Chapter 4. The Internal Chronology of the Rigveda

 

Chapter 4.

The Internal Chronology of the Rigveda

[This is chapter 4 of my book "The Rigveda and the Avesta - The Final Evidence" (2008)]

 

In our analysis of the Relative Chronology (vis-à-vis the Avesta) and Geography of the Rigveda, we have seen that the data falls into clear categories showing a clear distinction between the Early Books of the Rigveda, the Middle Books of the Rigveda, and the Late Books of the Rigveda. In this chapter, we will go more deeply into the question of this Internal Chronology of the Rigveda. 

In my earlier book on the Rigveda, I examined the Rigvedic data in detail, and showed that the chronological order of the ten Books of the RV is: 6,3,7,4,2,5,8,9,10, with different parts of Book 1 covering the periods of all but the three earliest Books. I also showed in systematic detail that Family Books 6, 3 and 7 belong to the Early period, Family Books 4 and 2 to the Middle period, and the rest (Book 5 among the Family Books, and all the other, ie. non-family, Books, 8, 9 and 10, and most of Book 1) belong to the Late period (for details, see TALAGERI 2000:35-93). That chronological order is irrefutable.

But, after the publication of my book, fraudulent scholars like Michael Witzel preferred to ignore the vital significance and importance of this internal chronology in unraveling the history of the Vedic, and indeed the Indo-European, period; and chose instead to quibble and obfuscate the issues, and, in general, to derail serious discussion, by diverting the discussion into totally irrelevant issues such as the date of the amplified Anukramaṇī texts. His fraudulent pretensions have been conclusively exposed, and his fraudulent objections conclusively refuted, in my reply to his “review” of my book (see TALAGERI 2001).

As we have just seen in our analysis of the Avestan evidence, this internal chronology of the Rigveda is absolutely indispensable in our study of Indo-Iranian history. We can, therefore, expect renewed, and desperate, attempts by academic shysters like Witzel to try to discredit this chronology. Therefore, we need to examine the issue once more in detail, trying, as far as possible, to give less scope for these shysters to play their diversionary games. 

Therefore, in the main body of this chapter, we will examine this issue purely on the basis of the consensus among western scholars, and see how our analysis of the relative chronology and the geography of the Rigveda, in the preceding chapters, stands conclusively established on that basis alone. In two appendix-sections, we will go more deeply into the internal chronology, taking all other factors into account, with the clear understanding that any quibbling by critics can be possible only in respect of the matter in these appendices, and that our conclusions regarding the relative chronology and the geography of the Rigveda stand unaffected by this quibbling. We will examine the subject under the following heads:

 

4A. The Late Books as per the Western Scholars Themselves.

4B. Can This Evidence be Refuted?

4C. Appendix 1: The Internal Order of the Early and Middle books.

     4C-1. The Early vis-à-vis the Middle Books.

     4C-2. The Early Books.

     4C-3. The Middle Books.

4D. Appendix 2: “Late” Hymns.

     4D-1. Facts.

     4D-2. Testimony.

     4D-3. Deductions.

     4D-4. Speculations.

 

4A. The Late Books as per the Western Scholars Themselves.

Firstly, let us examine what constitute the Late Books of the Rigveda, as per the Western scholars.

1. In his 1995 papers in the volume edited by Erdosy, Witzel tells us: “The structure of the text has been more extensively studied, already by Bergaigne (1878-83) and Oldenberg in the 19^th century. From the latter’s Prolegomena (Oldenberg 1888), it appears that the Ṛgveda was composed and assembled in the following stages, beginning ‘at the centre’ with books 2-7” (WITZEL 1995b:309). Witzel even provides a graph on the page, vividly showing this order of composition and assembly, with Books 2-7 as the earliest core of the text, parts of 1 and 8 forming the second layer, the rest of 1 and 8 forming the third layer, followed by Book 9, and finally by “the great appendix to the Ṛgveda” (WITZEL 1995b:310), Book 10.             

More recently, Theodore Proferes (frequently quoted by Witzel to promote his own “status kit” mumbo jumbo) puts it as follows: “The formation of the ṛksamhita [....] appears to have been carried out in three stages. First, the ‘clan books’ 2-7 were collected and ordered [....] At a later stage, Books 1 and 8 were added to the case like book ends. It was likely at this stage that Book 9 was added as well. Lastly, the heterogenous material in Book 10 was appended to the entire collection” (PROFERES 1999:10).

In short, the first basic fact, generally accepted by all the scholars, is that the Family or “clan” books (2-7) represent an earlier stage of composition and compilation and the non-family books (1, 8-10) represent a later stage of composition and compilation. 

2. But there is a further point noted by the scholars, distinguishing one of the six Family books from the other five, and clubbing it with the non-family books:

Edward Hopkins, as long ago as 1896, wrote a long and detailed article (“Prāgāthikāni-I”, in JAOS, the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1896) about the late chronological position of Book 8. In this article, he refers to “the intermediate character of v, between viii and the other family books” (HOPKINS 1896a:88), and repeatedly points out with detailed evidence (see HOPKINS 1896a:29-30 fn, 88-89) that there are a great many “evidences of special rapport between viii and v” (HOPKINS 1896a:89). Further, he emphasizes that

“the vocabulary of the Kaṇva maṇḍala often coincides with that of the Atri maṇḍala when it shows no correspondence with that of other family books. This subject deserves special treatment” (HOPKINS 1896a:29).

More recently, Proferes, after pointing out, in his Harvard thesis above, that the Family Books 2-7 are earlier than the non-family Books 1, 8-10, repeatedly singles out Book 5 as having a close relationship with Books 1 and 8, the two Books which he earlier tells us were appended to the collection of the Family books “at a later stage”:

“We need not rely exclusively on the Anukramaṇī to affirm that there were important interactions between the priestly groups represented in Books 1, 5 and 8. As Oldenberg [1888b:213-215] has shown, evidence from the hymns themselves supports this conclusion” (PROFERES 1999:75).

“the pavamāna collection consists primarily of late authors, those from Books 1, 5, 8 and in a limited number of cases, 10” (PROFERES 1999:69).

In a more recent paper, Proferes repeats the above point:

“the clan book composers, except those from Book 5, are not well represented among the pavamāna composers of Book 9” (PROFERES 2003:12).      

 

“These circles are represented by the Kāṇva, Ātreya and Āngirasa authors from Books 1, 5 and 8, as well as by descendants of these authors” (PROFERES 2003:16).

 

“the breakdown of the strict separation of the ritual poetry of different clans and the preservation of that poetry together in a single collection began with the Kāṇva, Ātreya and Āngirasa poets of Books 1, 5 and 8” (PROFERES 2003:18).

 

[Most significantly]: “The connections of Book 5 with Books 1 and 8 and not with the other clan books (2-4, 6-7) is interesting, since it seems to belong to the core RV collection (Oldenberg [1888a]; Witzel [1997])” (PROFERES 2003:16, fn)..

In short, the second basic fact, clear from the writings of the scholars, is that, from among the Family or “clan” books (2-7), Book 5 is classifiable with the non-family Books (1, 8-10) rather than with the other Family Books, and stands chronologically between the other Family Books (2-4, 6-7) and the non-family Books (1, 8-10).     

Thus, even without going into the details of the internal chronological order within the group of other Family Books (2-4, 6-7), we already have the following three chronological stages:

1. Books 2-4, 6-7.

2. Book 5.

3. Books 1, 8-10.

These chronological stages are also confirmed by the evidence of the meters, as we saw in Chapter 2, where Book 5 represents the period of development of the pankti meter.

 

What is important, at this point, is to make it very, very clear, at the outset itself, that this level of chronological information, simply classifying the Books into “earlier” (2-4, 6-7), and “later” (5, 1, 8-10), officially accepted by the western scholars themselves, is sufficient (without going into further chronological details) to irrefutably establish the two conclusions that we arrived at in our chapters on the Relative Chronology and Geography of the Rigveda, chiefly:

1. That the Avesta is contemporaneous with the period of the “later” Books 5, 1, 8-10, and posterior to the period of the “earlier” Books 2-4, 6-7.

2. That the Vedic Aryans expanded from the East in the “earlier” periods to the (earlier totally unknown) West in the “later” periods.

