n. (according to to some also f.) a seat, residence, abode, dwelling, place of meeting, assembly (especially at a sacrifice; sadasaspatis/adasas-p/ati-m.equalss/adas-p/ati-; sadasi-,"in public") etc.
m. "present in the sacrificial enclosure", an assessor, spectator, member of an assembly (at a sacrifice), a superintending priest, the seventeenth priest (whose duties according to to the kuṣītakin-s, are merely to look on and correct mistakes)
(s/a--) m. (formed like etc.)"before whom the dasyu-s tremble", Name of a prince (son of puru-kutsa-;celebrated for his liberality and favoured by the gods;author of ),
P.-dasyati- (subjunctive-dasat-) to fail, be wanting, be extinguished or exhausted, dry up ; to want, lose, be deprived of (instrumental case) : Causal-dāsayati-, to cause to fail or cease, extinguish
अदस् pron. a. [न दस्यते उत्क्षिप्यते अङ्गुलिर्यत्र इदंतया निर्द्धारणाय पुरोवर्तिनि एवाङ्गुलिनिर्देशः संभवति नापुरो- वर्तिनि, न-दस्-क्विप् Tv.] (असौ m. f. अदः n.). That, (referring to a person or thing not present or near the speaker) (विप्रकृष्ट or परोक्ष); इदमस्तु सन्निकृष्टं समीप- तरवर्ति चैतदो रूपम् । अदसस्तु विप्रकृष्टं तदिति परोक्षे विजानीयात् ॥ अमुष्य विद्या रसनाग्रनर्तकी N.1.5; असौ नामा$हमस्मीति स्वनाम परिकीर्तयेत् Ms.2.122. I am that person, so and so (giving the name); असावहमिति ब्रूयात् 13,216; Y. 1.26. अदस् is, however, often used with reference to प्रत्यक्ष or सन्निकृष्ट objects &c. in the sense of 'this here', 'yonder'. असौ सरण्यः सरणोन्मुखानाम् R.6.21. (असाविति पुरोवर्तिनो निर्देशः Malli.); अमी रथ्याः Ś.1.8.; अमी वह्नयः 4.18;7.11. It is often used in the sense of तत् as a correlative of यत्; हिंसारतश्च यो नित्यं नेहासौ सुखमेधते Ms. 4.17. He, who &c. But when it immediately follows the relative pronoun (यो$सौ, ये अमी &c.) it conveys the sense of प्रसिद्ध 'well-known', 'celebrated', 'renowned'; यो$सावतीन्द्रियग्राह्यः सूक्ष्मो$व्यक्तः सनातनः Ms.1.7; यो$सौ कुमार- सेवको नाम Mu.3; यो$सौ चोरः Dk.68; sometimes अदस् used by itself conveys this sense; विधुरपि विधियोगाद् ग्रस्यते राहुणा$सौ that (so well-known to us all) moon too. See the word तद् also and the quotations from K. P. -ind. There, at that time, then, thus, ever; correlative to some pronominal forms; यदादः, यत्रादः whenever, whereever &c. By अदो$नुपदेशे P.1.4.7. अदस् has the force of a (गति) preposition when no direction to another is implied; अदःकृत्य अदःकृतम्; । परं प्रत्युपदेशे तु अदःकृत्वा अदःकुरु । Sk.
उपदस् 4 P. To fail, be wanting, dry up or be consumed. -Caus. To cause to fail or cease, extinguish; अनुगच्छन्ती प्राणानुप दासयति ब्रह्मगवी ब्रह्मज्यस्य Av.12.5.27.
