Vedic Reader

Published 2023

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Publisher’s Note

Vedic Reader is an introduction to the dramatis personae in the Vedas, especially Rig Veda. It contains 30 hymns of Rigveda in the original samhita and pada text, with transliteration, translation, explanatory notes, a scholarly introduction, and an exhaustive vocabulary at the end, designed for the beginners in an easy to understand English.

Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854–1930), was a noted Sanskrit scholar. He edited several Sanskrit texts, wrote a grammar, compiled a dictionary, published a work on Vedic Mythology, and also wrote a History of Sanskrit Literature – A profound Sanskrit Scholar whose work is appreciated, widely accepted and referred to, till date.

The book, Vedic Reader, was long unavailabile in this present form, with Vedic text and translation, side by side. Thus the book is re-set and brought out in a volume that was long awaited. It contains original Vedic text, followed by romanized transliteration and then translation with explanatory notes wherever required.

We sincerely hope that this book will be of great help to the people who want to understand the Veda and Vedic Sanskrit.

PREFACE

This Reader contains thirty hymns, comprising just under 300 stanzas. These hymns have been taken exclusively from the Ṛgveda, not only because that Veda represents the earliest and most important phase of the sacred language and literature of India, but because the addition of specimens from the later Vedic literature with their divergences in speech and thought would tend to confuse the learner beginning the study of the oldest period. The page numbers mentioned in the text of this Reader refer to Vedic Grammar for Students . All the books of the Ṛgveda have been drawn upon except the ninth. The reason of this exception is that, though the whole of the ninth book practically consists of hymns addressed to Soma only, the hymn which in my opinion represents that deity best occurs in another (the eighth) book. All the most important metres are represented, though no specimens of the rare and complex strophic measures could be given because none of the hymns composed in them seemed to be suitable for the Reader . I have also considered literary merit as far as possible in making the selection. As regards subject-matter, each of the more important deities is represented by one hymn, Agni alone by two. There are besides a few hymns of a different type. One is concerned with social life (x. 34), one with magical ideas (vii. 103), two with cosmogony (x. 90. 129), and three with eschatology (x.14.15.135). The selection thus forms a brief epitome of the Ṛgveda, the earliest monument of Indian thought. The arrangement of the hymns follows their order in the text of the Ṛgveda as shown, together with their respective deities and subjects, in the table of contents (p. ix). As the latter list is so short, the name of the deity addressed in any selected hymn can be found at once, but it also appears in its alphabetical order in the General Index.

Unlike all Sanskrit and Vedic chrestomathies known to me, the present work is intended primarily for students who, while acquainted with Classical Sanskrit, are beginners of Vedic lacking the aid of a teacher with an adequate knowledge of the earliest period of the language and literature of India. It will moreover, I think, be found to contain much detailed information useful even to more advanced students. Hence difficult and obscure stanzas have never been omitted from any of the selected hymns, because the notes here afford an opportunity of illustrating the methods of critical interpretation (see, for instance, pages 36, 47, 139-40, 152, 166, 175).