It is clear, therefore, that Witzel’s fraudulent diversions on the subject of the Anukramaṇīs, in his criticism (in WITZEL 2001) of the chronology elaborated in my earlier book (TALAGERI 2000), were just that: fraudulent diversions to derail serious analysis and discussion.

 

4B. Can This Evidence be Refuted?

But first, a basic question arises: can our two conclusions, above, be dismissed or refuted?

The answer is clearly in the negative: the above conclusions are indeed irrefutable, since the evidence is too sweeping and overwhelming to be avoided; and the only way to “refute” them is to simply refuse to consider the evidence at all, and to concentrate on carrying out political propaganda campaigns against the evidence and derisive smear campaigns against those who recognize it. This is something at which the likes of Witzel and Farmer are past masters.

An alternate tactic (a tactic, rather than an honest academic procedure) is to attack the correctness of the evidence. Witzel tries to do it by refusing to accept some of the eastern geographical data as geographical data at all (Jahnāvī, ibha, etc), and even transferring, for example, many of the references to eastern rivers from the earth to the “night time sky” by converting the earthly rivers into celestial phenomena.

But this, besides being seemingly “possible” (by straining the credulity of even the most credulous and partisan reader to the utmost limit) only in respect of a very few names, would not help in explaining the almost complete absence of Western geographical data in the Early Books. Therefore, Witzel also tries to transfer eastern geographical data to the west, directly (eg. identifying Yavyāvati with the Afghan Zhob, although he had himself, in an earlier article, WITZEL 1987:193, admitted that the actual location would seem to be in the Kurukshetra region), or by creating dual entities (eg. an Eastern Haryana-Sarasvatī, as well as a Western Afghan-Sarasvatī, both referred to in the Rigveda, with Witzel being the only person possessing the key to distinguish which Sarasvatī is being referred to in which verse. Even when Witzel, here, flatly contradicts his own earlier writings, where he had clearly placed in Haryana many verse-references which he now places in Afghanistan, we still have supposedly honest scholars like Hock, in HOCK 1999b:163-166, enthusiastically citing Witzel’s dubious right-about-turn claims as clinching evidence).

But even these tactics, apart from being desperate and obvious ploys, do not change the picture presented by the data one bit. For one thing, these tactics cannot actually transfer unambiguous geographical words from one part (book/hymn) of the Rigveda to another. And nothing can be done about the unambiguous evidence of the Avestan names and name-elements examined by us in Chapter 1.

 

So, if the evidence has to be rejected, it can only be done on three grounds, each of which would involve a very desperate level of special pleading, and would create more problems than it “solves”:

 

1. The only way to really account for the almost complete absence of Western geographical data in the earlier group of Books (i.e. complete absence in Books 6, 3, 7; and in Book 2.  Book 4 alone, as we saw, names three Western rivers in four hymns, two of which, ironically, have been classified by Oldenberg as late hymns in this Book), as well as the complete absence of Avestan name-elements in these books, is to allege that all such references were systematically extrapolated from the hymns in these Books at a point of time before the RV attained its extant form. Perhaps by those arch villains, (to put it in Witzel’s words:) the “redactors active at the Sanskritizing court of Videha [who] often skewed the historical evidence found in the original RV” (WITZEL 2001b:§1)? 

 

2. A more “scholarly” and time-tested way to try to avoid the inevitable is to introduce a significant element of scholarly ambiguity in the chronological framework, and then use this to cause confusion and obfuscate all the issues. Thus Witzel, in his review of my book, protests: “the composition of the RV occurred in complex layers — not in the tidy sequential patterns imagined by Talageri” (WITZEL 2001b:§1). The word “complex” is a handy tool to deliberately complicate matters. There are two ways in which the chronological order of the Books may be claimed to have exceptions:

a) Early Books may contain late hymns, or early hymns may contain late verses: Proferes, after giving his account of the formation of the Rigveda in his Harvard thesis, writes: “At intermediate points along the way, individual verses and entire hymns were inserted into the RV collection” (PROFERES 1999:10).

b) Late Books may contain early hymns: In an earlier paper, Witzel, after explaining the formation of the RV, suggests: “It must be noted that the arrangement in these books does not always mean that a particular hymn is older and younger than some others [....] some may have been composed early but entered the corpus at a comparatively late date [....] Some in book 8, sometimes even in books 1 and 10 can be as early as those in the ‘family books’” (WITZEL 1995b:310).

The first claim by Proferes may have a grain of truth in it, while the second one by Witzel is more dubious; but, in any case, it must be remembered that these claims refer to a few exceptions to the rule — exceptions which require to be specified and satisfactorily explained in each individual case. However, in arguing with the OIT school, Witzel sees no need for these niceties, and behaves as if the rule were the exception and the exception the rule, and as if it were up to us to specify and justify each point even when it actually fits in with the basic arrangement accepted by Oldenberg, Proferes and himself.

In the present case, however, the overwhelming mass of evidence simply does not allow for such obfuscatory tactics:

As we saw, there are 386 hymns in the Late Books which are associated with the Avestan name-elements:

V.1, 3-6, 9-10, 18-20, 24-27, 30-31, 33-36, 41, 44-49, 52-62, 64, 67-68, 73-75, 79, 81-82 (47 hymns).

I.12-30, 33, 35-52, 61, 66, 80, 83, 88, 99-100, 105, 112, 114, 116-140, 158, 163-164, 167, 188 (78 hymns).

VIII.1-10, 12, 14-15, 19, 21, 23-38, 43-59, 62, 66, 68-71, 74-75, 77, 80, 85-87, 89-90, 92-93, 97-99, 103 (69 hymns).

IX.2-3, 5-24, 27-29, 32-36, 41-43, 53-61, 63-65, 68, 72, 80-83, 85-86, 91-92, 94-97, 99-103, 107, 111-114 (69 hymns).

X.1-8, 10-29, 31, 33, 37, 39, 42-49, 51-52, 54-67, 72-73, 75-78, 80, 85-87, 89-93, 95-99, 101-106, 109, 111-115, 118, 120, 122-123, 128, 130, 132, 134-136, 139, 144, 147-148, 150-152, 154, 157, 159, 163-166, 168, 170, 172, 174-175, 177, 179-180, 186, 188, 191 (123 hymns)

 

And there are eight hymns, all of which are classified as Late, in the Early and Middle Books, which contain these elements:

VI.15 (Oldenberg), 16 (Oldenberg), 47 (Oldenberg).

III.36 (Ait. Br.), 38 (Ait. Br.), 53 (Oldenberg).

VII.33 (Oldenberg).

IV.30 (Oldenberg).

In order to explain the complete absence of these elements in the Early and Middle Books (except in the eight hymns classified as Late), in contrast to the profusion of these elements in 386 hymns in the Late Books, even while continuing to maintain that the Avestan elements in the Rigveda represent pre-Rigvedic remnants, we would have to postulate that the entire mass of 386 hymns in the Late Books “may have been composed early but entered the corpus at a comparatively late date” and “can be as early as those in the ‘family books’”. Or, actually, earlier than them since these “pre-Rigvedic” elements are absent in the Family Books.

 

Likewise, there are 92 hymns, in the Late Books, which mention Western geographical words:

V. 41, 53 (2 hymns).

I. 10, 22, 43-44, 51-52, 61, 83-84, 88, 94-96, 98, 100-103, 105-117, 121-122, 126, 138, 162-164, 186 (39 hymns).

VIII. 1-2, 5-7, 12, 19-20, 24-26, 34, 46, 64, 66, 72, 77, 97 (18 hymns).

IX. 8, 41, 65, 83, 85-86, 97, 107, 113 (9 hymns).

X. 10-11, 27-28, 34-35, 64-67, 75, 80, 85-86, 91, 95, 99, 106, 108, 121, 123, 136, 139, 177 (24 hymns).

 

But there are only five hymns, in two of the Early and Middle Books, which mention Western geographical words, three of which are classified as Late:

III. 38 (Ait. Br.).

IV. 30 (Oldenberg), 43, 54, 55 (Oldenberg).

As we saw, only Book 4 really mentions three Western rivers (but not yet Western places, mountains, lakes or animals), and this is in line with the direction of geographical expansion of the Vedic Aryans in the three Early Books: Book 6 knows only the Sarasvatī and rivers east; Book 3 first mentions the first two easternmost rivers of the Punjab, the Śutudrī and the Vipāś, in the context of a historical military crossing; Book 7 mentions the next two from the east, the Paruṣṇī and the Asiknī, in the context of a battle being fought on the third river, Paruṣṇī, with the enemies being the inhabitants of the region of the fourth river, Asiknī; Book 4 finally takes the geographical horizon of the Rigveda to the Indus and beyond, including the battle beyond the Sarayu west of the Indus.

