but after some accident in 1897 (hard to find out something more specific) it got even worse.

[6] Windisch treats Weber’s (and the related) research in detail in his encyclopaedic Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie und indischen Altertumskunde, see there 319 sq. (chapters 46-50: Yajurveda, Katalog und Literaturgeschichte, Abhandlungen, Prākṛt-Studien, Jaina-Literatur). The task of compiling a bibliography was undertaken by Parpola (Remota relata. Essays on the History of Oriental Studies in honour of Harry Halén. Ed. by Juha Janhunen and Asko Parpola (Helsinki 2003), 189 sq.), it also containes a short, rich bibliographical sketch.

[7] The Vâjasaneyi-Sanhitâ in the Mâdhyandina- and the Kâṇva-çâkhâ with the Commentary of Mahîdhara. Berlin: Dümmler / London: Williams and Norgate 1852; *The Çatapatha-Brâhmaṇa in the Mâdhyandina-Çâkhâ with extracts from the commentary of Sâyaṇa, Harisvâmin and Dvivedaganga. 1855 (Parpola 1855:1); *The Çrautasûtra of Kâtyâyana with extracts from the commentaries of Karka and Yâjnikadeva. 1859 (Parpola 1859:1).

[8] There is no collection of his kleine Schriften up to today, but Weber himself collected several articles and particularly reviews in the Indische Skizzen (1857), and in the three volumes of the Indische Streifen (1868-1879).

[9] On the Chambers Collection see Morgenroth: Indische Hanschriften (AoF 5 (1977)), 276 sq.; Schmieder-Jappe: Die Sammlung der orientalischen Handschriften der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin 2004), 10 sq.; Sengupta 126 sq. Sir Robert Chambers (1737-1803) was Chief Judge of the Supreme Court at Fort William in Kolkata and a friend of Sir William Jones (1746-1794).

[10] Verzeichnis der Sanskrit- [und Prākṛit-]Handschriften [1]. Berlin: Nicolai 1853 (Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Könglichen Bibliothek; 1), see Janert’s Annotated bibliography of the catalogues of Indian manuscripts (Wiesbaden 1965), 30 (no. 20). Aufrecht in the Catalogue Catalogorum (Leipzig 1891), IV: “This is a pattern of what a Catalogue ought to be, and it deals with MSS. which in their bulk are not surpassed in value by any other collection in Europe“. With this catalogue Weber created the foundations of the “Berlin school” of manuscript cataloguing (text beginning and end are recorded, shorter texts are given in little editions, etc.) to which also the Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (VOHD) belongs – probably one of the most refined series of catalogues of oriental manuscripts worldwide. Before the Chamber Collection came the Königliche Bibliothek possessed only 31 pieces, see Morgenroth, Indische Handschriften.

[11] III: “… als deren Resultat ein ausführlicher Catalog ziemlich gleichzeitig mit diesen Vorlesungen, die etwa als ein Commentar dazu gelten können, erscheint“. An ebook is available here. The second edition with supplemental additions appeared in 1878 (ebook here), and was the basis for the English translation of the same year (French translation 1859). In comparison to the work of F. Adelung (Versuch einer Literatur der Sanskrit-Sprache. St. Petersburg 1830), which was grounded mainly on secondary literature, Weber wrote completely out of the manuscripts. For that Weber is considered to be the founder of modern Indian history of literature, see Morgenroth 103. It must be emphasized that the catalogue and the history were completed in a period of approx. two years!

[12] Verzeichnis der Sanskrit- und Prākṛit-Handschriften 2. Berlin: Schade / Asher 1886-91 (Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek; 5), see Janert loc. cit. This catalogue played a fundamental role for early Western Jaina research (see Leumann, ZDMG 45 (1893), 455).

[13] Edition from a single manuscript of the commentary of Kulanātha with translation and extensive introduction in 1870 (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes; 5,3), additions to that in ZDMG 26 (1872) and 28 (1874). A more complete edition appeared in 1881 (Abhandlungen; 7,4). On Bhuvanapāla’s commentary in the Sitzungsberichte of the Academy of 1882, and then in IS 16. Weber also published a few translations in the Deutsche Rundschau of 1885 (because that one could be pretty rare I’ve uploaded it here). On the Sattasaī see Hinüber’s Das ältere Mittelindisch im Überblick (2nd ed., Wien 2001), §53.