सदस् n. [सीदत्यस्यां सद्-असि] 1 Seat, abode, residence, dwelling; शापक्षयादिन्द्रसदो ययौ च Rām.7.56.29. -2 An assembly; पङ्कैर्विना सरो भाति सदः खलजनैर्विना Bv. 1.116; Bh.2.63. (the word is also feminine सदाः, सदसौ, सदसः L. D. B.). -3 The sky; रराज वै परमविमानमास्थितो निशाचरः सदसि गतो यथानलः Rām.7.15.41. (-du.) heaven and earth. -Comp. -अजिरम् a vestibule. -गत a. seated in an assembly; यथा च वृत्तान्तमिमं सदोगतस्त्रिलोचनै- कांशतया दुरासदः R.3.66. -गृहम् an assembly-hall, council-room; नृपस्य नातिप्रमनाः सदोगृहं सुदक्षिणासूनुरपि व्यवर्तत R.3.67.
सदस्यः [सदसि साधु वसति वा यत्] 1 Any person present at or belonging to an assembly, a member of an assembly (an assessor, a juror &c.); सदस्याग्न्यार्हणार्हं वै विमृशन्तः सभासदः Bhāg.1.74.18. -2 An assistant at a sacrifice, a superintending or assisting priest; ऋषी- णामार्त्विज्यं शरणद सदस्याः सुरगणाः Śiva-mahimna 21; सदस्यै- रनुज्ञातः Ś.3.
m. N. of an ancient sage; -dhanvan, a. having a stiff bow; -dhriti, a. strong-willed; -prahâri-tâ, f. hardness of hitting; -bhakti, a. firm in de votion to (lc.); -mati, a. firmly resolved; -mushti, m. tight fist; a. close-fisted.
a. belonging to or being in the sacrificial shed; m. member of a (sacri ficial) assembly; assistant at a sacrificial session (occupying the Sadas and only look ing on during the rites).
pr. pt. being and not being; true and false; good and bad; n. what is existent and non-existent; the true and the false; good and evil; m. du. the good and the bad: d-âtmaka, a. (ikâ) having the nature both of the existent and the non-existent; d-bhâva, m. reality and unreality; truth and falsehood.
n. seat, place, abode, dwell ing (V.); shed erected in the sacrificial en closure to the east of the Prâkînavamsa (V.); sacrificial session, assembly (C.): lc. in public.
In the Rigveda this name occurs but once, and in a doubtful context. It is clear, however, that it denotes a prince ; later interpretations make Asamāti, whose name is read into the hymn, an Iksvāku prince. In the Atharvaveda also the name is found in only one passage, where it is uncertain whether a descendant of Iksvāku, or Iksvāku himself, is referred to; in either case he seems to be regarded as an ancient hero. In the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana mention is made of Tryaruna Traidhātva Aiksvāka, who is identical with the Tryaruna Traivrsna of the Brhaddevatā, and with Tryaruna Trasa- dasyu in the Rigveda. The connection of Trasadasyu with the Iksvākus is confirmed by the fact that Purukutsa was an Aiksvāka, according to the śatapatha Brāhmana. Thus the Iksvāku line was originally a line of princes of the Pūrus. Zimmer places them on the upper Indus, but they may well have been somewhat further east. Later Iksvāku is connected with Ayodhyā.
‘Wool,’ is very frequently mentioned from the Rigveda onwards. The Parusnī country was famous for its wool, like Gandhāra for its sheep. The term for the separate tufts was parvan4 or parus.‘ Soft as wool ’ (ūrna-mradas) is not a rare epithet. The sheep is called ‘woolly’ (ūrnāvatī). ‘Woollen thread ’ (ūrnā-sūtra) is repeatedly referred to in the later Samhitās and the Brāhmanas. The word ūrnā was not restricted to the sense of sheep’s wool, but might denote goat’s hair also.