 

Contrast this with the wealth of Eastern geographical words (including every significant Eastern word in the Rigveda), in 45 hymns, in the Early and Middle Books:

VI. 1, 4, 8, 17, 20, 27, 45, 49-50, 52, 61 (11 hymns).

III. 4-5, 23, 26, 29, 45-46, 53-54, 58 (10 hymns).

VII. 2, 9, 18, 35-36, 39-40, 44, 69, 95-96 (11 hymns).

IV. 4, 16, 18, 21, 58 (5 hymns).

II. 1, 3, 10, 30, 32, 34, 36, 41 (8 hymns).

In order to explain the complete absence of Western geographical words in the Early and Middle Books (except some river names in Book 4), in contrast to the profusion of these words in 92 hymns in the Late Books, and also in contrast with the profusion of Eastern geographical words in 45 hymns in these very Early and Middle Books, even while continuing to maintain that the Vedic Aryans expanded from the West in earlier times to the East in later times, we would have to postulate that all these 92 hymns in the Late Books, which have Western geographical words, “may have been composed early but entered the corpus at a comparatively late date” and “can be as early as those in the ‘family books’”. Or, actually, earlier than them since these Western geographical words are almost completely absent in the Early and Middle Books. And also that all the 45 hymns in the early and Middle Books, which have Eastern geographical words, are hymns which “at intermediate points along the way [....] were inserted into the RV collection”.

Clearly, all this would amount to extreme special pleading.

 

3. The third way in which all the evidence could be overturned is simply by deciding that the scholars and linguists were wrong all the time in placing the Family Books before the non-family Books, and that it is actually the other way round: the non-family Books (1, 8-10) are the oldest books of the RV, Book 5 comes next, followed by Book 4, and that the bulk of the other Family Books (2-3, 6-7 — except the very hymns in these books singled out by Oldenberg as late, which are, in fact, now to be taken as actually being earlier than the rest of the hymns in these Books) constitute the latest parts of the RV, by which time the incoming Vedic Aryans had lost all contact with the Western areas through which they had immigrated into India, and all the Avestan type names and name-elements had gone completely out of fashion,  which is why there are no references to those areas, and no names of the Avestan type, in these Books.

[Of course, in the post-Rigvedic texts, and all later traditions, those names and name-elements mysteriously came back into fashion with a vengeance!].

While no scholar would dare to try to overturn two hundred years of scholarship so completely in this direct, and extreme, way merely in order to try to counter the OIT, many scholars do indeed try to suggest, in more subtle and “complex” ways, that the non-family Books and Book 5 actually represent an earlier age, even if they were merely “compiled” and “included in the collection” at a date later to the rest of the corpus of the Family Books. The creation of that other dual entity, the two waves of Aryan invaders, is useful in attempting to perform these juggling acts with the facts and figures.

Thus, Parpola puts  it as follows: “although the ‘youngest’ hymns of the Ṛgveda are most recent from the point of view of the textual history, ie. the time of their composition and inclusion in the text collection, from the point of view of dialect formation involving the entry of Indo-Aryan speakers in South Asia at different times they reflect an earlier layer” (PARPOLA 2002:57). He clarifies this further by telling us that, although it is “generally agreed that the original core, the oldest part of the  Ṛgveda-Samhita consists in the ‘family books’, RV 2-7, each composed by a particular family of poets”, nevertheless in his “opinion it is the hymns of these poet families (including the hymns assigned to them in books 1 [the latter half], 9 and 10) that represent the Pūru-Bharata tribes of the ‘second wave’” (PARPOLA 2002:57); and that “the earliest wave [is] of the Yadu and Turvaśa tribes identified here with the poetic tradition of the Kaṇvas” (PARPOLA 2002:66).  

Rather a funny way of putting it:  from the point of view of “dialect formation”, ie. from the point of view of the linguistic stage, the language of the non-family Books is in actual fact even more emphatically later than that of the Family Books. But Parpola tells us that it is precisely from this point of view that they “reflect an earlier layer”. He even seems to concede that they were not just “included”, but even “composed” later, and yet insists they belong to an “earlier wave”.

But Witzel also picks up the refrain, and regularly talks, in his articles, of two “waves” of Aryan invaders (or immigrants or tricklers-in), of which the Pūru-Bharata tribes were the latest wave (the period of Sudas, Books 3 and 7, being a particularly “late period” in Rigvedic history.), and the Yadus, Turvaśas and Kaṇvas represent the earlier wave. The Rsis of the later (second-wave) Pūru-Bharata immigrants apparently first composed the original core of the RV (i.e. most of the Family Books), and later included the earlier (than their own) compositions (i.e. the non-family Books) of the earlier (first-wave) immigrants (but in an even later form of  Rigvedic dialect) into the corpus!

Again, this amounts to extreme special pleading ― besides, again, failing to explain the mysterious disappearance of crucial geographical words (including the names of several common western animals), technological words (like spokes), and Avestan names and name-elements (including the names of several important Vedic personalities), in the compositions of the so-called “second wave”, and their even more mysterious reappearance in all later texts, especially since, in all these speculations, it is the “second wave” which is supposed to be linguistically closer to the Iranians.

In short, the data in the Rigveda gives us a very consistent picture of its internal chronology and of the geography of its different periods. The facts cannot be challenged, except through such desperate and untenable pleas.

And the unchallengeable evidence clearly shows that the Vedic Aryans expanded from the East in the pre-Rigvedic period towards the northwest by the Late period, and that the various Iranian groups were emigrants from India in this Late period.

 

4C. Appendix 1: The Internal Order of the Early and Middle Books.

As we saw, western scholars officially accept the following three stages in the composition and compilation of the ten Books of the Rigveda:

1.Books 2-4, 6-7.

2.Book 5.

3.Books 1, 8-10.

Book 5 shares affinities with the first group of Books, both in the sense that it was already a part of the first core collection of the Rigveda, consisting of (as numbered at present) Books 2-7; and also in its geography: i.e. in the fact that it is as ignorant, as the earlier Books, of the Western place names, mountain names, lake names and animal names, so well known to the later Books, and is, for all practical purposes, acquainted only with the three Western rivers known to the earlier Book 4, which saw the westernmost thrust of expansion in the Middle Period. However, in respect of the meters, as we saw, it stands exactly in between the first and the third group of Books.

But in every other respect, as we saw in our chapters on The Relative Chronology of the Rigveda, and as we shall see in the course of the discussion in this chapter, it falls together along with the later Books, in a category that we have classified as the Late Books.

One more point of divide between the earlier Books (2-4,6-7) and the Late Books is that the earlier Books attribute hymns to the eponymous ṛṣi (except in special cases) even when the hymns are clearly composed by different descendant ṛṣis of the family, while the Late Books generally attribute hymns to the actual composers themselves. [Thus, 59 out of 75 hymns in Book 6, 46 out of 62 hymns in Book 3, 101 out of 104 hymns in Book 7, 56 out of 58 hymns in Book 4, and 36 out of 43 hymns in Book 2, are attributed to the eponymous ṛṣi of the respective Books. However, only 14 out of 87 hymns in Book 5 are attributed to the eponymous ṛṣi of the Book. Book 5 names at least 42 ṛṣis as composers for its 87 hymns, while all the five earlier Books put together name only around 26 ṛṣis as composers for their 342 hymns (see TALAGERI 2000:52-53)].

About the other Late Books (Books 1, 8-10), we need not go too deeply into their exact internal chronology: firstly, because the chronological order is practically the same as their serial order; secondly, because this fact is officially accepted by the Western scholars (see WITZEL 1995b:309-310 and PROFERES 1999:10, quoted at the very beginning of Section A above); and thirdly because the precise internal chronological order of the Late Books is, in any case, not so vital to our analysis: that they are Late Books is sufficient. Book 1, as we have shown in detail (TALAGERI 2000:37-72), consists of a collection of small family mini-books, and their period of composition is spread out over a long time from the post-Early to the very Late periods; but even these distinctions are not very relevant to our analysis, since all these mini-books received their final shape in the Late period.  