In conjunction with my Vedic Grammar for Students, the Reader aims at supplying all that is required for the complete understanding of the selections without reference to any other book. Each hymn is preceded by a special introduction describing briefly the deity or the subject with which it deals. The text of every stanza is printed in three different forms. The first is the Saṃhitā text, in Devanāgarī characters, exactly as handed down by tradition, without change or emendation. But each Pāda or metrical line is printed separately so as to exhibit to the eye the versification of the stanza. Then comes on the right half of the page the traditional Pāda text in which each word of the Saṃhitā text is given separately without Sandhi, and in which compounds and certain derivatives and case-forms are analysed. This is an important addition because the Pāda text, as nearly contemporary in origin with the Saṃhitā text, furnishes us with the earliest interpretations, within the sphere of phonetics and word-formation, of the Ṛgveda. Next follows the transliterated Saṃhitā text, in which by the removal of vowel-contractions, the resolution of semivowels, and the replacement of a, the original metre of the Ṛgveda is restored and, by the use of punctuation, the sense is made clearer. The translation, which follows, is close, accounting for every word of the original, and is based on the critical method of interpretation. The notes furnish minute explanations of all matters concerned with grammar, metre, accent, syntax, and exegesis. The general introduction gives a concise account of the form and matter of the Ṛgveda, describing in outline its arrangement, its language and metre, its religion and mythology, besides the critical method here applied to the interpretation of its hymns. The vocabulary supplements the translation and notes by giving the derivation of every word and adding in brackets the most obvious cognates from the other Indo-European languages allied to Sanskrit, especially Avestic, Greek, Latin, and English. I have added a copious general Index for the purpose of enabling the student to utilize to the full the summary of Vedic philology which this book contains. Anyone who has worked his way carefully through the pages of the Reader ought thus to have laid a solid foundation in Vedic scholarship, and to be prepared for further studies on independent lines.

Freedom from serious misprints is a matter of great importance in a book like this. Such freedom has, I trust, been achieved by the aid of my two friends, Dr. James Morison, Librarian of the Indian Institute, and my former pupil, Dr. A. Berriedale Keith, Regius Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology in the University of Edinburgh. In the course of this obliging task Prof. Keith has supplied me with a number of suggestions, the adoption of which has undoubtedly improved the notes in many points of detail.

BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD

OCTOBER, 1917

CONTENTS

Publisher’s Note

Preface

Introduction

VEDIC READER

VOCABULARY

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

1. Age of the Ṛgveda

Th e Ṛgveda is undoubtedly the oldest literary monument of the Indo-European languages. But the exact period when the hymns were composed is a matter of conjecture. All that we can say with any approach to certainty is that the oldest of them cannot date from later than the thirteenth century bc. This assertion is based on the following grounds. Buddhism, which began to spread in India about 500 bc , presupposes the existence not only of the Vedas, but also of the intervening literature of the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads. The development of language and religious thought apparent in the extensive literature of the successive phases of these two Vedic periods renders it necessary to postulate the lapse of seven or eight centuries to account for the gradual changes, linguistic, religious, social, and political, that this literature displays. On astronomical grounds, one Sanskrit scholar has (cf. p. 146) concluded that the oldest Vedic hymns date from 3000 bc , while another puts them as far back as 6000 bc. These calculations are based on the assumption that the early Indians possessed an exact astronomical knowledge of the sun’s course such as there is no evidence, or even probability, that they actually possessed. On the other hand, the possibility of such extreme antiquity seems to be disproved by the relationship of the hymns of the Ṛgveda to the oldest part of the Avesta, which can hardly date earlier than from about 800 bc . That relationship is so close that the language of the Avesta, if it were known at a stage some five centuries earlier, could scarcely have differed at all from that of the Ṛgveda. Hence the Indians could not have separated from the Iranians much sooner than 1300 bc. But, according to Prof. Jacobi, the separation took place before 4500 bc. In that case we must assume that the Iranian and the Indian languages remained practically unchanged for the truly immense period of over 3000 years. We must thus rest content with the moderate estimate of the thirteenth century bc as the approximate date for the beginning of the Ṛgvedic period. This estimate has not been invalidated by the discovery in 1907 of the names of the Indian deities Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra, Nāsatya, in an inscription of about 1400 bc found in Asia Minor. For the phonetic form in which these names there appear may quite well belong to the Indo-Iranian period when the Indians and the Persians were still one people. The date of the inscription leaves two centuries for the separation of the Indians, their migration to India, and the commencement of the Vedic hymn literature in the north-west of Hindustan.