Is the name of a Rsi mentioned frequently in the Rigveda, and occasionally elsewhere. He appears to have been a descendant of a female slave named Uśij. He must have been a Pajra by family, as he bears the epithet Pajriya, and his descendants are called Pajras. In a hymn of the Rigveda he celebrates the prince Svanaya Bhāvya, who dwelt on the Sindhu (Indus), as having bestowed magnificent gifts on him ; and the list of Nārāśamsas (‘ Praises of Heroes ’) in the Sāñkhāyana Srauta Sūtra mentions one by Kaksīvant Auśija in honour of Svanaya Bhāvayavya. In his old age he obtained as a wife the maiden Vrcayā. He appears to have lived to be a hundred, the typical length of life in the Vedas. He seems always to be thought of as belonging to the past, and in a hymn of the fourth book of the Rigveda he is mentioned with the semi-mythical Kutsa and Kavi Uśanas. Later, also, he is a teacher of bygone days. In Vedic literature he is not connected with Dīrghatamas beyond being once mentioned along with him in a hymn of the Rigveda. But in the Brhaddevatā he appears as a son of Dīrghatamas by a slave woman, Uśij. Weber14 considers that Kaksīvant was originally a Ksatriya, not a Brāhmana, quoting in favour of this view the fact that he is mentioned beside kings like Para Atnāra, Vītahavya Srāyasa, and Trasadasyu Paurukutsya. But that these are all kings is an unnecessary assumption : these persons are mentioned in the passages in question undoubtedly only as famous men of old, to whom are ascribed mythical sacrificial performances, and who thus gained numerous sons.
The Kurus appear as by far the most important people in the Brāhmana literature. There is clear evidence that it was in the country of the Kurus, or the allied Kuru- Pañcālas, that the great Brāhmanas were composed. The Kurus are comparatively seldom mentioned alone, their name being usually coupled with that of the Pañcālas on account of the intimate connexion of the two peoples. The Kuru-Pañcālas are often expressly referred to as a united nation. In the land of the Kuru-Pañcālas speech is said to have its particular home ; the mode of sacrifice among the Kuru-Pañcālas is proclaimed to be the best ; the Kuru-Pañcāla kings perform the Rājasūya or royal sacrifice ; their princes march forth on raids in the dewy season, and return in the hot season Later on the Kuru-Pañcāla Brahmins are famous in the Upanisads. Weber and Grierson have sought to find traces in Vedic literature of a breach between the two tribes, the latter scholar seeing therein a confirmation of the theory that the Kurus belonged to the later stream of immigrants into India, who were specially Brahminical, as opposed to the Pañcālas, who were anti-Brahminical. In support of this view, Weber refers to the story in the Kāthaka Samhitā of a dispute between Vaka Dālbhya and Dhrtarāstra Vaicitravīrya, the former being held to be by origin a Pañcāla, while the latter is held to be a Kuru. But there is no trace of a quarrel between Kurus and Pañcālas in the passage in question, which merely preserves the record of a dispute on a ritual matter between a priest and a prince: the same passage refers to the Naimisīya sacrifice among the Kuru-Pañcālas, and emphasizes the close connexion of the two peoples. Secondly, Weber conjectures in the Vājasaneyi Samhitā that Subhadrikā of Kāmpīla was the chief queen of the king of a tribe living in the neighbour¬hood of the clan, for whose king the horse sacrifice described in the Samhitā was performed. But the interpretation of this passage by Weber is open to grave doubt ; and in the Kānva recension of the Samhitā a passage used at the Rājasūya shows that the Kuru-Pañcālas had actually one king. More¬over, there is the evidence of the Satapatha Brāhmana that the old name of the Pañcālas was Krivi. This word looks very like a variant of Kuru, and Zimmer plausibly conjectures that the Kurus and Krivis formed the Vaikarna of the Rigveda, especially as both peoples are found about the Sindhu and the Asikni.The Kurus alone are chiefly mentioned in connexion with the locality which they occupied, Kuruksetra. We are told, however, of a domestic priest (Purohita) in the service of both the Kurus and the Srñjayas, who must therefore at one time have been closely connected. In the Chāndogya Upanisad reference is made to the Kurus being saved by a mare (aśvā), and to some disaster which befel