However, a more detailed examination of the internal chronological order of the earlier Books (Books 2-4, 6-7) is absolutely vital for a more detailed understanding of Vedic, Indo-Iranian, and Indo-European history. As shown in our earlier book, these five Books fall into two groups in the following chronological order: the Early Books 6, 3, 7; and the Middle Books 4, 2.

We will examine, firstly, the evidence for classifying Books 6, 3 and 7 as Early Books while classifying 4 and 2 as Middle Books. Then we will examine the evidence for the internal order within each of the two groups.

 

4C-1. The Early vis-à-vis the Middle Books.

Books 6, 3 and 7 represent an earlier period than Books 4 and 2:

1. The Early Books are pure Family Books, in the sense that every single hymn in these three Books has a ṛṣi-composer belonging to the particular family, or branch of a family, to which that Family Book belongs: thus, every single hymn in Book 6 has a composer from the Bharadvāja branch of the Angiras family, every single hymn in Book 3 has a composer from the Viśvāmitra family, and every single hymn in Book 7 has a composer from the Vasiṣṭha family.

The Middle Books are slightly less pure Family Books: Book 4 (which belongs to the Gotama branch of the Angiras family) has two hymns, IV.43-44, wholly composed by ṛṣis belonging to the Bharadvāja branch of the Angiras family; and Book 2 (which belongs to the Gṛtsamada or Kevala Bhṛgu family) has four hymns, II.4-7, wholly composed by a ṛṣi belonging to the Bhṛgu family. But, in both the cases, the outsider ṛṣi-composers belong to groups related to the family or branch of the respective Book.

The Late Books, on the contrary, are multi-family books, having hymns composed by ṛṣis belonging to diverse and unrelated families. Book 5, although a Family Book of the Atri family, has six hymns, V.15, 24, 33-36, wholly composed by non-Atris: by ṛṣis belonging to the Vasiṣṭha, Viśvāmitra, Angiras and Agastya families; and one hymn, V.44, primarily by ṛṣis belonging to the Kaśyapa family.

2. The Early Books do not have a single hymn composed by descendants of any ṛṣi-composer from any other Book.

The Middle Books, on the other hand, have hymns composed by descendants of ṛṣi-composers from Book 6:  in Book 4, hymns IV.43-44 are jointly composed by Purumīḷha Sauhotra and Ajamīḷha Sauhotra, descendants of Suhotra Bhāradvāja (composer of VI.31-32); and, in Book 2, Gṛtsamada Śaunahotra himself, the eponymous ṛṣi of the Book, is a descendant of Śunahotra Bhāradvāja (composer of VI.33-34). In fact, it would even appear that the eponymous ṛṣi of Book 4, Vāmadeva Gautama, is a descendant of a ṛṣi-composer from Book 1: the mini-book I.74-93 is attributed to Gotama Rāhūgaṇa. [In this case, though, what we actually have is three related groups of hymns: the hymns in Book 4 by ṛṣis of the Vāmadeva Gautama group, hymns I.58-64 by the Nodhās Gautama group, and hymns I.74-93 by Gotama ṛṣis other than these two groups]. 

The Late Books, needless to say, are loaded with hymns composed by descendants of ṛṣi-composers from the earlier Books (see TALAGERI 2000:38-50).            

3. The Early Books 6 and 3 do not refer, within their hymns, to any composer from any other Book. Book 7 refers in VII.96.3 to Jamadagni, a composer from Book 3. It also refers to three contemporary ṛṣis, all three of whom have mini-books composed by their descendants in Book 1: Agastya (VII.33.10,13), the brother of Vasiṣṭha; Parāśara (VII.18.21), a grandson of Vasiṣṭha; and Kutsa (VII.25.5), a colleague of Vasiṣṭha.

The Middle Book 4, on the other hand, refers to two ṛṣi-composers from mini-books in Book 1: Māmateya (=Dīrghatamas) in IV.4.13, and Kakṣīvān in IV.26.1 (see TALAGERI 2000:55).

The Late Books and mini-books, of course, are loaded with references to composers from other Books (see TALAGERI 2000:56-58).     

4. The Early Books belong to the period of the early Bharata kings: the ancestral Bharata himself is referred to only once in the Rigveda, in the oldest Book 6, though already an ancestral figure, and the two most important Bharata kings, Divodāsa and Sudās, are contemporaneous with these Books.

The Middle Books are contemporaneous with the descendants of Sudās, Sahadeva and Somaka, both of whom are contemporaneous with Book 4. Divodāsa is once referred to in Book 2 as a figure from the past. 

To the Late Books, of course, Divodāsa, referred to in Books 1, 8 and 9, and Sudās, referred to in Book 1, are figures from the past, the stuff of traditional memory and legend.        

5. As we already saw in the case of the Avestan name-elements in the Rigveda, four eminent Rigvedic personalities (Turvīti, Gotama, Trita, and Krśānu — in the Avesta, the pre-Zoroastrian Tauruuaēti, Gaotəma, Θrita and Kərəsāni) are completely unknown to the Early Books 6, 3 and 7; first mentioned in the Middle Books 4 and 2; and commonly known to the Late Books 5, 1, 8-10.

 

4C-2. The Early Books.

The Early Books are clearly in the chronological order 6, 3, 7:

1. Book 6 is the purest Family Book, since every single hymn and verse in the Book is composed by a ṛṣi belonging to the Bharadvāja branch of the Angiras family.

Book 3 has ṛśis belonging to the Viśvāmitra family as composers in every single hymn, but two hymns also have a few verses composed by other ṛṣis: hymn 36 has one verse (out of eleven), III.36.10, by an Angiras ṛṣi; and hymn 62 has three verses (out of eighteen), III.62.16-18, jointly by a Bhṛgu ṛṣi and a Viśvāmitra ṛṣi. But these other composers are still, within those hymns, junior partners of the Viśvāmitra ṛṣi-composers. 

Book 7 also has ṛṣis belonging to the Vasiṣṭha family as composers in every single hymn, but now we have two whole hymns, 101 and 102, jointly composed, as equal partners, by an Angiras ṛṣi and a Vasiṣṭha ṛṣi.

2. Book 6 covers the period of Divodāsa, and is therefore decidedly earlier to Books 3 and 7. Books 3 and 7, more contemporaneous, cover the period of his descendant Sudās. But, within a contemporaneous period, the core of Book 3 is slightly earlier than the core of Book 7, since it is generally accepted that the period of Viśvāmitra as the priest of Sudās preceded the period of Vasiṣṭha as the priest of Sudās. Besides, as we already saw, Book 3 (like Book 6) does not refer to any composer from any other Book, while Book 7 refers to Jamadagni from Book 3.  

 

4C-3. The Middle Books.

Of the two Middle Books, Book 4 is earlier than Book 2 (although, in this case, it makes little difference to our analysis, since Book 2 is a very neutral Book, which does not refer to ṛṣi-composers from any other Book, and whose ṛṣi-composers are not referred to in any other Book, and which, in fact does not even refer to any river other than the Sarasvatī):

1. Book 4 is still a relatively pure Family Book like the three Early Books, since the outsider ṛṣi-composers in Book 4 belong merely to a different branch of the same family: both the Bharadvājas and the Gotamas share one āprī-sūkta, I.142. The āprī-sūkta is the defining element of a family in the Rigveda.

On the other hand, the outsider ṛṣi-composers in Book 2, the Bhṛgus, though a related group, have a different āprī-sūkta, X.110, from the āprī-sūkta, II.3, of the Gṛtsamadas or Kevala Bhṛgus of Book 2.  

2. Even more significantly, Book 4 shows a cultural continuity with the Early Books. The first four Books (6, 3, 7, 4) seem to represent the Bharata period proper of the Vedic Age: They represent the periods of Divodāsa (6), Sudās (3, 7), and Sahadeva/Somaka (4). The first prominent Bharata king after the eponymous Bharata, named in the Rigveda, is Devavāta, and he is mentioned only in these four Books. Sṛnjaya, his son, is likewise mentioned only in Books 6 and 4.