“There was a king with the name Nala, Vīrasena’s strong son. He was equipped with the desirable qualities, had a good shape and knew how to treat horses …” – here’s a little bibliography on the Nalopākhyānam, the tale of Nala and Damayantī. The episode is truly one of the gems of the Mahābhārata and has always been a popular text even of beginners in Sanskrit. Furthermore, the text is ideal to get into the critical edition of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Insitute in Pune (BORI), where it is to be found in the 3rd volume, that’s the 1st part of the Āraṇyakaparvan (edited by Vishnu S. Sukthankar in 1942), in Adhyāyas 50-78. The reception history which could be seen from this little chronological bibliography here (far from being complete and a allowedly a little bit biased towards German) shows that the text always was an issue in Indology since its “discovery” by Franz Bopp (1791-1867) in Paris in the early 19th century [1]. To quote one of the forefathers, August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845) praises the text: “Hier will ich nur so viel sagen, daß nach meinem Gefühl dieses Gedicht an Pathos und Ethos, and hinreißender Gewalt der Leidenschaften wie an Hoheit und Zartheit der Gesinnungen, schwerlich übertroffen werden kann. Es ist ganz dazu gemacht, alt und jung anzusprechen, vornehm und gering, die Kenner der Kunst, und die, welche sich bloß ihrem natürlichen Sinne überlassen” [2]. Here we go:

• J[ohann] G[ottfried] L[udwig] Kosegarten (1792-1850): Nala. Eine indische Dichtung von Wjasa. Aus dem Sanscrit im Versmasse der Urschrift übersetzt, und mit Anmerkungen begleitet. Jena: Fromman 1820.

Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866)

• Friedrich Rückert: Nal und Damayanti. Eine indische Geschichte. Frankfurt a.M.: Sauerländer 1828 [2nd ed. 1838, 3rd ed. 1845].

• Franz Bopp: Nalus maha-bharati episodium. Textus sanscritus cum interpretatione latina et annotationibus criticis. Altera emendata editio. Berolinum: Nicolai 1832.

• Franz Bopp: Nalas und Damayanti. Eine indische Dichtung. Aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt. Berlin: Nicolai 1838 [3].

• Monier Monier-Williams (1819-1899): Nalopákhyánam. Story of Nala. An episode of the Mahá-Bhárata. The Sanskrit text with copious vocabulary, grammatical analysis and introduction. The metrical translation by Henry Hart Milman. Oxford: University Press 1860.

• Edmund Lobedanz: König Nal und sein Weib. Indische Sage. Deutsch metrisch bearbeitet. Leipzig: Brockhaus 1863.

• P.G. Maggi: Nala. Poemetto indiano estratto dal terzo libro del Mahàbhàrata. In: Rivista Orientale 1 (1867/68), 68 sq.

• John Peile (1838-1910): Notes on the Nalopȧkhyȧnam or Tale of Nala for the use of Classical students. Cambridge: University Press 1881.

• Hermann Camillo Kellner (1839-1916): Das Lied von König Nala. Erstes Lehrbuch für Anfänger im Sanskrit. Nach didaktischen Grundsätzen bearbeitet und in transkribiertem Texte mit Wörterbuch herausgegeben. Leipzig: Brockhaus 1885.

Willem Caland (1859-1932)

• W[illem] Caland: Sāvitrī und Nala. Zwei Episoden aus dem Mahābhārata. Text mit kurzen erklärenden Noten und Glossar. Utrecht: Oosthoek 1917.

• P[aul] E[mile] Dumont (1879-1968): Histoire de Nala conte indien. Episode du Mahâbhârata. Traduction nouvelle. Bruxelles: Lamertin 1923.

• Franklin Edgerton (1885-1963): A critical edited text of Nala, 1-5 [review of the 1st fasc. of volume 3 of the BORI edition]. In: Journal of the American Oriental Society 62,3 (1942), 198-200.

• Albrecht Wezler: Nala und Damayanti. Eine Episode aus dem Mahābhārata. Aus dem Sanskrit übertragen und erläutert. Stuttgart: Reclam 1965 (Reclams Universal-Bibliothek; 8938).

• Soh Takahashi: The tale of Nala. Text (transcription) and vocabulary. Hildesheim (usw.): Olms 1994 (Text und Studien zur Orientalistik; 9) [reviewed in JAOS 117,1 (1997), 226].

