Are The Nivids as Ancient as They are Claimed to Be?

 

 

Are The Nivids as Ancient as They are Claimed to Be?

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

The Rigveda is the oldest document in the world: it goes back in its earliest stages to beyond 3000 BCE — how far beyond would still at this stage be a matter of speculation. Although AIT followers would refuse to take it back beyond 1500 BCE or, with conditions and clauses, a few hundred years earlier, they would still generally agree to it being the oldest recorded Indo-Aryan language document, or the record of the oldest Indo-Aryan practices within India.

However, human nature is not always satisfied with simple facts, it prefers mysteries and the idea of hidden, lost or unrecorded entities: the idea that yah to sirf ek jhalak hai ("this is just but a glimpse"). So we have the idea, even in tradition, of many lost or unrecorded versions or recensions of the Rigveda of which the present version or recension, the śākala, is just one. The names of alternative recensions, usually cited, are the bāṣkala, āśvalāyana and śāṇkhāyana.

But these are not just names, we actually have fragmentary manuscripts which are known by these names. The most famous or well known of the hymns in these alternate versions are the khila sūktas. And the eleven vālakhilya sūktas (which are part of the śākala text as the eleven hymns VIII.49-59, which seem to have been the last to be incorporated within Book 8) are also often suggested as originally part of the bāṣkala text (which also include some of them in the fragmentary manuscripts) incorporated into the śākala text.

This often led to complications in the numbering of the hymns in Book 8 in the translations and references of  many early Indologists: some of them, like Grassmann, Wilson, Griffith, and others, removed the eleven vālakhilya sūktas VIII.49-59 from the main body of Book 8, and placed them as a separate appendix to Book 8, numbering them vālakhilya 1-11, or even at the end of the Rigveda as a whole, numbering them Rigveda 1018-1028. Worse still, they additionally changed the hymn numbers of the following 44 hymns in Book 8 from VIII.60-103 to VIII.49-92. With some scholars using the regular numbering for these hymns from VIII.49-103, and some using these changed numbers, there was plenty of confusion in citing references from these hymns. Even the (in my opinion) greatest of Indologists, Edward Hopkins used the changed numbers in his pioneering article "Prāgāthikānī" (JAOS 1896, HOPKINS 1896a), but corrected himself in later articles.

But I will not discuss all these alleged variations, versions and recensions of the Rigveda here. While they are all very important in the study of ancient literature because they are after all pre-Buddhist Vedic texts (or so I will assume), the fact that they were not kept alive with the same rigor as the regular śākala text, the fact that they are found in fragments, and the fact that they contain words which are very definitely post-Rigvedic words, or very late Rigvedic words in the śākala text, rules them out as candidates for being considered equally old or comparable in antiquity to the text of the śākala text found in exactly the same form in every corner of India, and which alone should be regarded as the Rigveda proper.

[Correction: I am told there are complete manuscripts for the āśvalāyana and śāṇkhāyana texts, and both are published with their padapāṭhas, and that there is actually a tape recording of the oral text of the latter recited by a Nāgara brahmin and recorded by the IGNCA. It will be really interesting to examine them (although it will not be easy for me at least to do so without modern aids like a transliterated pdf and word concordances). However, the texts, or whatever is different in them from the present known version of the Rigveda, will very likely turn out (like the vālakhilya and khila hymns) to be late variations replete with New Words far posterior to the present known version].

 

What I will be discussing is the concept of Nivids or short sacred invocations. this was triggered by certain observations by Haug in his Introduction to his translation of the Aitareya Brahmana: "I must lay particular stress on the Nivids which I believe to be more ancient than almost all the hymns contained in the Rigveda", and he adds: "That no attention has been paid as yet to these important documents by the few Vedic scholars in Europe, is principally owing to the circumstance of their not having been known to them" (HAUG 1863:36).

"More ancient than almost all the hymns contained in the Rigveda"? What exactly is the basis for this claim? He clarifies the "reasons why I refer the so-called Nivids to a still more remote antiquity [….]  The word nivid frequently occurs in the hymns, and even with the epithet pūrva or pūrvya old (see 1,89,3;  96.2;  2,36,6). The Marutvatīya Nivid is, as it appears, even referred to by Vāmadeva (4,18,7) [….] the repetition of the Nivids is juxtaposed with the performance of the Shastras (6,67,10). The Brāhmaṇam regards the Nivids, particularly that one addressed to Agni, as those words of Prajāpati by means of which he created all beings"  (HAUG 1863:36-37).