[The Bharata period is clearly the Early period of the Rigveda: a) the Bharatas themselves are mentioned in all the Family Books, but in none of the non-family Books; and b) (see TALAGERI 2000:149) there is a pattern in the references, in the āprī-sūktas, to the goddess Bhāratī (family deity of the Bharatas): five families (Angiras, Bhṛgu, Viśvāmitra, Vasiṣṭha and Agastya), which originated in the Early period, mention Bhāratī as the first of the Three Goddesses; two families (Gṛtsamada and Kaśyapa), which originated in the later Middle period, shift the position of Bhāratī back in the enumeration of the Goddesses; and three families (Atri, Kaṇva and Parucchepa), which originated in the Late period, do not mention Bhāratī by name at all.]  

The neutral Book 2 seems to represent a peaceful interregnum period between the Books of the Bharata period, and the Books of the general Pūru period.

All these factors confirm that Books 6, 3 and 7, in that order, are the Early Books, and that Books 4 and 2, in that order, are the Middle Books. Understanding this helps us in understanding the chronological development of Vedic history and culture. Any nitpicking objections (about the anukramaṇīs, etc) can only be diversions, and it must again be noted that they will only result in obfuscating a more detailed understanding of the chronological development of Vedic history and culture. But not in obfuscating the two vital conclusions that we have noted at the conclusion of section B above, which are based on a chronological division into “earlier” and “later” Books officially recognized by Western scholars.

 

4D. Appendix 2: “Late” Hymns.

The subject of the internal chronology of the Rigveda cannot be completed without a close examination of what constitutes “late” hymns within any Book.

As we saw above, Witzel makes the sour claim that “the composition of the RV occurred in complex layers — not in the tidy sequential patterns imagined by Talageri” (WITZEL 2001b:§1). Unfortunately for Witzel, the pattern of occurrence of different categories of words (Avestan name-elements, geographically distinctive words, technological terms, etc.) indeed shows that the composition of the Rigveda did take place in “tidy sequential patterns”, rather than as the “complex”, hopelessly jumbled, mess that the Rigveda seems to represent in Witzel’s own confused analyses in different papers and articles, and that Witzel (particularly when choosing to question the logical analyses of his opponents) seems to demand from the data almost as his birthright.

Thus, in a nutshell, the Books of the Rigveda lie in “tidy sequential patterns” in the following order: Early 6, 3, 7, Middle 4, 2, Late 5, 8, 9, 10  (with 1, though ultimately belonging to the Late level, consisting of a collection of mini-books ranging, in their beginnings, across the periods of 4, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10).

But there is now the question of Late hymns within each Book: hymns that seem to be later than the general period of the particular Book to which they belong. What exactly is the position of these Late hymns? There are also verses within various hymns, which seem to be later than the rest of the verses in the hymn. What exactly is the position of these Late verses? And, more importantly, how do these Late hymns and verses affect our historical analysis of the Rigveda?

The fact, as we shall see, is that they do not affect our historic analysis of the Rigveda at all, for the simple reason that almost all the late elements have to do with rituals and religious matters, or else with purely linguistic redactions of old hymns with no historic implications. The only historically significant personalities whose names were interpolated into older hymns are Purukutsa and Trasadasyu (see TALAGERI 2000:66-72), but, as we saw, these also did not affect the analysis of the relative chronology and geography of the Rigveda that we undertook in the earlier chapters.

Nevertheless, for the record, let us see what information we get on the relative chronology of hymns within the different Books, on the basis of four criteria on a descending level of solidity: Facts, Testimony, Deductions, and Speculations:

 

4D-1. Facts.

The first factual situation is that we have the ten books of the extant Rigveda, which, as we saw, can be chronologically arranged as follows: 6, 3, 7, 4, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10 (1 spread across the periods of 4, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10). The western scholars, as we have seen, are officially agreed on the fact that 6, 3, 7, 4, 2 are earlier than 5, 1, 8, 9, 10 (though not agreed on the above internal chronological order within the first group). The number of hymns and verses in the ten books are as follows:

Book	Number of Hymns	Number of Verses
6	75	765
3	62	617
7	104	841
4	58	589
2	43	429
5	87	727
1	191	2006
8	103	1716
9	114	1108
10	191	1754
Total	1028	10552

 

The second factual situation is that the Rigvedic tradition itself contains awareness that eleven of the hymns included in Book 8 are later additions into the Book: these are hymns VIII.49-59 (80 verses), which are separately known as the Vālakhilya hymns. Some Western scholars (like Griffith) go so far as to place these hymns at the end of the Book, and to change the numbering of the following hymns in the Book from 60-103 to 49-92. But these hymns are additions made within the period of the ten books; and do not have any direct relevance to our historical analysis, since both Book VIII as well as the additions belong to the Late period. All the hymns are characterized by late words and grammatical features.

The third factual situation is that there seem to be some verses which were added to the Rigveda even after the whole text was given its final form: VII.59.12, as well as a few verses in Book 10 (X.20.1; 121.10; 190.1-3), found in the extant Rigveda, but missing in Śākalya’s padapāṭha. Again, we are not concerned with the verses in Book 10; but VII.59.12 (which is characterized by late words, unknown to the rest of the Rigveda, like tryambaka) is in an Early Book.  However, this does not affect our historical analysis of the Rigveda in any way, other than to necessitate a revision of the number of original verses in Book 7 from 841, above, to 840.     

 

4D-2. Testimony.

We actually have direct testimony in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa VI.18, to the effect that six hymns in Book 3 are late compositions, which were added into the Book at a late date as a solution to a dispute between the Viśvāmitras and the Vāmadevas. These six hymns are III.30-31, 34, 36, 38, 48 (See TALAGERI 2000.73-74).

In my above book, I had erroneously given the hymn numbers as 21, 30, 34, 36, 38-39 (and consequently calculated the wrong number of verses), for which I faced sharp criticism from Witzel. However, while Witzel’s criticism was perfectly valid so far as it concerns my gross carelessness in giving the wrong hymn numbers (and the consequent wrong calculations), it was perfectly invalid insofar as it affected the chronological point I was making about the late provenance of these six hymns. Witzel rejects the testimony of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, or what he claims is my interpretation of it, on the ground that these hymns are not listed in Oldenberg’s list of late hymns, which violate the order of arrangement of the hymns in the Family Books.

However, Witzel’s protests are totally untenable, since a) the account in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa does not allow for any other logical interpretation, and b) the testimony of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa provides the solution to the otherwise insoluble mystery as to why the six Family Books, 2-7, were arranged in that particular serial order (which is clearly not the same as their chronological order of composition, unlike the serial order of the non-family Books which coincides with their chronological order of composition). When the number of verses in these six hymns is deducted from the verse count of Book 3, we get the following original number of verses in the Family Books 2-7, in serial order: 429, 536, 589, 727, 765, 840 (omitting VII.59.12, above). The six Family Books were clearly arranged according to increasing number of verses.  

Further, the testimony of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa stands confirmed by our analysis of the relative chronology and geography of the Rigveda in the earlier chapters. As we saw, of the only eight hymns in the Early and Middle Books, which are associated with the late names and name-elements common to the Rigveda and the Avesta, six are late as per Oldenberg, and the other two are late as per the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa. And the only hymn (of these eight) which mentions a Western geographical word is a hymn which is late as per the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa.

 

4D-3. Deductions.

Oldenberg, in his writings (notably his Prolegomena) has identified certain principles in the arrangement of most of the hymns in the Family Books 2-7:  each Family Book begins with a group of hymns to Agni, followed by a group of hymns to Indra, followed by groups of hymns to various other deities, arranged according to decreasing number of hymns per deity; within each deity-group, the hymns are again arranged according to decreasing number of verses. Within this arrangement, hymns with the same number of verses are arranged according to meter, starting with jagatī and triṣṭubh, and followed by anuṣṭubh and gāyatrī.

That Oldenberg and his predecessors identified a very important set of principles in the arrangement of the Rigvedic hymns is beyond doubt. But what followed this identification is more important: Oldenberg identified hymns, in each Family Book, which seemed to violate these principles of arrangement by either being too short or too long, or having different deities or meters, and concluded that these “unordered” hymns were late hymns as compared to the other, “ordered”, hymns in the Books. The list of “ordered” and “unordered” hymns in each Book is as follows:

“Ordered” Hymns.	“Unordered” Hymns.
II. 1-31, 33-40 (39 hymns).	II. 32, 41-43 (4 hymns).
III. 1-25, 30-50, 54-61 (54 hymns).	III. 26-29, 51-53, 62 (8 hymns).
IV. 1-14, 16-29, 33-36, 38-47, 49, 51-54 (47 hymns).	IV. 15, 30-32, 37, 48, 50, 55-58 (11 hymns).
V. 1-24, 29-39, 41-50, 52-60, 62-77, 79-81, 83-86 (77 hymns).	V. 25-28, 40, 51, 61, 78, 82, 87 (10 hymns).
VI. 1-14, 17-43, 53-58, 62-73 (59 hymns).	VI. 15-16, 44-52, 59-61, 74-75 (16 hymns).
VII. 1-14, 18-30, 34-54, 56-58, 60-65, 67-73, 75-80, 82-93, 95, 97-100 (87 hymns).	VII. 15-17, 31-33, 55, 59, 66, 74, 81, 94, 96, 101-104 (17 hymns).

