Kavi Cāyamāna in the Dāśarājña Battle
Shrikant G. Talageri
I was sent this tweet a short while ago:
He continues:
And further:
I find all this incredible. I do not understand why people go on arguing on points where they are clearly wrong. Perhaps just because they have already, earlier, expressed an opinion on the subject and feel it beneath their dignity to accept that they have to change their opinion?
To begin with, whatever may be the grammatical meaning of the word cāyamāna, and the various meanings and contexts of the word kavi, words have particular meanings in particular contexts. In this case, it is not I who have initiated the "reading" of VII.18.8 as referring to Kavi Cāyamāna: Wilson has translated the reference as: "Kavi the son of Cāyamāna, like a falling victim, sleeps (in death)". Quoting grammatical meanings shows a gross ignorance of the fact that the Rigveda (as noted by most scholars, including Witzel and Jamison), often executes poetic puns on personal names, and it is the context which shows the meaning.
Note also that the word cāyamāna, in the whole of the Rigveda, occurs only in three verses: except for the late occurrence in X.94.14, where indeed the word is translatable in its grammatical sense (like an earlier singular form nicāyamāna in IV.38.5), the word is found in only two contexts: in VI.27.5, 8, in the context of the hariyūpīyā battle, and in VII.18.8 in the context of the dāśarājña battle. The hero in the first is Sṛñjaya, and in the second it is his descendant Sudās. The pṛthu/pārthava are allies in the first battle (VI.27.8) but enemies in the second (VII.83.1), and their leader in the first is Abhyāvartin Cāyamāna, and Kavi Cāyamāna in the second. Everything falls into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and quibbling of this kind is totally out of place.
As for the word kavi in this whole context, it can be understood as the name of the defeated king, how on earth does the idea of a "poet lying there, being perceived as an animal" make the slightest bit of sense in the context? On any point one can quote the differing opinions of different Indologists, but the exercise is a senseless one if the only intention is to sabotage the obvious meaning. And how did Köhler "suggest" that kavi in this context is the "one who conceived or ordered the deviation of Parushni river"? Does this make the slightest sense either? Which "kavi", how, and why?
As for the objection that "there is not such a dynasty in the Vedas", obviously there is no such dynasty in the Vedas! The Vedas are Pūru books, this was an Anu (proto-Iranian) king (and not yet a dynasty: his descendants much later constituted the dynasty) whom Sudās encountered after he had marched all the way up to the Paruṣṇī river, and as the further descendants of this king migrated out of India, it is in the Avesta and not the Vedas that we must seek out this dynasty. And the Avesta certainly gives us the kauuiiān dynasty!
The word kavi has many connotations: it is mainly "poet" or "seer", but also the personal name of the father of an ancient pre-Rigvedic Bhṛgu sage Uśanas Kāvya. or Kavi Uśanā, remembered also in the Avesta as Kauui Usan, and found in later mythological renderings of the Deva-Asura conflict as the head-priest of the Asuras (also called Uśanas Śukra or Śukrācārya). He is highly revered in all Vedic and post-Vedic texts. In fact, there is no place anywhere in any of these texts that he, although the head-priest of the Asuras, is held in disrespect or dislike, or where the word kavi is treated as the name of an enemy. So which "sage, seer" would this enemy kavi in the dāśarājña battle be if he is not to be the king of the proto-Iranians (fitting in with later Avestan data)?
As I have pointed out as long ago as in 2000, it is in Iranian texts that we find two differently viewed entities called "kavi". Or rather, three, if one counts the ancestral Kauui Usan held in as much reverence in the Iranian texts as in the Indian texts:
"The Avesta also shows the movement of a group from among the Bhṛgus towards the side of the Deva-worshippers: there are two groups of Athravan priests in the Avesta, the Kavis and the Spitamas, and it is clear that the Kavis had moved over to the enemies.
The pre-Avestan (and pre-Rigvedic) Kavi Usan (Kavi Uśanā or Uśanā Kāvya) is lauded in the Bahrām Yašt (Yt.14.39) and Ābān Yašt (Yt.5.45). Also, a dynasty (the most important dynasty in Avestan and Zoroastrian history) of kings from among the Kavis is twice lauded in the Avesta, in the Farvardīn Yašt (Yt.13.121) and the Zamyād Yašt (Yt.19.71). The kings of this dynasty, named in these Yašts, include Kavi Kavāta (Kaikobād of later times) and Kavi Usadhan (Kaikaus of later times, who is regularly confused, in later traditions, with the above Kavi Usan).
However, the Kavis as a class are regularly condemned throughout the Avesta, right from the Gāthās of Zarathuštra onwards, and it is clear that they are regarded as a race of priests who have joined the ranks of the enemies even before the period of Zarathuštra himself.
Hence, it is not the Bhṛgus or Atharvans as a whole who are the protagonist priests of the Avesta, it is only the Spitama branch of the Athravans. Hence, also, the name of the Good Spirit, opposed to the Bad Spirit Angra Mainyu (a name clearly derived from the name of the Aṅgirases), is Spenta Mainyu (a name clearly derived from the name of the Spitamas)". (TALAGERI 2000:178-79).
Note added 2/9/2022:
Discussions on the above article make it necessary to bring forward two important points:
1. Whatever the grammatical or accentual differences, there can be no doubt that the word cāyamāna has exactly the same meaning in both the references (apparently my careless last-minute inclusion of the word nicāyamāna as a related word was wrong): it refers to an entity which is an ally in hymn VI. 27, and an enemy in VII.18. Insisting that the two references do not mean the same thing, the first being a name, and the second being merely a grammatical participle, amounts to special pleading, however many scholars be quoted to that effect. The word (with whatever accent) is found only three times in the whole of the Rigveda and in fact in the whole of the corpus of the four Vedic Samhitas. Leaving out the late occurrence of the word in Book 10, it is found only in two contexts referring to the first two expansionist battles of the Bharata Pūrus in the Rigveda. It is a blatant case of special pleading to insist that in the whole of the first nine books of the Rigveda, as well as in the three other veda Samhitas, there was no other context which called for the use of this "grammatical participle".
2. What makes it even more incongruous is that again, in the Rigveda, we find an identical case of another enemy entity, again in the context of two expansionist Bharata Pūru battles (the second and third). The word śimyu occurs only twice in the whole of the Rigveda (and never again after that): in I.100.18 and VII.18.5. The first word has an accent on the first syllable, and the second word has an accent on the second syllable. In both cases, in exactly similar contexts, both the words have been identified in identical terms as a reference to the enemies of the hymn by Griffith, Wilson, Grassmann, Geldner, and Jamison! Clearly this is not an isolated case.