Notes:

[1] See W. Morgenroth: Franz Bopp als Indologe und die Anfänge der Sanskrit-Lexikographie in Europa. In: R. Sternemann (Hrsg.): Bopp-Symposium 1992 der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Akten der Konferenz vom 24.3-26.3.1992 aus Anlaß von Franz Bopps zweihundertjährigem Geburtstag am 14.9.1991. Heidelberg: Winter 1994 (Indogermanische Bibliothek, 3. Reihe), 162-72.

[2] On page 98 of the review of Bopp’s first edition of the text (Nalus carmen sanscritum Mahàbhàrato. Edidit, latine verit, et adnotationibus illustravit Fanciscus Bopp. London (usw.): Treuttel et Würtz 1819) in the first volume of the Indische Bibliothek from 1832, 97-128. On the early contributions towards the Nalopākhyānam see F. Adelung’s Bibliotheca sanscrita (2nd ed., St. Petersburg 1837), p. 243 seq., and J. Gildemeister’s Bibliotheca sanskritae sive recensus librorum sanskritorum (Bonn and London 1847), nos. 98 seq.

[3] Wilhelm von Humboldt in a letter to Bopp from 1837: “Es ist mir eine große Freude, mein vieljähriger, hochverehrter Freunde, Ihnen den innigsten Dank für den Genuß zu sagen, den mir die erst diese Nacht vollendete Lectüre ihrer schönen Übertragung des Nalus verschafft hat. Bei Ihnen erst glaubt man sich in das alte Gedicht versetzt. Rückert leiß mir immer den Eindruck der Tünche und der Vergleichung; die Sie haben wagen können in der Stille des Baumes Kummerlos zeugt ganz für Ihre Art der Behandlung. Das Großartige des ungeheuren Gedichts gewinnt bei der schmucklosen Einfachheit, in der Sie immer gestrebt haben, es erscheinen zu lassen” [S. Lefmann: Franz Bopp, sein Leben und seine Wissenschaft. 1. Hälfte. Berlin 1891, p. 125*].

For Indian epigraphy there are fine introductions available [D.C. Sircar's Indian Epigraphy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1965 and later, accompanied by the Indian Epigraphical Glossary; and as a successor: R. Salomon: Indian Epigraphy. New York (u.a.): Oxford University Press 1998, reviewed among others by O. v. Hinüber in JAOS 121,3 (2001),  517-19)], but unfortunately comprehensive surveys like this haven’t been created for manuscriptology so far (anyhow both disciplines have many things in common). A huge Encyclopedia of Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa is planned to be published in context of the DFG research group Manuscript Cultures in Asia and Africa at the AAI in Hamburg, which is going to cover also the South Asian tradition. Until a standard reference work like this is going to appear here some collected basic bibliographical pointers to contributions of a more general approach for starters or other-discipline peekers, including uploads next to some links. Additions (and scans) welcome! If you are still hungry after this, D. Wujastyk compiled a much bigger Preliminary subject bibliography on Indian manuscripts.

General Indian manuscriptology: R.S.S. Murthy: Introduction to manuscriptology [Delhi: Sharada Publishing House 1996]; D. Stender: Uncovering hidden treasures – establishing the dicipline of Indian manuscriptology [IIAS Newsletter 45 (2007), 27]. On the Buddhist manuscript culture now Berkwitz/Schober/Brown’s Introduction to Buddhist Manuscripts Cultures [London (u.a.): Routledge 2009, 1-15]. See also A. Payer’s site.

Writing materials in general, manuscript techniques: G. Grönbold: Die Buchkultur Südasiens [Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: Das Buch im Orient. Handschriften und kostbare Drucke aus zwei Jahrtausenden. Wiesbaden: Reichert 1982, 221-27]; Palmblattbuch [Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens. Zweite Auflage. V: M-Photon. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 514]; A.F.R. Hoernle: An epigraphical note on Palm-leaf, Paper and Birch-Bark [offprint from: *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, part I, 69,2 (1900)]; K.-L. Janert: Bibliographie mit den Berichten über die mündliche und schriftliche Textweitergabe sowie die Schreibmaterialien in Indien. Teil 1 (Berichtszeit bis 1955) [Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag 1995, another part never appeared]; W. Kirfel: Textüberlieferung und Textkritik in der indischen Philologie [Kleine Schriften. Wiesbaden: Steiner 1976 (Glasenapp-Stiftung; 11), 382-92, mainly on writing materials].