them owing to a hailstorm. In the Sūtras, again, a ceremony (Vājapeya) of the Kurus is mentioned. There also a curse, which was pronounced on them and led to their being driven from Kuruksetra, is alluded to. This possibly adumbrates the misfortunes of the Kauravas in the epic tradition. In the Rigveda the Kurus do not appear under that name as a people. But mention is made of a prince, Kuruśravana (‘ Glory of the Kurus ^, and of a Pākasthāman Kaurayāna. In the Atharvaveda there occurs as a king of the Kurus Pariksit, whose son, Janamejaya, is mentioned in the śata¬patha Brāhmana as one of the great performers of the horse sacrifice.It is a probable conjecture of Oldenberg’s that the Kuru people, as known later, included some of the tribes referred to by other names in the Rigveda. Kuruśravana, shown by his name to be connected with the Kurus, is in the Rigveda called Trāsadasyava, * descendant of Trasadasyu,’ who is well known as a king of the Pūrus. Moreover, it is likely that the Trtsu- Bharatas, who appear in the Rigveda as enemies of the Pūrus, later coalesced with them to form the Kuru people. Since the Bharatas appear so prominently in the Brāhmana texts as a great people of the past, while the later literature ignores them in its list of nations, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they became merged in some other tribe. Moreover, there is evidence that the Bharatas occupied the territory in which the Kurus were later found. Two of them are spoken of in a hymn of the Rigveda as having kindled fire on the Drsadvatī, the Apayā, and the Sarasvatī—that is to say, in the sacred places of the later Kuruksetra. Similarly, the goddess Bhāratī (‘ belonging to the Bharatas ’) is constantly mentioned in the Aprī (‘ propitiatory ’) hymns together with Sarasvatī. Again, according to the śatapatha Brāhmana, one Bharata king was victorious over the Kāśis, and another made offerings to Gañgā and Yamunā, while raids of the Bharatas against the Satvants are mentioned in the Aitareya Brāhmana. Nor is it without importance that the Bharatas appear as a variant for the Kuru-Pañcālas in a passage of the Vājasaneyi Samhitā, and that in the list of the great performers of the horse sacrifice the names of one Kuru and two Bharata princes are given without any mention of the people over which they ruled, while in other cases that information is specifically given.The territory of the Kuru-Pañcālas is declared in the Aitareya Brāhmana to be the middle country (Madhyadeśa). A group of the Kuru people still remained further north—the Uttara Kurus beyond the Himālaya. It appears from a passage of the śatapatha Brāhmana that the speech of the Northerners— that is, presumably, the Northern Kurus—and of the Kuru- Pañcālas was similar, and regarded as specially pure. There seems little doubt that the Brahminical culture was developed in the country of the Kuru-Pañcālas, and that it spread thence east, south, and west. Traces of this are seen in the Vrātya Stomas (sacrifices for the admission of non - Brahminical Aryans) of the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana, and in the fact that in the śāñkhāyana Áranyaka it is unusual for a Brahmin to dwell in the territory of Magadha. The repeated mention of Kuru- Pañcāla Brahmins is another indication of their missionary activity. The geographical position of the Kuru-Pañcālas renders it probable that they were later immigrants into India than the Kosala-Videha or the Kāśis, who must have been pushed into their more eastward territories by a new wave of Aryan settlers from the west. But there is no evidence in Vedic literature to show in what relation of time the immigration of the latter peoples stood to that of their neighbours on the west. It has, however, been conjectured, mainly on the ground of later linguistic phenomena, which have no cogency for the Vedic period, that the Kurus were later immigrants, who, coming by a new route, thrust themselves between the original Aryan tribes which were already in occupation of the country from east to west. Cf. also Krtvan. For other Kuru princes see Kauravya.
Is alluded to as dead in a hymn of the Rigveda, which refers also to his son Upamaśravas, and his father Mitrātithi. In another hymn he is mentioned as still alive. His name connects him on the one hand with the Kurus, and on the other with Trasadasyu and the Pūrus.