The logic is totally inexplicable: how do all these various things all add up to proving that the Nivids are "More ancient than almost all the hymns contained in the Rigveda"?

a) The word śastra or śāstra (whatever he means by Shastras) is nowhere to be found in VI.67.10 or anywhere near it, and the verse does not give any such special importance to the word Nivid: it merely mentions the word in passing.

b) The words "pūrva or pūrvya old" do not automatically mean "More ancient than almost all the hymns contained in the Rigveda".

c) Vāmadeva is nowhere near being the most ancient composer in the Rigveda, that his merely referring to the word Nivid should, for any reason, be interpreted as being so pregnant with meaning.

d) Not only is the myth of Prajāpati creating all beings a late one in a (post-Samhita) Brahmana text, but a religious text describing a word, hymn, prayer, or particular God, as "creating all beings" is not proof of the extreme antiquity of that word, hymn, prayer, or particular God. Moreover, the very word Prajāpati itself is a Middle Word in the Rigveda, totally missing in the three Oldest Books and found only as follows:

Old Rigveda:

IV. 53.1.

New Rigveda:

IX. 5.9.

X. 85.43;  121.10;  169.4;  184.1.

 

Then Haug proceeds to argue (HAUG 1863:36-37) that the fact that the Zoroastrian texts also mention Ahura Mazda creating the world by uttering a prayer proves his point! And, further on, goes on to argue: "Another proof of the high antiquity of the Nivids is furnished by the Zend-Avesta. The many prayer formulas in the Yasna which commence with nivaē-ahayēmi, i.e. I invite, are exactly of the same nature as the Nivids" (HAUG 1863:38-39). As I have already conclusively shown in my books and articles that the special common elements in the Rigveda and the Avesta are late elements in the Rigveda, this (admittedly 160 year-old) argument has no teeth. Moreover, while the word nivid as a noun is present in the Rigveda, it is not found even once in the Rigveda (or even the other Samhitas) in a verbal form as apparently found in the Avestan prayer formulae.

But Haug continues to assert that "the Nivids [….] are doubtless the most ancient pieces of Vedic poetry" (HAUG 1863:39), and cites examples from Hebrew and Chinese poetry as proof that sacrificial formulae predate rhythmical hymns.

There is of course, little point in criticizing something written as long ago as 1863, but the fact is that, as Haug says, it is true that by and large "no attention has been paid" by Indologists even in later times to these Nivids, and so Haug's words still in a way seem to hold the fort if and when any reference is made to the chronological position of the Nivids in Vedic liturgy.

 

But then, what are the Nivids, what exactly is meant by this term, and which book gives us a list of these Nivids? Well, it so happens that there is a supplement to the Rigveda known as the Nividadhyāya, and one Indian scholar has made a detailed study of the Nividadhyāya, giving all the Nivids in that text in the original, with English translation, and with some detailed notes: "A Critical Study of the Nivids", by Surendraprasad Niyogi, published by K. L. Mukhopadhyaya, and printed at the Calcutta Oriental Press Ltd., Calcutta, 1961.

Niyogi makes the same claims about the antiquity of the Nivids as Haug did a century earlier, when he tells us: "The language of the Nivids reveals its earlier character. The language is older than the oldest parts of the Ṛgveda", and in so many words he discounts the early nature of the Rigveda: "From a study of the language and style of the Ṛgveda, it is very difficult to accept the theory that the Ṛgveda is the first poetry of the world" (NIYOGI 1961:16).

These sweeping statements are not supported by any data details which show how he has arrived at his classification of the "oldest parts of the Ṛgveda" and exactly which hymns he includes in that category, or what exactly he means by "a study of the language and style of the Ṛgveda", or on what basis he finds it difficult to "accept the theory that the Ṛgveda is the first poetry of the world".

So it is necessary to examine the Nivids detailed in his book in order to check the veracity of his claim, since if the only two major books referring to or analyzing the Nivids make this same claim, and this claim has repercussions on the status of the Rigveda and can influence academic studies on the subject, this is a matter of great importance.

 

But first, it must be understood that that there are two distinct entities involved here: firstly, the word nivid as it appears in the Rigveda, and, secondly, the specific collection of invocations in the supplement to the Rigveda known as the Nividadhyāya.