Specific writing materials: Palm leaf [either Talipot (corypha umbraculifera) or Palmyra (borassus flabellifer)]: G Grönbold: Palmblätter [Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens. Zweite Auflage. V: M-Photon. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 513-14]; S.A.A. Jahn: Comparative studies on different concepts about the origin of writing on palm leaf [Asiatische  Studien / Etudes asiatiques 60,4 (2006), 921-61]; P.K. Padmakumar / V.B. Sreekumar: Palm leaves as writing material: history and methods of processing in Kerala [Palms 47,3 (2003), 125-29]. Birch bark: J. Filliozat: Manuscripts on Birch Bark (Bhurjapatra) and their preservation [The Indian Archives 1,2 (1947), 102-08]. Paper: J. Trier: Ancient paper of Nepal [Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1972 (Jutland Archaeological Society Publications; 10)].

Palaeography in general: G. Bühler: Indische Palaeographie von circa 350 A. Chr. – circa 1300 P. Chr. [Strassburg: Trübner 1896 (Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde; 1,11); chapter VI (83 sq.) and VII (88 sq.) on manuscript writing materials, techniques etc.]; A.H. Dani: Indian Palaeography [Oxford: Clarendon Press 1963]; H. Falk: Schrift im alten Indien. Ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen [Tübingen: Narr 1993 (ScriptOralia; 56)]; F. Nowotny: Schriftsysteme in Indien [Studium Generale 20,9 (1967), 527-47]; R. Salomon: Writing systems of the Indo-Aryan languages [Cardona/Jain (Eds.): The Indo-Aryan languages. London (u.a.): Routledge 2003, 67-103]; L. Sander: Paläographisches zu den Sanskrithandschriften der Berliner Turfansammlung [Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner 1968 (Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Supplementband; 8), on the Sanskritica of the manifold Turfan Collection in Berlin (see here), predominantly Kuṣāṇa and Gupta script]. On misc. manuscript features: K. Einicke: Korrektur, Differenzierung und Abkürzung in indischen Inschriften und Handschriften [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2009 (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes; 68], not yet appeared]; K. Plofker: Spoken text and written symbol – the use of layout and notation in Sanskrit scientific literature [Digital Proceedings of the Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age 1,1,3 (2009)].

Specific palaeography: Bengalī: R.D. Banerji: The origin of Bengali script [University of Calcutta 1919]; D. Dimitrov: Tables of Old Bengali script [Dimitrov/Roesler/Steiner (Eds.): Indian and Tibetan Studies. Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien 2002 (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde; 53), 27-78]. Nepalese (often designated not quite correct as “Nevārī”) : S. Lienhard/T.L. Manandhar: Nepalese manuscripts. Part 1: Nevārī and Sanskrit: Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin [Stuttgart: Steiner 1988 (Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland; 33,1)], XVII sq.; Ś. Rājavaṃśī: Pracīna lipi varṇamālā [Kāṭhamāṇḍū 1960]; H. Shakyavansha: Nepāla lipi saṃgraha [Asontole, Kathmandu: Mandas & Sugatadas 1956]. There are several other tables on the net like the one of a Abhisamācārikadharma manuscript made in a research group at Taishō University. A recent study on Nepalese script is Ye Shaoyong’s A palaeographical study of the manuscripts of the Mūlamadhmakakārikā and Buddhapalita’s commentary [ARIRIAB 11 (2007), 153-75]. Śāradā: G. Grierson: On the Sarada alphabet [Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1916, 677-708]; W. Slaje: Śāradā – deskriptiv-synchrone Schriftkunde zur Bearbeitung kaschmirischer Sanskrit-Manuscripte [Reinbeck: Wezler 1993 (Indische Schriften; 1)]. South India: R. Grünendahl: South Indian Scripts in Sanskrit manuscripts and prints – Grantha Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Nandinagari [Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden 2001]; S. Rath: Varieties of Grantha script – date and place of origin of manuscripts [Proceedings of IIAS Workshop Production, distribution and collection of Sanskrit manuscripts in Ancient South India, Leiden 2007 (forthcoming)]; K. Vanugopalam: A primer in Grantha characters [St. Peter: James H. Nye 1893]. See also the Indoskript software and the Unicode charts for South Asian scripts here.