Is the name of a seer to whom the Sarvānu- kramanī attributes the authorship of the second Mandala of the Rigveda. This tradition is supported by the Aitareya Brāhmana and the Aitareya Aranyaka. The Kausītaki Brāhmana speaks of him as a Bhārgava, ‘ descendant of Bhrgu,’ with a variant Bābhrava, ‘ descendant of Babhru,’ but the later tradition keeps to the former patronymic.4 The Grtsamadas are often mentioned in the second Mandala of the Rigveda,5 and are also called Sunahotras,6 but never Gārtsamadas or Saunahotras, and Grtsamada himself never occurs there.
Is used in the singular, or oftener in the plural, to denote the ‘ house ’of the Vedic Indian. Dama or Dam has the same sense, while Pastyā and Harmya denote more especially the home with its surroundings, the family settle¬ment. The house held not only the family, which might be of considerable size, but also the cattle and the sheep at night. It was composed of several rooms, as the use of the plural indicates, and it could be securely shut up. The door (Dvār, Dvāra) is often referred to, and from it the house is called Durona. In every house the fire was kept burning. Very little is known of the structure of the house. Presum¬ably stone was not used, and houses were, as in Megasthenes’ time, built of wood. The hymns of the Atharvaveda give some information about the construction of a house, but the details are extremely obscure, for most of the expressions used do not recur in any context in which their sense is clear. According to Zimmer, four pillars (Upamit) were set up on a good site, and against them beams were leant at an angle as props (Pratimit). The upright pillars were connected by cross beams (Parimit) resting upon them. The roof was formed of ribs of bamboo cane (vamśa), a ridge called Visūvant, and a net (Aksu), which may mean a thatch’ed covering over the bamboo ribs. The walls were filled up with grass in bundles (palada), and the whole structure was held together with ties of various sorts (nahana, prānāha, samdamśa, parisvañjalya).13 In connexion with the house, mention is made of four terms which, though primarily sacrificial in meaning, seem to designate parts of the building: Havirdhāna, ‘oblation-holder’; Agniśāla, ‘ fire¬place Patnīnām Sadana, wives’ room ’; and Sadas, ‘ sitting room.’ Slings or hanging vessels (Sikya) are also mentioned. Reedwork (ita) is spoken of, no doubt as part of the finishing of the walls of the house. The sides are called Paksa. The door with its framework was named Atā.
Appears, along with Purumīdha, as a patron of Syāvāśva in the Rigveda. In the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana and other Brāhmanas he, together with Purumīdha, is described as receiving gifts from Dhvasra and Purusanti; but since the receipt of gifts was forbidden to Ksatriyas, they for the nonce became Rsis, and composed a passage in honour of the donors. He, like Purumīdha, was a Vaidadaśvi, or son of Vidadaśva.
Is mentioned in the Rigveda as a divine steed, apparently the sun conceived as a horse. But Foy, judging by the name, apparently a patronymic of Trksi, who is known from the Rigveda onwards as a descendant of Trasadasyu, thinks that a real steed, the property of Trksi, is meant; but this is not very probable. See also Tāruksya.
Is, in the Rigveda, the name of a prince who was a Trāsadasyava, ‘ descendant of Trasadasyu.’ He also appears with the Druhyu and the Pūru peoples in another hymn. It has been conjectured, but it is not probable, that the steed Tārksya (as * belonging to Trksi ’) was his.