The word nivid is found in the Rigveda as follows:

OLD RIGVEDA:

VI. 67.10.

IV. 18.7.

II. 36.6.

NEW RIGVEDA:

I. 89.3;  96.2;  175.6;  176.6.

It is first found in an Old Hymn in the Oldest Book 6. Then it is found in two Old Hymns in the two Middle Books 4 and 2. Then, four times in the New Book 1, twice in the repeated refrain at the end of two hymns (I.175 and 176) and twice otherwise.

Haug tells us that the word "frequently occurs in the hymns" (HAUG 1863:36), but actually it is a rare word: it is not found in six books: in the Old Books 3, 7 and in the New Books 5, 8, 9, 10. Except for the two references by agastya composers in a refrain, it is used only by the aṅgiras composers in four hymns and an aṅgiras-turned-bhṛgu composer in one hymn. Further, it is just found once in the Yajurveda, and twice in the Atharvaveda.

So very definitely it is an old word referring to old invocations: as Haug points out, it is preceded in three hymns (II.36.6;  I.89.3;  96.2)  by the word pūrva or pūrvya.

 

So the only question is: are the Nivids or invocations listed or collected in the Nividadhyāya those same invocations which are referred to in a hymn in the Oldest Book in the Rigveda, and which could be called at least as old as the hymns in that Oldest Book? (Even the nivid referred to in VI.67.10 cannot automatically be described as "older than the hymns of the Rigveda", since the nivid is not referred to as "old" in that particular reference).

Max Muller had pointed out: "Of course the Nivids which Śāṅkhāyana 'Śrauta Sūtra' VIII. 16-25, gives cannot be those to which the poets of the Rigveda several times allude", and Niyogi, quoting this, tells us: "As to the question whether the Nivids preserved in the Nividadhyāya are the same as referred to in the Ṛgvedic mantras or not, the reply is this that the preservation of the Nivids of one hundred seventyfive clauses in a manner different from that of the Ṛgveda Saṁhitā will prove their genuineness" (NIYOGI 1961:6-7)!! By this incredible logic, the genuineness of every single (even) non-Vedic document stands proved, because every single other document was preserved "in a manner different from that of the Ṛgveda Saṁhitā"! But surely "genuineness" does not mean "older than the oldest parts of the Ṛgveda"?

Niyogi later attempts to deal with two other arguments apparently raised against the antiquity of the Nivids in the Nividadhyāya: the first is the fact that the Nividadhyāya is a prose text, and it is commonly accepted that in Vedic literature the prose literature (starting with the Yajurveda) comes after the metrical (poetic) literature represented in the Rigveda. And the second is that the Nividadhyāya does not show the accents in the words: all Vedic texts are accented, and unaccented literature is a feature of later Classical Sanskrit.

Both these arguments against the antiquity of the Nivids in the Nividadhyāya are perfectly strong and valid ones, though not necessary clinching ones. But the kinds of arguments made by Niyogi only weaken his case further.

He indirectly argues for example that unaccented texts come earlier than the accented ones!! His exact words: "The reciters and teachers of Veda do not require nor they did ever require the aid of texts marked with accents. The system of marking the texts with accents came at a later period even after Pāṇini and so the case was not uniform in the case of all Vedic texts. This is a device to preserve the correct accents of the text from mispronunciation. When the tradition is living no accent mark is required for the pronunciation of texts" (NIYOGI 1961:10). By this inverted logic, the Rigveda and the other accented Veda Samhitas were not a part of "living tradition"!

He later adds two more arguments: first: the Nivids in the Nividadhyāya must have been kept alive orally for a longer period (than the other Vedic texts) and they "moved from the lips of priests to their disciples officiating in the Soma sacrifices and were recorded afterwards" (NIYOGI 1961:11) by which time it may not have been felt necessary to mark accents. Second, the Nivids were supposed to be recited in "monotony (ekaśruti)" and "there is no need of accentuating a text where monotony prevails" (NIYOGI 1961:11). His conclusion: "So it is not strange that the Nividadhyāya which has no place in the main body of the Ṛgveda Saṁhitā should be without accent marks though it is earlier than most of the hymns of the Ṛgveda" (NIYOGI 1961:12).

 

As already pointed out, the arguments against the antiquity of the Nivids in the Nividadhyāya are perfectly strong and valid ones, though not necessary clinching ones. But the clinching argument is the linguistic argument. As we saw, Niyogi claims: "The language is older than the oldest parts of the Ṛgveda" (NIYOGI 1961:16).

On the contrary, the language of the Nivids in the Nividadhyāya is definitely the language of the New Rigveda, or, in many cases, even later than the latest parts of the Rigveda.