Date conversion/calendar calculation: H. Falk: Frühe Zeitrechnung in Indien [ders. (Hrsg.): Vom Herrscher zur Dynastie. Zum Wesen kontinuierlicher Zeitrechnung in Antike und Gegenwart. Bremen: Hempen 2002 (Vergleichende Studien zu Antike und Orient; 1), 77-105]; H. Jacobi: The computation of Hindu dates in inscriptions, &c. [Epigraphica Indica 1 (1892), 403-60]; R. Salomon: Indian Epigraphy (see above), chapters 5.4 (Dating of Inscriptions, 168 sq.) and 5.5 (Appendix: Eras used in Indo-Aryan inscriptions, 180 sq.); R. Sewell / Ś.B. Dikshit: The Indian calendar with tables for the conversion of Hindu and Muhammadan into A.D. dates, and vice versa [London: Sonnenschein 1896]; L.D. Swamikanu Pillai: *The Indian ephemeris. 6 vols. [Madras: Government Press 1922; several reprints]. See also Pañcāṅga.

Textual criticism: there is a vast literature on textual criticism and transmission to be found in other disciplines,  one could get the impression esp. in classical philology (there are a lot of introductions there) and New Testament studies – fundamentals and methods are portable. For Sanskrit philology (header: pāṭhaśodhana) there is S.M. Katre’s Introduction to Indian textual criticism [Poona: Deccan College, Post-graduate and Research Institute 1954 (Deccan College Hand-Book Series; 5), also available in Sanskrit); a must-read also is V.S. Sukthankar's Prolegomena to the critical edition of the Mahābhārata [Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 1933], next to S.A. Srinivasan’s Vācaspatimiśras Tattvakaumudi – ein Beitrag zur Textkritik bei kontaminierter Überlieferung [Hamburg: de Gruyter 1967 (Alt- und Neuindische Studien; 12)]. Generally see also: G. Colas: The criticism and transmission of texts in Classical India [Diogenes 47,2 [186] (1999), 30-43, French version: Diogène 186 (1999)]; O.v. Hinüber: Remarks on the problem of textual criticism in editing anonymous Sanskrit literature [Proceedings of the First Symposium of Nepali and German Sanskritist 1978. Dang: Tribhuvan University/Kathmandu: Nepal Research Center 1980, 28-40, also in the Kleine Schriften?].

Some other contributions towards textual criticism of the Mahābhārata: S.K. Belvalkar: Some interesting problems in Mahābhārata text-transmission [*1: ABORI 25 (1944/45), 82-87, *2: 239-43; *3: 26 (1945), 107-119 [see here]; 4: JAOS 72,1 (1952), 34-37]; J. Dunham: Manuscripts used in the critical edition of the Mahābhārata [A. Sharma (Ed.): Essays on the Mahābhārata. Leiden (u.a.): Brill 1991, 1-18]; R. Grünendahl: Zur Klassifizierung von Mahābhārata-Handschriften [Grünendahl/Hartmann/Kieffer-Pülz (Eds.): Studien zur Indologie und Buddhismuskunde (Festschrift Bechert). Bonn: Indica et Tibetica Verlag 1993 (Indica et Tibetica; 22), 101-130]; *M.M. Mehta: The Mahābhārata – a study of the critical edition [Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan 1976, reviewed by Sutherland in JAOS 106,4 (1986)]; Phillips-Rodriguez/Howe/Windram: Chi-squares and the phenomenon of “change of exemplar” in the Dyūtaparvan [Huet/Kulkarni/Scharf (Eds.): Sanskrit Computational Linguistics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer 2009, 380-90, offprint].

Metacatalogues: including single titles and authors and thus serves as comprehensive catalogues of literature: T. Aufrecht: Catalogus catalogorum – an alphabetical register of Sanskrit works and authors [3 parts. Leipzig: Brockhaus 1891-1903], followed by the New Catalogus Catalogorum [19 volumes. University of Madras 1968-2007]. An outstanding catalogue list, ordered by cities, is Janert’s An annotated bibliography of the catalogues of Indian manuscripts [Wiesbaden: Steiner 1965 (Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Supplementband; 1), precious even also for the exemplary entries - manuscript cataloges are oftenly awful to record], followed by: S.C. Biswas: Bibliographic survey of Indian manuscript catalogues [Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers 1998]. See also: J.D. Pearson: Oriental manuscripts in Europe and North America [Inter Documentation Company 1971 (Bibliotheca Asiatica; 7), Indic languages on 347-98]; H.I. Poleman: A census of Indic manuscripts in the United States and Canada [New Haven: American Oriental Society 1938, reprint: New York 1967]. For a survey of collections, see A. Yuyama’s Buddhist Sanskrit manuscript collections [Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies 1992]; D. Wujastyk: Sanskrit manuscript collections outside India, with special reference to Āyurveda [paper for the National Seminar on Medical Manuscripts, Bangalore 2005].