 

As we saw, there is logic behind the identification of the principles of arrangement of (the majority of) the hymns in the Family Books; and the consequent identification of two groups of hymns in each book.  But there is absolutely no evidence that the hymns classified by Oldenberg as “unordered” are chronologically later than the hymns classified by him as hymns which are “ordered” according to the principles of arrangement of the hymns:

1. E.V.Arnold, for example, points out: “Position in the collections is not a safe guide. Several hymns for which there is good evidence of late date [….] appear in their right place in the collections of books i-ix; others which are out of place [….] not only shew no other signs of lateness, but have many of the marks of early date” (ARNOLD 1897: 211-213).    

A linguistic study of the hymns shows that this is right: for example, in Book 6, hymn 45, with 33 verses, contains the archaic word sīm (found 50 times in the first nine Books of the Rigveda, but only once in the last Book 10, and not even once in the Atharvaveda); and does not contain a single word of late date. On the other hand, hymn 28, with only 8 verses, has no particular mark of early date, but abounds in late words like khila, riś, bhakṣ, kṛś and taskara. Yet, hymn 45 is included in Oldenberg’s list of “unordered” hymns, and hymn 28 (counted by Arnold as one of only four “late hymns” in Book 6, along with hymns 47, 74 and 75) is included in Oldenberg’s list of “ordered” hymns.    

2. As we saw earlier, there is no doubt whatsoever that the six hymns (III.30-31, 34, 36, 38, 48), specified by the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa to be interpolations or later additions into Book 3, are indeed definitely late hymns in the book. And yet, every single one of them appears in its proper place in the Book, and consequently all of them are included in Oldenberg’s list of “ordered” hymns. Obviously, therefore, Oldenberg’s criterion is grossly inadequate in identifying late hymns in opposition to earlier ones.

3. Further, the identification of the six above hymns in Book 3 as late additions, as we saw, provides the solution to the mystery of the order of arrangement of the Family Books 2-7. They were originally arranged in order of increasing number of verses: 429, 536, 589, 727, 765, 840. However, if we go by Oldenberg’s list of “ordered” hymns, the following is the original number of hymns in Books 2-7, in serial order: 39, 54, 47, 77, 59, 87. And the following is the original number of verses, in serial order: 394, 509, 456, 627, 449, 641. As we can see, there is now no logical pattern at all in the order of arrangement of the Family Books: just the kind of “complex” mess so dear to Witzel’s heart.

4. The two groups of hymns, in each Family Book, identified by Oldenberg, show perfect conformity with each other in their historical topics. Thus, for example, Book 6 deals with the period of Divodāsa, and he is mentioned in six hymns. Of these, three hymns, 26, 31 and 43, are included in Oldenberg’s list of “ordered” hymns, and three, 16, 47, and 61, in his list of “unordered” hymns. Likewise, Books 3 and 7 deal with the period of Sudās. Of the two hymns in Book 3, which deal with Sudās’ activities, one, hymn 33, is included in Oldenberg’s “ordered” list, and one, hymn 53, in his “unordered” list. And in Book 7, of the ten hymns which refer to Sudās, eight, 18-20, 25, 53, 60, 64 and 83, are included in his “ordered” list, and two, 32 and 33, in his “unordered” list. Clearly, both the groups of hymns, within any particular Family Book, share historical concerns of the same period.    

5. It may be argued that the above may simply be due to the fact that composers of the same family or clan, even in different later periods, continued to be concerned only with the historical events associated with their illustrious ancestors. However, the geographical references cannot be similarly explained away, since it is extremely presumptuous to assume that all later composers within any Book would restrict the geographical references in their own compositions to the geographical areas known to their ancestors and mentioned by these ancestors in earlier compositions in that Book — after all, the cornerstone of AIT dogma is that the Vedic poets were so geographically self-centred in their outlook that they had already forgotten, or discarded in their compositions, the alleged extra-Indian associations of their ancestors. So the following facts give the lie to the idea that Oldenberg’s “ordered” hymns and “unordered” hymns belong to different periods:  

In the Early and Middle Family Books (Book 5 is, in any case, a Late Book as a whole), references to Western geographical words are missing in both: the “ordered” hymns as well as the “unordered” hymns in Books 6, 7, and 2. In Book 4 (with its Western thrust), these references are found in both: the “ordered” hymns, 43 and 54, as well as the “unordered” hymns 30 and 55. (In Book 3, the single hymn with a Western geographical reference, hymn 38, is included in Oldenberg’s “ordered” list, but is a late addition according to the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa.).

At the same time, the references to Eastern geographical words are found in both the “ordered” hymns as well as the “unordered” hymns:

“Ordered” Hymns.	“Unordered” Hymns.
II. 1, 3, 10, 30, 34, 36.	II. 32, 41.
III. 4-5, 23, 45-46, 54, 58.	III. 26, 29, 53.
IV. 4, 16, 18, 21.	IV. 58.
VI. 1, 4, 8, 17, 20, 27.	VI. 45, 49, 50, 52, 61.
VII. 2, 9, 18, 35-36, 39-40, 44, 69, 95.	VII. 96.

The long and short of it is that both the “ordered” as well as the “unordered” hymns in any Family Book share the same geographical frontiers.     

6. The common provenance, of Oldenberg’s “ordered” and “unordered” hymns within any Family Book, is conclusively proved by the distribution of the late Avestan name-elements.

These elements (very common in the post-Rigvedic Vedic literature, and later in the Epics and Purāṇas) are found in profusion in the Late Books: in 47 out of 87 hymns in Book 5; in 78 out of 191 hymns in Book 1; in 69 out of 103 hymns in Book 8; in 69 out of 113 hymns in Book 9; and in 123 out of 191 hymns in Book 10. But in the Early and Middle Books (which, as we saw, are “earlier” than the Late Books even according to the official Western classification) they are found in only 8 out of 342 hymns, all 8 of which are classified as Late. This conclusively proves the validity of the basic chronological distinction between the earlier (i.e. the Early and Middle) Books on the one hand and the Late Books on the other.

But, it does not prove, and in fact it conclusively disproves, the validity of the alleged chronological distinction between Oldenberg’s “ordered” hymns and his “unordered” hymns within the Family Books:  of the 8 late hymns in the earlier Books, where these elements are found, six hymns, VI.15,16,47, III.53, VII.33, and IV.30, are “unordered” hymns according to Oldenberg, and two hymns, III.36 and 38, are “ordered” hymns according to Oldenberg (but late according to the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa). In keeping with this, in Book 5, the only Late Family Book, 42 out of 77 “ordered” hymns, and 5 out of 10 “unordered” hymns have these elements. The distribution, or absence, of these elements, in both the groups (“ordered” and “unordered”), is roughly proportionate.   

To sum up, the Original Rigveda, consisting of the six Family Books, 2-7, when it was compiled into one collection, and before even the composition of the overwhelming bulk of the hymns in the non-family Books, already included both the groups: Oldenberg’s “ordered” hymns (except for the six hymns III.30-31, 34, 36, 38, 48) as well as Oldenberg’s “unordered” hymns (except VII.59.12). And the six Books consisted more or less of the following number of verses, in serial order: 429, 536, 589, 727, 765, 840.         

Furthermore, as the evidence of the Avestan name-elements (as well as the evidence of the late pankti meter, which is found in 19 “ordered” hymns in Book 5) shows, the five earlier Family Books (6, 3, 7, 4, 2), both the “ordered” as well as the “unordered” hymns within them, were already composed and compiled, before even the composition of even the “ordered” hymns in Book 5. At the same time, the compilation of the six Family Books into one single collection took place in the Late Period, after the composition and compilation of Book 5, but before the composition and compilation of the overwhelming bulk of the other Books (1, 8-10).