2. Origin and Growth of The Collection

When the Indo-Aryans entered India, they brought with them a religion in which the gods were chiefly personified powers of Nature, a few of them, such as Dyaus, going back to the Indo-European, others, such as Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra, to the Indo-Iranian period. They also brought with them the cult of fire and of Soma, besides a knowledge of the art of composing religious poems in several metres, as a comparison of the Ṛgveda and the Avesta shows. The purpose of these ancient hymns was to propitiate the gods by praises accompanying the offering of melted butter poured on the fire and of the juice of the Soma plant placed on the sacrificial grass. The hymns which have survived in the Ṛgveda from the early period of the Indo-Aryan invasion were almost exclusively composed by a hereditary priesthood. They were handed down in different families by memory, not by writing, which could hardly have been introduced into India before about 700 bc. These family groups of hymns were gradually brought together till, with successive additions, they assumed the earliest collected form of the Ṛgveda. Then followed the constitution of the Saṃhitā text, which appears to have taken place about 600 bc, at the end of the period of the Brāhmaṇas, but before the Upaniṣads, which form appendages to those works, came into existence. The creators of the Saṃhitā did not in any way alter the diction of the hymns here collected together, but only applied to the text certain rules of Sandhi which prevailed in their time, and by which, in particular, vowels are either contracted or changed into semi-vowels, and a is often dropped after e and o, in such a way as constantly to obscure the metre. Soon after this work was concluded, extraordinary precautions were taken to preserve from loss or corruption the sacred text thus fixed. The earliest expedient of this kind was the formation of the Pada or ‘word’ text, in which all the words of the Saṃhitā text are separated and given in their original form as unaffected by the rules of Sandhi, and in which most compounds and some derivatives and inflected forms are analysed. This text, which is virtually the earliest commentary on the Ṛgveda, was followed by other and more complicated methods of reciting the text, and by various works called Anukramaṇīs or ‘Indexes’, which enumerate from the beginning to the end of the Ṛgveda the number of stanzas contained in each hymn, the deities, and the metres of all the stanzas of the Ṛgveda. Thanks to these various precautions the text of the Ṛgveda has been handed down for 2,500 years with a fidelity that finds no parallel in any other literature.

3. Extent and Divisions of The Ṛgveda

The Ṛgveda consists of 1,017 or, counting eleven others of the eighth Book which are recognized as later additions, 1,028 hymns. These contain a total of about 10,600 stanzas, which give an average of ten stanzas to each hymn. The shortest hymn has only one stanza, while the longest has fifty-eight. If printed continuously like prose in Roman characters, the Saṃhitā text would fill an octavo volume of about 600 pages of thirty-three lines each. It has been calculated that in bulk the RV. is equivalent to the extant poems of Homer.

There is a twofold division of the RV. into parts. One, which is purely mechanical, is into Aṣṭakas or ‘eighths’ of about equal length, each of which is subdivided into eight Adhyāyas or ‘lessons’, while each of the latter consists of Vargas or ‘groups’ of five or six stanzas. The other division is into ten Maṇḍalas or ‘books’ (lit. ‘cycles’) and Sūktas or ‘hymns’. The latter method is an historical one, indicating the manner in which the collection came into being. This system is now invariably followed by Western Scholars in referring to or quoting from the Ṛgveda.

4. Arrangement of The Ṛgveda

Six of the ten books, ii to vii, are homogeneous in character. The hymns contained in each of them were, according to native Indian tradition, composed or ‘seen’ by poets of the same family, which handed them down as its own collection. The tradition is borne out by the internal evidence of the seers’ names mentioned in the hymns, and by that of the refrains occurring in each of these books. The method of arrangement followed in the ‘family books’ is uniform; for each of them is similarly divided into groups addressed to different gods. On the other hand, Books i, viii, and x were not composed each by a distinct family of seers, while the groups of which they consist are constituted by being the hymns composed by different individual seers. Book ix is distinguished from the rest by all its hymns being addressed to one and the same deity, Soma, and by its groups being based not on identity of authorship, but of metre.