Series dedicated to Prof. Ramesh Chandra Panda, BHU, Vārāṇasī

For concise introductory summaries, a historical survey is George Cardona’s chapter on Indian Linguistics in G. Lepschy’s History of Linguistics I: The Eastern traditions of linguistics [London, New York: Longman 1994, 25-60]. The same author also wrote a short article Old Indic grammar for volume 17,1 of the Handbücher der Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (HSK) [Booij/Lehmann/Mugdan (Eds.): Morphologie / Morphology. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter 2000, 41-51]. In volume 9,1 of HSK there is also an article by Peter Raster on Die indische Grammatiktradition [Jacobs/von Stechow/Sternfeld/Venneman (Eds.): Syntax. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter 1993, 199-208]. Paul Kiparsky wrote a comprehensive lexicon article especially on Pāṇinian linguistics for the 6th volume of Asher’s Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics [Oxford (etc.): Pergamon Press 1994, 2918-23, offprint]. In the same book there is also an article on the author Pāṇini by Frits Staal to be found [2916-18].

For what’s more extensive, a comprehensive description of Pāṇini’s grammatical system is Cardona’s Pānini – his work and its traditions I: Background and Introduction [2nd edition (revised and enlarged), Delhi: Motilal Barnarsidass 1997]. The 1st volume of of Sharma’s edition [see below] is an Introduction to the Aṣṭādhyāyī as a grammatical device. Kiparsky also presented a linguistic paper generally On the architecture of Pāṇini’s grammar on the CIEFL conference on the Architecture of Grammar, Hyderabad 2002. Comprehensive and useful as introductions – if no paṇḍit is available – are the English translations of the Kaumudīs like Śrīśa Chandra Vasu’s voluminous translation of the Siddhāntakaumudī [reprint, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 1995]. A rich resource also is Kshitish Chandra Chatterji’s Technical terms and technique of Sanskrit grammar [Calcutta: Visvanath Chatterji 1948].

There are some reference works, Kashinath Vasudev Abhyankar compiled the Dictionary of Sanskrit grammar [Baroda: Oriental Institute 1961], and there is Louis Renou’s Terminologie grammaticale du Sanskrit [Paris: Champion 1942, and again 1957]. A book couldn’t be missed on the shelf is Sumitra Mangesh Katre’s Dictionary of Pāṇini [3 volumes, Poona: Deccan College 1968], but absolutely indispensable is his A glossary of grammatical elements and operations in the Aṣṭādhyāyī [Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages 1981]. A useful vademecum also just is the Appendix F: Grammatical concordance in Apte’s dictionary.

As a text book of the Aṣṭādhyāyī the Böhtlingk [originally: Pâṇini's acht Bücher grammatischer Regeln. Bonn: 1839-40. The 2nd edition (Pâṇini's Grammatik) appeared 1887, and is the base for several reprints. Recently with corrigenda: Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 2001] is just fine for just working with the Sanskrit, but perfect if you could also consider the short German translations resp. paraphrases of the sūtras. It also contains useful indices and also a dhātupāṭha and a gaṇapāṭha. Joshi/Roodbergen’s massive edition, Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini [Delhi: Sahitya Akademi 1991-, so far up to volume 13/2007?] contains English paraphrases next to explanations including valuable cross-references and several application histories. The same is true for Rama Nath Sharma’s edition in 7 volumes [2nd edition (revised and enlarged), Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal 2002]. Both editions I would say could be right even for the beginner of vyākaraṇa if concentrating on what’s essential at the beginning, at best with some guidance. Plain etexts of the Achtbüchrige are also available, an analytical version could be found here.

Indian grammar as history of literature is treated in English at length in volume 5,2 of the History of Indian Literature (HIL), it’s Hartmut Scharfe’s Grammatical literature [Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden 1977, reviewed by Cardona in the Indo-Iranian Journal 21 (1979), 117-35]. Other disciplines of Sanskrit literature should have such rich research surveys as they were written by Cardona on traditional grammar, they are ideal starting points for getting deeper into different issues and generally to see what actually is an issue in scholarship [Pāṇini - a survey of research. The Hague (etc.): Mouton 1976, and the update: Recent research in Pāṇinian studies. 2nd edition (revised), Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass 2004]. I will give reference to these on the occasion using the sigla PSR and RRP.