 

[Before going into the language of the Nividadhyāya, a word about Niyogi's extremely strange perspective on the AIT angle behind historical interpretations of the Vedic texts. He seems to support the idea that the "Aryans" came to India from outside: "It is reasonable to think that the Mother Earth is an Indian creation with the growth of the love of the land where the Aryans settled and which was purified by the frequent performance of sacrifice" (NIYOGI 1961:25), and he displays the imperialist outrage of any invading and conquering race that the natives should dare to object to their invasion and "purification" of the land, or raise obstacles to their rule. The natives (though he does not use that word) automatically become the aggressors by resisting the aggression of the superior invaders, and the "Aryans" become the victims: "It is probable that the exploitation of the Aryans in India at the hands of non-Vedic or foreign people was a great national calamity and Indra acted as the saviour of his exploited followers" (NIYOGI 1961:24)!!]

 

The Nividadhyāya consists of "eleven sets of short prose mantras addressed to different deities or different aspects of the same deity. Each of these eleven sets of mantras again consists of clauses (padas) ranging from twelve to thirty in number independent of or syntactically connected with one another. The total number of such clauses is one hundred and seventy-five" (NIYOGI 1961:3). So: a total of 11 nivids, 175 clauses.

Though this is a critique of Niyogi's book, one must pay tribute to him, and to his dedicated scholarship, for bringing out this deep study with text, translation and notes, of a rare and difficult-to-access text not easily available elsewhere.  

 

A study of the language of the text of the Nividadhyāya shows the text to be a linguistically late text (even without regard to its unaccented and prose nature) replete with New Rigvedic or post-Rigvedic words.

 

To begin with the first of the eleven Nivids is an introductory Nivid, and the shortest one, and certain common formulaic clauses found in the other ten Nivids are missing in it.

The other ten Nivids have certain common formulaic padas towards the end, which have some common Rigvedic words like deva, kṣatra, brahma, yajamāna and devahūti.

But they also have the following four formulaic words found in all the ten Nivids: predam, premam,  āvasā, and sunvantam. The first word is found twice in each of the ten Nivids 2-11. The second word is also found twice in each of the ten Nivids 2-11, once as premam and once in a derived form premām.  The third and fourth words are found once in each of the ten Nivids 2-11.

Three of these four words are New Words found only in the New Rigveda and Redacted Hymns , and the fourth (like so many words listed in our earlier article on on the gṛtsamadas of Book 2, is found from Book 2 onwards:

1. predam:

VIII. 37.1.

X. 108.1

 

2. premam:

III. 34.5.

[premāṁ is not found at all in the Rigveda].

 

3. āvasā:

I. 53.20.

[A close form āvasad  is found again in the New Rigveda in I.144.2].

 

4. sunvantam:

OLD RIGVEDA:

II. 12.14;  30.7.

NEW RIGVEDA AND REDACTED HYMNS:

I. 176.4.

VIII. 2.18;  13.5.

IX. 112.1.

 

Also, we find the following New Words (found only in the New Rigveda and Redacted Hymns) in these Nivids:

 

NIVID 1:

atūrta:  I.126.1;  V. 25.5;  42.1;  VIII. 26.1;  99.7;  X.64.5;  149.1.  

 

NIVID 2:

marudgaṇa:  I.23.8;  II.41.15;  VI.52.11;  VIII.89.2;  IX.66.26;  X.66.2.

marutstotra:  I.101.11.

marutsakhā:  VII.96.2;  VIII.76.2,3,9;  103.14;  X.86.9.

parāvati:  I.47.7;  53.7;  112.13;  119.8;  134.4;  V.30.5;  73.1;  VIII.8.14;  12.17;  13.15;  33.10;  45.25;  50.7;  53.3;  93.6;  97.4;  IX.44.2;  65.22.

anādhṛṣṭa:  I.19.4;  IV.32.5;  VII.15.14;  VIII.22.18;  X.138.4.

śambarahatya:  I.112.14.

aṇvam:  IX.10.5;  91.3.

  

NIVID 3:

vīratama:  III.52.8.

bhettā:  VIII.17.14.

nijaghnir:  IX.53.2.

darmā:  I.132.6 [darmāṇam:  I.61.5;  X.46.5]

bhartā:  V.58.7;  X.22.3;  74.5.

 

NIVID 4:

anaḍvāha:  X.59.10;  85.10.

subāhu:  II.32.7;  VIII.17.8.

matsat:  IV.31.12;  V.40.4;  VI.44.16.