Family books—In these the first group of hymns is invariably addressed to Agni, the second to Indra, and those that follow to gods of less importance. The hymns within these deity groups are arranged according to the diminishing number of stanzas contained in them. Thus in the second Book the Agni group of ten hymns begins with one of sixteen stanzas and ends with one of only six. The first hymn of the next group in the same book has twenty-one, the last only four stanzas. The entire group of the family books is, moreover, arranged according to the increasing number of the hymns in each of those books, if allowance is made for later additions. Thus the second Book has forty-three, the third sixty-two, the sixth seventy-five, and the seventh one hundred and four hymns. The homogeneity of the family books renders it highly probable that they formed the nucleus of the RV, which gradually assumed its final shape by successive additions to these books.

The earliest of these additions appears to be the second half of Book i, which, consisting of nine groups, each by a different author, was prefixed to the family books, the internal arrangement of which it follows. The eighth is like the family books as being in the main composed by members of one family, the Kaṇvas; but it differs from them in not beginning with hymns to Agni and in the prevalence of the strophic metre called Pragātha. The fact of its containing fewer hymns than the seventh book shows that it did not form a unit of the family books; but its partial resemblance to them caused it to be the first addition at the end of that collection. The first part of Book i (1-50) is in several respects like Book viii: Kaṇvas seem to have been the authors of the majority of these hymns; their favourite strophic metre is again found here; and both collections contain many similar or identical passages. There must have been some difference between the two groups, but the reason why they should have been separated by being added at the beginning and the end of an older collection has not yet been shown.

The ninth book was added as a consequence of the first eight being formed into a unit. It consists entirely of hymns addressed to Soma while the juice was ‘clarifying’ (pavamāna); on the other hand, the family books contain not a single Soma hymn, and Books i and viii together only three hymns invoking Soma in his general character. Now the hymns of Book ix were composed by authors of the same families as those of Books ii to vii, as is shown, for instance, by the appearance here of refrains peculiar to those families. Hence it is to be assumed that all the hymns to Soma Pavamāna were removed from Books i to viii, in order to form a single collection belonging to the sphere of the Udgātṛ or chanting priest, and added after Books i-viii, which were the sphere of the Hotṛ or reciting priest. The diction and recondite allusions in the hymns of this book suggest that they are later than those of the preceding books; but some of them may be early, as accompanying the Soma ritual which goes back to the Indo-Iranian period. The hymns of the first part of this book (1-60) are arranged according to the decreasing number of their stanzas, beginning with ten and ending with four. In the second part (61-114), which contains some very long hymns (one of forty-eight and another of fifty-eight stanzas), this arrangement is not followed. The two parts also differ in metre: the hymns of the first are, excepting four stanzas, composed in Gāyatrī, while the second consists mainly of groups in other metres; thus 68-84 form a Jagatī and 87-97 a Triṣṭubh group.

The tenth book was the final addition. Its language and subject-matter show that it is later in origin than the other books; its authors were, moreover, clearly familiar with them. Both its position at the end of the RV and the fact that the number of its hymns (191) is made up to that of the first book indicate its supplementary character. Its hymns were composed by a large number of seers of different families, some of which appear in other books; but the traditional attribution of authorship is of little or no value in the case of a great many hymns. In spite of its generally more modern character, it contains some hymns quite as old and poetic as the average of those in other books. These perhaps found a place here because for some reason they had been overlooked while the other collections were being formed. As regards language, we find in the tenth book earlier grammatical forms and words growing obsolete, while new words and meanings begin to emerge. As to matter, a tendency to abstract ideas and philosophical speculation, as well as the introduction of magical conceptions, such as belong to the sphere of the Atharvaveda, is here found to prevail.