Śivasūtras and pratyāhāras

There is a set of sūtras called the Pratyāhārasūtras or the Śivasūtras [1], and they are going just like this: (1) aiuṇ (2) ṛḷk (3) eoṅ (4) aiauc (5) hayavaraṭ (6) laṇ (7) ñamaṅaṇanam (8) jhabhaj (9) ghaḍhadhaṣ (10) jabagaḍadaś (11) khaphachaṭhathacaṭatav (12) kapay (13) śaṣasar (14) hal.

It could be seen pretty quick that this a sound catalogue which is different than the one known from the western grammars of Sanskrit, that one is ordered strictly according to the sound classes and includes also the prolonged short vowels etc. Every one of the Śivasūtras ends with a consonant which is defined by the sūtra halantyam of the Aṣṭādhyāyī (1.3.3) as being called it. The sūtra ādir antyena sahetā (1.1.71) defines how to build a pratyāhāra, an abbreviation [2], from the Śivasūtras: any of the sounds here together with any it denotes a set including itself and all sounds which are in between (the other its are not included and the “a”s after consonants and semivowels are generally excluded from this) [3]. Thus ac denotes all vowels (includes the Śivasūtras 1-4), hal (the pratyāhāra, not Śivasūtra no. 14) denotes all consonants (includes the Śivasūtras 5-14) etc. Although 281 pratyāhāras are theoretically possible Pāṇini employs 41: al denotes all sounds (varṇāḥ), ak the simple vowels (samānākṣarāṇi: a, i, u, ṛ, ḷ) etc. [4]

The structure of the Śivasūtras is a fascinating subject. There are questions why two of the sūtras end on “ṇ”, which is open for ambiguities, why “h” appears twice etc. The Śivasūtras have become a field of Sanskrit computational linguistics and it has been found out that this arrangement of sounds is optimal, which is – like many things in vyākaraṇa – the work of a real genius [5].

Notes

[1] They are seen as originating from the drum of Śiva and it’s an interesting question, what this implies. It is striking that sound catalogue does not belong to the corpus of the Aṣṭādhyāyī and some authors see this as an evidence that they were not set up by Pāṇini himself [PSR III.1.3.4]. The designation as “śivāsutrāṇi” or “māheśvarasūtrāṇi” is found in later tradition, the classic grammarians refer to them as “akṣarasamāmnāya“ (for example in the Mahābhāṣya).

[2] On the term pratyāhāra which is not used by Pāṇini himself see Abhyankar’s dictionary, 248.

[3] There is a circle here: the sūtra halantyam defines it while ādirantyenasahetā uses this it to defines what is a pratyāhāra like hal which again is a component of halantyam. For mutually depended operations (anyonyāni kāryāṇi) are forbidden in the śāstra (this defect is called anyonyāśraya) this problem is tried to getting solved by the grammarians in understanding halantyam having different meanings (have fun! the key is Śs no. 14!).

[4] The “a” in Śs no. 6 is traditionally indicated as to be spoken nasal and therefore also being it by the sūtra upadeśe ‘janunāsika it (1.3.2). That marker is then used to build ra denoting “r” and “l”, although Pāṇini doesn’t employs that. In the tradition there are 44 pratyāhāras to be found, cf.  Sharma’s edition, II, 1 sq.

[5] Towards the architecture of the Śivasūtras [PSR 1.5.4c, RRP 2.1.4.4c] see for example Cardona: *Studies in the Indian grammarians. 1: The method of description reflected in the Śivasūtras [Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society 1969]; P. Kiparsky: Economy and the construction of the Śivasūtras [Deshpande/Bhate (Eds.): Pāṇinian studies (Festschrift S.D. Joshi). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies 1991, 239-61, offprint]; W. Petersen: A set-theoretical investigation of Pāṇini’s Śivasūtras [Proceedings of Mathematics of Language 8 (2003), 1-11], Mathematical analysis of Pāṇini’s Śīvasūtras [Journal of Logic, Language and Information 13 (2004), 471-89], On the construction of Śivasūtra-Alphabets [Kulkarni/Huet: Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (3rd ISCLS). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer 2009, 78-97, offprint].