Son of Purukutsa, is mentioned in the Rigveda as king of the Pūrus. He was born to Purukutsa by his wife, Purukutsānī, at a time of great distress; this, according to Sāyana, refers to Purukutsa’s captivity: possibly his death is really meant. Trasadasyu was also a descendant of Giriksit and Purukutsa was a descendant of Durgaha. The genealogy, therefore, appears to be: Durgaha, Giriksit, Purukutsa, Trasadasyu. Trasadasyu was the ancestor of Tpksi, and, according to Ludwig, had a son Hiranin. Trasadasyu’s chronological position is determined by the fact that his father, Purukutsa, was a contemporary of Sudās, either as an opponent or as a friend. That Purukutsa was an enemy of Sudās is more probable, because the latter’s predecessor, Divodāsa, was apparently at enmity with the Pūrus, and in the battle of the ten kings Pūrus were ranged against Sudās and the Trtsus. Trasadasyu himself seems to have been an energetic king. His people, the Pūrus, were settled on the Sarasvatī, which was, no doubt, the stream in the middle country, that locality according well with the later union of the Pūrus with the Kuru people, who inhabited that country. This union is exemplified in the person of Kuruśravana, who is called Trāsadasyava, ‘ descendant of Trasadasyu,’ in the Rigveda, whose father was Mitrātithi, and whose son was Upamaśravas. The relation of Mitrātithi to Trksi does not appear. Another descendant of Trasadasyu was Tryaruna Traivrsna, who is simply called Trasadasyu in a hymn of the Rigveda. He was not only a 4 descendant of Trivrsan,’ but, according to the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana, he was also Traidhātva, descendant of Tridhātu.’ The order of these two predecessors of Tryaruna cannot be determined in any way from Vedic literature. According to the later tradition, a prince named Tridhanvan preceded Tryaruna in the succession. Vedic tradition further fails to show in what precise relation Trasadasyu stood to Trivrsan or Tryaruna.
‘Descendant of Trasadasyu,’ is the patronymic in the Rigveda of Trksi and of Kuruśravana. The word is also applied to Agni as ‘ protector of, or worshipped by, Trasadasyu’ and his line.
Is the name of a prince whose generosity to a singer is celebrated in a hymn of the Rigveda. In the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana he appears as Tryaruna Traidhātva Aiksvāka, and is the hero of the following story. He was out in his chariot with his Purohita, or domestic priest, Vrśa Jāna, and by excessive speed in driving killed a Brahmin boy. This sin was atoned for by the Puro- hita’s using his Vārśa Sāman (chant). The Sātyāyana Brāhmana, cited by Sāyana, elaborates the tale. As Vrśa had held the reins, king and priest accused each other of the murder. The Iksvākus being consulted threw the responsibility for the crime on Vrśa, who thereupon revived the boy by the Vārśa Sāman. In consequence of this unfairness of theirs—being Ksatriyas they were partial to a Ksatriya—Agni’s glow ceased to burn in their houses. In response to their appeal to restore it, Vrśa came to them, saw the Piśācī (demoness), who, in the form of Trasadasyu’s wife, had stolen the glow, and succeeded in restoring it to Agni. This version with some variations occurs also in the Brhaddevatā, which connects the story with a hymn of the Rigveda. Sieg’s attempt to show that the hymn really refers to this tale is not at all successful. It is clear that Trasadasyu must here mean ‘descendant of Trasadasyu,’ and not King Trasadasyu himself. The difference of the patronymics, Traivrsna and Traidhātva, by which he is referred to can best be explained by assuming that there were two kings, Trivrsan and Tridhātu (or possibly Tridhanvan), from whom Tryaruna was descended. The connexion with the Iksvākus is important (see Iksvāku).