 

NIVID 5:

ūṛjasvatī:  X.169.1.

prajanana:  III.29.1.

 

NIVID 6:

saṁvatsara:  I.110.4;  140.2;  161.13;  164.4;  VII.103.1,7,9;  X.87.17;  190.2.

matsat:  IV.31.12;  V.40.4;  VI.44.16.

śamiṣṭhāḥ:  III.29.16.

 

NIVID 7:

tāvatī:  X.114.8.

viśvamahasa:  X. 93.3.

pacata:  I.61.7;  III.28.2;  V.34.1.

takvan:  I.134.5;  151.5;  X.91.2 [takva: VIII.69.13].

matsat:  IV.31.12;  V.40.4;  VI.44.16.

 

NIVID 8:

matsat:  IV.31.12;  V.40.4;  VI.44.16.

 

NIVID 9:

suṣṭubha:  I.62.4;  IV.50.5;  V.75.4;  X.78.4.

pṛśnimātara: I.23.10;  38.4;  85.2;  89.7;  V.57.2,3;  59.6;  VIII.7.3,17;  IX.34.5.

varṣanirṇija:  III.26.5;  V.57.4.

bhandadiṣṭa:  V.87.1.

matsat:  IV.31.12;  V.40.4;  VI.44.16.

anādhṛṣṭa:  I.19.4;  IV.32.5;  VII.15.14;  VIII.22.18;  X.138.4.

 

NIVID 10:

ghṛtāhavana: I.12.5;  45.5;  VIII.74.5.

matsat:  IV.31.12;  V.40.4;  VI.44.16.

aproṣivān:  VIII.60.19.

 

NIVID 11:

atirat:  I.33.13;  III.34.5;  VIII.14.7.

matsat:  IV.31.12;  V.40.4;  VI.44.16.

pinvat:  IX.68.3;  97.33.

jinvat:  IX.12.6.

 

The following are some words which are found only in Book 2, or which start in the Rigveda from the Old Hymns of Book 2 and are then found only in the New Rigveda and Redacted Hymns:

NIVID 4:

sabheyam:  OLD: II.24.13.  NEW: I.91.20

 

NIVID 6:

kanīna:  OLD: II.15.7.  NEW: I.66.4;  116.10;  117.18;  152.4;  163.8;  III.48.1;  IV.32.23;  V.3.2;  VIII.69.14;  X.40.9;  99.10.

 

NIVID 11:

aramṇāt:  OLD: II.12.2;  15.5.

prakupitām:  OLD: II.12.2.

 

We could go on to add specific forms found in the Nivids which are found only in the New Rigveda and the Redacted Hymns: for example, the specific form paramasyām (Nivid 2) is found in the Rigveda in I.108.9,10. And the specific form satvanām (Nivid 3) is found in the Rigveda in VIII.96.4;  X.103.10.

There are also many words and forms which are post-Rigvedic: the most prominent is pamphaṇataḥ in Nivid 11, which (or at least the root √phaṇ) is found only in the Brahmana-Aranyaka texts. Another prominent example is the word sāvitra in Nivid 4: Savitṛ is a very prominent God in the Rigveda (the "gāyatrī mantra" is addressed to him), but forms of the word savitṛ beginning with sā- (like sāvitra and sāvitrī) are found only in the language of the later Yajurveda and Atharvaveda.

In short: the language of the Nivids in the Nividadhyāya is late Vedic language. The very fact that the language can breezily be stated as being "older than the oldest parts of the Ṛgveda" without analysis, and these conclusions can remain unquestioningly accepted in principle, shows the level of casualness as opposed to seriousness that is involved in chronological studies of the Vedic language.

 

In any case, the exercise undertaken in this article not only lays to rest the myth that the Nivids in the Nividadhyāya are extremely ancient within the chronology of Vedic texts, but also demonstrates the efficacy of examination of the chronology of Vedic vocabulary on the basis of the division of the Rigveda into an Old Rigveda and a New Rigveda.

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

 

HAUG 1863: The Aitareya Brahmana of the Rigveda. Haug, Martin. Trubner and Co., London, 1863.

 

HOPKINS 1896a: Prāgāthikāni. Hopkins, Edward W. pp. 23-92 in JAOS (Journal of the American Oriental Society), Vol. 17.

 

NIYOGI 1961: A Critical Study of the Nivids. Niyogi, Surendraprasad. Publ. K.L. Mukhopadhyaya, Calcutta 1961.