Therefore, while the validity and vital importance of Oldenberg’s classification of the hymns in the Family books into two groups cannot be denied, the interpretation of this division as representing chronologically “early” and “late” hymns is clearly untenable: they should, rather, simply be interpreted as “ordered” and “unordered” hymns.    

But then, what is the logic behind the fact that the hymns in each Family Book can, indeed, be classified into “ordered” and “unordered” hymns? What could be the genesis of this division?

The answer could lie in the fact that the basic purpose of the Rigveda was liturgical. The compulsions of the ritual needs of the times must have led to the classification of the hymns in the corpus of each Family Book collection into two groups: one group of hymns regularly used in the liturgical procedures devised and employed at the time, which were regularly arranged according to certain principles of arrangement based on deity, number of hymns and verses, meter, etc.; and a second group, consisting of all the other hymns in the Family collections, which were placed separately at the end of each collection.      

But, later, when the canonical text was expanded with the addition of new Books, by which time the liturgical priorities had probably changed, the two groups of hymns were combined by placing the hymns of the unordered group within the hymns of the ordered group. Why the compilers placed them in positions where they stood out as violating the principles of arrangement of the ordered hymns is anybody’s guess, but the facts show that they were placed in such positions, perhaps deliberately; and Oldenberg’s guess, as to the exact logic behind their doing so, would be as good as ours.

Our guess (based on the fact that, in every Family Book, the “unordered” hymns always include one or more of the serially last hymns in the Book) is as follows: the present group of “unordered” hymns include early or original hymns (which existed in the original collection of each Family Book) as well as certain late hymns which were added to the family Books at the last moment (i.e. at the time of adding the non-family Books to the corpus). This would therefore give us four sets of hymns in the present version of each Book: original “ordered hymns”, original “unordered” hymns, late “ordered” hymns, and late “unordered” hymns:

Stage 1: The original hymns in each book (i.e. the original “ordered” hymns + the original “unordered” hymns), when each Book was composed and compiled in its time (the Bharadvāja, Viśvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha books in the Early Period, the Vāmadeva and Gṛtsamada Books in the Middle Period, and the Atri Book in the Late Period) were as follows (the numbers of the Books and hymns given below, obviously, are their present Book and hymn numbers):       

II. 1-31, 33-40  +  32 (40 hymns, 402 verses).

III. 1-25, 32-33, 35, 37, 39-47, 49-50, 54-61  +  26-29, 51-53 (55 hymns, 518 verses).

IV. 1-14, 16-29, 33-36, 38-47, 49, 51-54  +  15, 30-32, 37, 48, 50 (54 hymns, 553 verses).

V. 1-24, 29-39, 41-50, 52-60, 62-77, 79-81, 83-86  +  25-28, 40, 51, 61, 78, 82 (86 hymns, 718 verses).

VI. 1-14, 17-43, 53-58, 62-73  +  15-16, 44-52, 59-61 (73 hymns, 742 verses).

VII. 1-14, 18-30, 34-54, 56-58, 60-65, 67-73, 75-80, 82-93, 95, 97-100  +  15-17, 31-33, 55, 59, 66, 74, 81, 94, 96 (100 hymns, 796 verses). 

In the first stage of formation of the Rigveda, these six Books were arranged in this above order, according to increasing number of verses, and combined into one text.

 

Stage 2a: At the time of expansion of the text, with the addition of Books 1 and 8, a few new hymns, composed in the Late Period, were added to, and placed at the end of, each Family Book. They were the following hymns, which we may call the late “unordered” hymns:

II. 41-43 (27 verses. Now totally: 43 hymns, 429 verses).

III. 62 (18 verses. Now totally: 56 hymns, 536 verses).

IV. 55-58 (36 verses. Now totally: 58 hymns, 589 verses).

V. 87 (9 verses. Now totally: 87 hymns, 727 verses).

VI. 74-75 (23 verses. Now totally: 75 hymns, 765 verses).

VII. 101-104 (44 verses. Now totally: 104 hymns, 840 verses).

To distinguish the other, original, “unordered” hymns (which, as we saw, were also originally just placed after the “ordered” set at the end of each Family Book) from these new or late “unordered” hymns, the original “unordered” hymns were inserted in between the “ordered” hymns, but in positions where they stood out as violating the principles of arrangement of the “ordered” hymns, while the new late “unordered” hymns alone were now placed at the end of each Family Book. Thus, all three sets were now distinguishable. [This principle is in evidence in another case: when the non-family Books were added, one by one, to the corpus of the six Family Books, they were generally simply placed after the Family Books: first the Kaṇva Book (Book 8), then the Soma Book (Book 9), and finally, Book 10. But Book 1, although added perhaps at the same time as Book 8, was placed before the Family Books, to distinguish it from the other three Books which were Late in toto, since Book 1 contained many mini-books which, either as a whole or in their beginnings, were actually earlier than some of the Family Books (like Book 5, and some even than Books 4 and 2) (see TALAGERI 2000:39-45) Thus, here also, the three sets of Books were distinguishable: 1, 2-7, 8-10].  

 

Stage 2b: But, at the same time, now, the six new hymns which had been composed by the Viśvāmitras, as compensation for the original ones appropriated by the Vāmadevas (see TALAGERI 2000:73-74, and the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa VI.18), were also added to the corpus of the Viśvāmitra Book: hymns III.30-31, 34, 36, 38, 48. But they were deliberately inserted within the set of ordered hymns in their correct positions according to the principles of arrangement of the “ordered” hymns, since the purpose was that they were not to be distinguished from the original “ordered” hymns. These hymns may be called the late “ordered” hymns.

Thus we now finally have the Six Family Books, arranged and numbered as at present (with Book 3 now having 62 hymns and 617 verses), except for one verse VII.59.12, added after Śākalya’s padapātha.

And now for the other side of the story:  the distribution of the historical topics, the geographical references, and the late Avestan name-elements, in the Family Books, shows that the “ordered” hymns and the “unordered” hymns within any one Book belong to the same early (or, in the case of Book 5, same late) chronological period. Thus, while Book 2, for example, does not have any late Avestan name element in a single hymn, “ordered” or “unordered”, Book 5 has these elements in 42 out of 77 “ordered” hymns, and 5 out of 10 “unordered” hymns. Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored that when these elements do appear in the rare hymn in the Early and Middle Books, Oldenberg’s classification has a role to play in the matter: while two of the hymns which have these elements are testified as Late hymns by the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, the other six are testified as “late” by Oldenberg on the basis of the fact that they are “unordered” hymns. Clearly, when a rare late word appears just once or so in the earlier Books, it is generally more likely to appear in an early “unordered” hymn than in an early “ordered” hymn. What is the explanation for this? 

The answer is obvious: the “ordered” hymns were, at least at the time of original division of the hymns into these two groups, more sacred and important in the liturgical procedures of the time, and hence were preserved more faithfully and carefully; while the “unordered” hymns were more of the popular type, and hence may have been constantly linguistically updated in recitation and practice, until, at some point of time in the Late Period (first, after the composition and compilation of Book 5, when the six Family Books were combined into one text, and finally, later on, after the composition and compilation of Book 8 and the inclusion of Books 1 and 8 into the corpus of the Rigveda), they were given their final canonical form. Therefore, the “unordered” hymns are not “late” hymns, but they are more generally likely, than the “ordered” hymns, to be “late redacted” hymns.  

Of the six “unordered” hymns, which have late Avestan name-elements, two, III.53 and VII.33, pertain to the activities of Sudās (like the “ordered” hymns III.33, and VII.18, 83), and hence it is clear that they are early hymns pertaining to the Early Period, probably much recited as ballads before an audience, and hence constantly linguistically updated. In linguistically updating such hymns, the redactors obviously did not care, or perhaps were not even aware of the fact, that some of the words and grammatical forms used by them, or some of the new meters to which they redacted their hymns, were new ones which probably did not exist at the time of composition of the original hymns. Thus, while these two hymns do not interpose later historical persons (with late Avestan type elements in their names) or events, or later geographical locations, or later technological innovations (spoked wheels, domesticated camels, etc.), into their narratives about the exploits of Sudās, they do use new words: prāṇa (breath: III.53.21), kumbha (pitcher: VII.33.13), and Yama (originally a proto-Iranian king, but already, in the Late Books of the Rigveda, the God of the Realm of the Dead: VII.33.9,12) in their recitals. More such instances of isolated late words in the “unordered” hymns will be noticed if we examine further aspects of the late vocabulary of the Rigveda.