‘Ten,’ forms the basis of the numerical system of the Vedic Indians, as it does of the Aryan people generally. But it is characteristic of India that there should be found at a very early period long series of names for very high numerals, whereas the Aryan knowledge did not go beyond 1,000. In the Vājasaneyi Samhitā the list is 1 ; 10; 100; 1,000 ; ιο,οοο {ayuta) \ ιοο,οοο (ηiyuta); ι,οοο,οοο(prayuta); 10,000,000 {arbuda); 100,000,000 (ηyarbuda)', 1,000,000,000 (samudra); 10,000,000,000 (madhya); ιοο,οοο,οοο,οοο (aηta); 1,000,000,000,000 {parārdha). In the Kāthaka Samhitā the list is the same, but ηiyuta and prayuta exchange places, and after ηyarbuda a new figure (badva) intervenes, thus increasing samudra to ιο,οοο,οοο,οοο, and so on. The Taittirīya Samhitā has in two places exactly the same list as the Vājasaneyi Samhitā. The Maitrāyanī Samhitā has the list ayuta, prayuta, then ayuta again, arbuda, ηyarbuda, samudra, madhya, aηta, parārdha. The Pañcavimśa Brāhmana has the Vājasaneyi list up to ηyarbuda inclusive, then follow ηikharvaka, badva, aksita, and apparently go = ι,οοο,οοο,οοο,οοο. The Jaiminīya Upanisad Brāhmana list replaces nikharvaka by nikharva, badva by padma, and ends with aksitir vyomāntah. The śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra con¬tinues the series after nyarbuda with nikharvāda, samudra, salila, antya, ananta (=10 billions).But beyond ayuta none of these numbers has any vitality. Badva, indeed, occurs in the Aitareya Brāhmana, but it cannot there have any precise numerical sense j and later on the names of these high numerals are very much confused. An arithmetical progression of some interest is found in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana, where occurs a list of sacrificial gifts in which each successive figure doubles the amount of the preceding one. It begins with dvādaśa-mānam hiranyam, * gold to the value of 12 ’ (the unit being uncertain, but probably the Krsnala18), followed by ‘to the value of 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, 768, 1,536, 3072/ then dve astāvimśati-śata-māne, which must mean 2 x 128 X 24 (the last unit being not a single māna, but a number of 24 mānas) = 6,144, then 12,288, 24,576, 49,152, 98,304, 196,608, 393,216. With these large numbers may be compared the minute theoretical subdivision of time found in the śatapatha Brāhmana, where a day is divided into 15 muhūrtas—1 muhūrta =15 ksipras, 1 ksipra =15 etarhis, I etarhi = 15 idānis, 1 idāni =15 prānas. The śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra15 has a decimal division of the day into 15 muhūrtas—• i muhūrta = 10 nimesas, 1 nimesa = 10 dhvamsis. Few fractions are mentioned in Vedic literature. Ardha, pāda, śapha, and kalā denote J, J, TV respectively, but only the first two are common. Trtīya denotes the third part.16 In the Rigveda Indra and Visnu are said to have divided ι,οοο by 3, though how they did so is uncertain. Tri-pād denotes 4 three-fourths.’ There is no clear evidence that the Indians of the Vedic period had any knowledge of numerical figures, though it is perfectly possible.
Is mentioned in a hymn of the Rigveda, where his grandsons are lauded for their generosity, though Sāyana renders the word adjectivally. In another passage of the Rigveda, however, Sāyana sees in the epithet Daurgaha a description of Purukutsa as Durgaha’s son, who was either captured by the enemy or slain, and whose wife, Purukutsānī, then obtained a son, Trasadasyu, to restore the line; he also quotes a story, not found in the Brhaddevatā, to support this interpretation. On the other hand, the śatapatha Brāhmana seems to take Daurgaha as meaning a horse. Sieg thinks that the same sense should be adopted in the Rigveda passage, which he interprets as referring to the sacrifice of a horse, Daurgaha, by King Purukutsa to gain a son; he also sees in Dadhikrāvan, with Pischel and Ludwig, a real horse, the charger of Trasadasyu. The śatapatha Brāhmana's interpretation of Daurgaha is, however, doubtful, and cannot be regarded as receiving support from the case of Dadhikrāvan, who was probably a divinity, and not a real horse at all.