5. Language

The hymns of the RV are composed in the earliest stage of that literary language of which the latest, or Classical Sanskrit, was stereotyped by the grammar of Pāṇini at the end of the fourth century bc. It differs from the latter about as much as Homeric from Attic Greek. It exhibits a much greater variety of forms than Sanskrit does. Its case-forms both in nominal and pronominal inflexion are more numerous. It has more participles and gerunds. It is, however, in verbal forms that its comparative richness is most apparent. Thus the RV very frequently uses the subjunctive, which as such has entirely died out in Sanskrit; it has twelve forms of the infinitive, while only a single one of these has survived in Sanskrit. The language of the RV also differs from Sanskrit in its accent, which, like that of ancient Greek, is of a musical nature, depending on the pitch of the voice, and is marked throughout the hymns. This accent has in Sanskrit been changed not only to a stress accent, but has shifted its position as depending on quantity, and is no longer marked. The Vedic accent occupies a very important position in Comparative Philology, while the Sanskrit accent, being secondary, has no value of this kind.

The Sandhi of the RV represents an earlier and a less conventional stage than that of Sanskrit. Thus the insertion of a sibilant between final n and a hard palatal or dental is, in the RV restricted to cases where it is historically justified; in Sanskrit it has become universal, being extended to cases where it has no justification. After e and o in the RV ă is nearly always pronounced, while in Sanskrit it is invariably dropped. It may thus be affirmed with certainty that no student can understand Sanskrit historically without knowing the language of the RV.

6. Metre

The hymns of the RV are without exception metrical. They contain on the average ten stanzas, generally of four verses or lines, but also of three and sometimes five. The line, which is called Pāda (‘quarter’) and forms the metrical unit, usually consists of eight, eleven, or twelve syllables. A stanza is, as a rule, made up of lines of the same type; but some of the rarer kinds of stanza are formed by combining lines of different length. There are about fifteen metres, but only about seven of these are at all common. By far the most common are the Triṣṭubh (4 × 11 syllables), the Gāyatrī (3 × 8), and the Jagatī (4 × 12), which together furnish two-thirds of the total number of stanzas in the RV. The Vedic metres, which are the foundation of the Classical Sanskrit metres except two, have a quantitative rhythm in which short and long syllables alternate and which is of a generally iambic type. It is only the rhythm of the last four or five syllables (called the cadence) of the line that is rigidly determined, and the lines of eleven and twelve syllables have a caesura as well. In their structure the Vedic metres thus come half way between the metres of the Indo-Iranian period, in which, as the Avesta shows, the principle is the number of syllables only, and those of Classical Sanskrit, in which (except the śloka) the quantity of every single syllable in the line is fixed. Usually a hymn of the Ṛgveda consists of stanzas in the same metre throughout; a typical divergence from this rule is to mark the conclusion of a hymn with a stanza in a different metre. Some hymns are strophic in their construction. The strophes in them consist either of three stanzas (called tṛca) in the same simple metre, generally Gāyatrī, or of two stanzas in different mixed metres. The latter type of strophe is called Pragātha and is found chiefly in the eighth book.

7. Religion of The Ṛgveda

This is concerned with the worship of gods that are largely personifications of the powers of nature. The hymns are mainly invocations of these gods, and are meant to accompany the oblation of Soma juice and the fire sacrifice of melted butter. It is thus essentially a polytheistic religion, which assumes a pantheistic colouring only in a few of its latest hymns. The gods are usually stated in the RV. to be thirty-three in number, being divided into three groups of eleven distributed in earth, air, and heaven, the three divisions of the Universe. Troops of deities, such as the Maruts, are of course not included in this number. The gods were believed to have had a beginning. But they were not thought to have all come into being at the same time; for the RV. occasionally refers to earlier gods, and certain deities are described as the offspring of others. That they were considered to have been originally mortal is implied in the statement that they acquired immortality by drinking Soma or by receiving it as a gift from Agni and Savitṛ.