But, again, while this is the general trend, exceptions (i.e. unordered hymns which do not use new words, as opposed to ordered hymns which do) also occur: we have already pointed out, earlier, the example of hymn VI.45, which, within its 33 verses, does not contain a single late word, but does contain archaic words like sīm, and yet it is an “unordered” hymn; while hymn VI.28, within only 8 verses, contains many late words (and is consequently considered by Arnold as one of the only four late hymns in Book 6), but is included in the “ordered” list. This may be because all the hymns in the “ordered” list may not have been equally important in the liturgical procedures, or some may not have continued to remain important throughout the time interval, from the point of time when they were included in the “ordered” group in the Early Period to the point of time when they were finally frozen into a fixed form in the Late Period, and may consequently have continued to sporadically evolve linguistically in this interval. In any case, this is the only explanation for the late linguistic or metrical elements that occasionally crop up in otherwise undoubtedly early “ordered” hymns. Meanwhile, some hymns in the “unordered” group, from not being used in popular recitation, may not have linguistically evolved and may have remained frozen in form from the beginning.     

 

4D-4. Speculations.

Thus far, we examined the question of “late” hymns and verses, in the Family Books, on the basis of clues in the basic data: first, the factual position of the hymns and verses in the extant Rigveda and in the padapāṭha; second, the testimony of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa; and third, the distribution of the hymns in three groups: the early “ordered” hymns, the early “unordered” hymns inserted into the “ordered” group, and the late “unordered” hymns placed after the “ordered” group at the end of each Book.

But, would we have been able to know that verse VII.59.12 was perhaps the absolutely last verse composed in the corpus of the Family Books, if the padapāṭha had not made this clear? Would we have guessed that the six hymns, III.30-31, 34, 36, 38, 48, were late additions to Book 3, skillfully inserted into their correct positions in the Book, if the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa had not testified to this fact? Would we have known about the distinction between the three groups of hymns, if the principles of arrangement had been indiscernible? We would certainly have continued to remain at a loss to explain why the six Family Books were arranged in their existing serial order; or to account for the only two “ordered” hymns (III.36, 38) associated with late Avestan name-elements in the Early Books.

So we must assume that there may be other minor cases of hymns or verses, which are actually late in the Family Books, but which have left us no clues about their late provenance. These hymns and verses must be very few in number: certainly, as we saw, they did not create any problems in our analysis of the relative chronology and geography of the Rigveda. But, they can always crop up in our analysis, and in these cases, rational speculation, based on logical premises and our knowledge of the general trends of the evidence (to which these rare cases will appear to pose exceptions), can be our only guide.    

The case of the references to Purukutsa in VI.20.10, and his son Trasadasyu in VII.19.3; IV.38.1; 42.8-9, is one such case. These references did not disturb our analyses of the relative chronology or the geography of the Rigveda, but they pose one (and the major one) such anomaly in the data in the Rigveda. These kings definitely belong to the Late Period, since they are contemporary to Books 5 and 8, where they figure as patrons of the ṛṣis in V.27.3; 33.8; VIII.19.32,36; hence references to them in the Early and Middle Books are definitely out of place. The only logical explanation is that these must be interpolations; and extraordinary interpolations at that, since we see that the deliberate interpolated introduction of the names of later historical persons, places or events, into earlier hymns, is never a part of the redaction in any other case in the Rigveda.      

The nature of the references to Trasadasyu, in particular, also testifies to their extraordinariness: in VII.19.3, the praise of Trasadasyu is almost on parallel lines to the praise of Sudās (unquestionably the hero of Book VII) in the same verse; in IV.38, one of three hymns to Dadhikrās, a deified form of the war-horse, the first verse praises Trasadasyu in special terms as the god-sent saviour of the Pūrus (the Vedic Aryans); and in IV.42.8-9, Trasadasyu is twice referred to as ardhadeva, “demi-god”, a term used nowhere else in the Rigveda, and the circumstance of his birth is glorified, again in a manner unparalleled in the Rigveda (but which we see in later times in respect of great or religiously important persons all over the world). These references stand out in sharp contrast to the references in the Late Books to these two kings, where they are normal gift-giving patrons of the composers (in V.27.3; 33.8; VIII.19.32,36) or normally mentioned like various other kings and heroes (in I.112.14; VIII.36.7; 37.7; 49.10; X.33.4; 150.5).

As I have pointed out in detail in my earlier book (TALAGERI 2000:66-72), the references to Purukutsa and Trasadasyu in the four above hymns, in the Early and Middle Books, are extraordinary interpolations, by composers of the Late Period belonging to the two families most closely, and continuously, associated with the Bharatas (the branch of the Pūrus to whom the Early and Middle Periods and Books of the Rigveda belong), i.e. by the Angirases and the Vasiṣṭhas, into their early Family Books. These interpolations were made in order to express their special gratitude for some extraordinary aid rendered to the Pūrus by these two Tṛkṣi kings (extraordinary aid to the Pūrus categorically referred to in IV.38.1, and also in VII.19.3).   

Therefore, it is clear that these references are late interpolations; and the only reason the fact does not stand out at once is because these extraordinary interpolations are in “ordered” hymns.       

But a closer examination gives us other clues:

a) In respect of IV.42.8-9, Griffith, in his footnote to the translation of the hymn, informs us that “Grassmann banishes stanzas 8, 9 and 10 to the appendix as late additions to the hymn”.

b) VI.20.10 is the only verse, in the Early and Middle Books, singled out by Prof. Hopkins (HOPKINS 1896a:72-73), in the “Final Note” to his path-breaking article “Prāgāthikāni-I”, as a verse which seems to have “interesting marks of lateness”, in spite of the fact that hymn VI.20 is not a late hymn as per the principles of arrangement of the hymns. He notes not only that Purukutsa, named in the verse, “is known only to [Book] i and to the late dānastuti of iv.42”; but also that the verse contains the late phrase purah śāradīh, also “found elsewhere only in [Book] i”; and, most significantly, the phrase pra stu-, which is “a very important word in the liturgical sense; and it is one of the commonest of words in late literature”. It is found commonly in the Brāhmaṇas and the Upaniṣads, five times in the Atharvaveda, and, interestingly, commonly in the Avesta as fra stu-, but only this once in the Early and Middle Books; otherwise only in the Late Books as follows:

V. 33.6.

I. 153.2; 154.2; 159.1.

VIII. 16.1; 22.6; 35.11; 81.5.

X. 67.3; 105.6.

c) VII.19 is not specifically noted by any scholar as a late or interpolated hymn in the Book, or verse 3 as a late or interpolated verse in the hymn. But, while the core of Book 7 pertains to the period of Sudās, this particular hymn is noted by Griffith, in his footnotes to the translation of the hymn, as one composed long after the period of Sudās: “who must have lived long before the composition of this hymn, as the favour bestowed on him is referred to as old in stanza 6”.

d) Finally, the fourth hymn, IV.38, is also not noted by any scholar, so far as I know, as late or interpolated; but verse IV.38.1 is definitely totally out of place in the hymn. Hymns 38-40 are hymns in praise of Dadhikrās, the deified war-horse, and this one verse, out of the 21 verses in the three hymns, is the only verse which differs from the other 20 verses in deifying Trasadasyu (who is not mentioned at all in the other verses) rather than Dadhikrās. This, added to the force of the rest of the evidence, and also the fact that Book 4 is unique in seeming to have interpolated verses at the beginning of hymns [the very first three verses in the Book, IV.1.1-3, may well be interpolated verses, since they are composed in complex mixed meters, which are found in 126 verses in the Rigveda, of which 112 verses are in the Late Books, and 6 verses in “unordered” hymns in Book 6. Only 8 verses in the Middle Books are ambiguous: II.22.1-4 (the entire hymn) and IV.1.1-3; 10.5, which must also, therefore, logically, all be interpolated verses], would suggest that IV.38.1 is an interpolated verse.

In this context, it is also possible that IV.30.18, the only verse in the whole of the Early and Middle Books to name a person with late Avestan name-elements in his name, is also an interpolated verse. The hymn itself, in any case, is an “unordered” hymn.