The gods were conceived as human in appearance. Their bodily parts, which are frequently mentioned, are in many instances simply figurative illustrations of the phenomena of nature represented by them. Thus the arms of the Sun are nothing more than his rays; and the tongue and limbs of Agni merely denote his flames. Some of the gods appear equipped as warriors, especially Indra, others are described as priests, especially Agni and Bṛhaspati. All of them drive through the air in cars, drawn chiefly by steeds, but sometimes by other animals. The favourite food of men is also that of the gods, consisting in milk, butter, grain, and the flesh of sheep, goats, and cattle. It is offered to them in the sacrifice, which is either conveyed to them in heaven by the god of fire, or which they come in their cars to partake of on the strew of grass prepared for their reception. Their favourite drink is the exhilarating juice of the Soma plant. The home of the gods is heaven, the third heaven, or the highest step of Viṣṇu, where cheered by draughts of Soma they live a life of bliss.

Attributes of the gods—Among these the most prominent is power, for they are constantly described as great and mighty. They regulate the order of nature and vanquish the potent powers of evil. They hold sway over all creatures; no one can thwart their ordinances or live beyond the time they appoint; and the fulfillment of desires is dependent on them. They are benevolent beings who bestow prosperity on mankind; the only one in whom injurious traits appear being Rudra. They are described as ‘true’ and ‘not deceitful’, being friends and protectors of the honest and righteous, but punishing sin and guilt. Since in most cases the gods of the RV have not yet become dissociated from the physical phenomena which they represent, their figures are indefinite in outline and deficient in individuality. Having many features, such as power, brilliance, benevolence, and wisdom in common with others, each god exhibits but very few distinctive attributes. This vagueness is further increased by the practice of invoking deities in pairs—a practice making both gods share characteristics properly belonging to one alone. When nearly every power can thus be ascribed to every god, the identification of one deity with another becomes easy. There are in fact several such identifications in the RV. The idea is even found in more than one late passage that various deities are but different forms of a single divine being. This idea, however, never developed into monotheism, for none of the regular sacrifices in the Vedic period were offered to a single god. Finally, in other late hymns of the RV, we find the deities Aditi and Prajāpati identified not only with all the gods, but with nature as well. This brings us to that pantheism which became characteristic of later Indian thought in the form of the Vedānta philosophy.

The Vedic gods may most conveniently be classified as deities of heaven, air, and earth, according to the threefold division suggested by the RV itself. The celestial gods are Dyaus, Varuṇa, Mitra, Sūrya, Savitṛ, Pūṣan, the Aśvins, and the goddesses Uṣas, Dawn, and Rātrī, Night. The atmospheric gods are Indra, Apāṃ napāt, Rudra, the Maruts, Vāyu, Parjanya, and Āpas, the Waters. The terrestrial deities are Pṛthivī, Agni, and Soma. This Reader contains hymns addressed to all these gods, with detailed introductions describing their characters in the words, as far as is possible, of the RV itself. A few quite subordinate deities are not included, partly because no entire hymn is addressed to them. Two such belong to the celestial sphere. Trita, a somewhat obscure god, who is mentioned only in detached stanzas of the RV, comes down from the Indo-Iranian period. He seems to represent the ‘third’ or lightning form of fire. Similar in origin to Indra, he was ousted by the latter at an early period. Mātariśvan is a divine being also referred to only in scattered stanzas of the RV. He is described as having brought down the hidden fire from heaven to men on earth, like the Prometheus of Greek mythology. Among the terrestrial deities are certain rivers that are personified and invoked in the RV. Thus the Sindhu (Indus) is celebrated as a goddess in one hymn (x. 75, 2. 4. 6), and the Vipāś (Bïas) and the Śutudrī (Sutlej), sister streams of the Panjāb, in another (iii. 33). The most important and oftenest lauded is, however, the Sarasvatī (vi. 61; vii. 95). Though the personification goes much further here than in the case of other streams, the connection of the goddess with the river is never lost sight of in the RV.

Abstract deities—One result of the advance of thought during the period of the RV. from the concrete towards the abstract was the rise of abstract deities. The earlier and more numerous class of these seems to have started from