Is a word of obscure origin and derivation. The Indian interpreters already show a great divergence of opinion as to its primary meaning. The śatapatha Brāhmana resolves it into na-ksatra (‘ no power ’), explaining it by a legend. The Nirukta refers it to the root naks, ‘obtain/ following the Taittirīya Brāhmana. Aufrecht and Weber derived it from nakta-tra, ‘ guardian of night/ and more recently the derivation from nak-ksatra, ‘ having rule over night/ seems to be gaining acceptance. The generic meaning of the word therefore seems to be ‘star/ The Naksatras as Stars in the Rigveda and Later.—The sense of star ’ appears to be adequate for all or nearly all the passages in which Naksatra occurs in the Rigveda. The same sense occurs in the later Samhitās also : the sun and the Naksatras are mentioned together, or the sun, the moon, and the Naksatras, or the moon and the Naksatras, or the Naksatras alone; but there is no necessity to attribute to the word the sense of lunar mansion ’ in these passages. On the other hand, the names of at least three of the Naksatras in the later sense occur in the Rigveda. Tisya, however, does not seem to be mentioned as a lunar mansion. With Aghās (plur.) and Arjunī (dual) the case is different: it seems probable that they are the later lunar mansions called Maghās (plur.) and Phālgunī (dual). The names appear to have been deliberately changed in the Rigveda, and it must be remembered that the hymn in which they occur, the wedding hymn of Sūryā, has no claim to great age. Ludwig and Zimmer have seen other references to the Naksatras as 27 in the Rigveda, but these seem most improbable. Nor do the adjectives revatī (£ rich ’) and punarvasīi (‘ bringing wealth again’) in another hymn appear to refer to the Naksatras. The Naksatras as Lunar Mansions.—In several passages of the later Samhitās the connexion of the moon and the Naksatras is conceived of as a marriage union. Thus in the Kāthaka and Taittirīya Samhitās it is expressly stated that Soma was wedded to the mansions, but dwelt only with Rohinī; the others being angry, he had ultimately to undertake to live with them all equally. Weber hence deduced that the Naksatras were regarded as of equal extent, but this is to press the texts unduly, except in the sense of approximate equality. The number of the mansions is not stated as 27 in the story told in the two Samhitās: the Taittīriya has, and the Kāthaka no number; but 27 appears as their number in the list which is found in the Taittirīya Samhitā and elsewhere. The number 28 is much less well attested: in one passage of the Taittirīya Brāhmana Abhijit is practically marked as a new comer, though in a later book, in the Maitrāyanī Samhitā, and in the Atharvaveda list,27 it has found acceptance. It is perfectly possible that 28 is the earlier number, and that Abhijit dropped out because it was faint, or too far north, or because 27 was a more mystic (3x3x3) number: it is significant that the Chinese Sieou and the Arabic Manāzil are 28 in number.28 Weber, however, believes that 27 is the older number in India. The meaning of the number is easily explained when it is remembered that a periodic month occupies something between 27 and 28 days, more nearly the former number. Such a month is in fact recognized in the Lātyāyana and Nidāna Sūtras as consisting of 27 days, 12 months making a year of 324 days, a Naksatra year, or with an intercalary month, a year of 351 days. The Nidāna Sūtra makes an attempt to introduce the Naksatra reckoning into the civil or solar (sāvana) year of 360 days, for it holds that the sun spends 13J• days in each Naksatra (13^x27 = 360). But the month of 27 or 28 days plays no part in the chronological calculations of the Veda. The Names of the Naksatras.—In addition to the two mentioned in the Rigveda, the earlier Atharvaveda gives the names of Jyesthaghnī (the later Jyesthā) and Vicrtau, which are mentioned as in close connexion, and of Revatīs (plural) and Kyttikās. With reference to possible times for the ceremony of the Agnyādhāna, or Maying of the sacred fires/ the Kāthaka Samhitā, the Maitrāyanī Samhitā, and the Taittirīya Brāhmana mention the Naksatras called Krttikās, Rohinī, Phalgunyas, Hasta; the latter Brāhmana adds Punar- vasū, and in an additional remark excludes Pūrve Phālgunī in favour of Uttare Phālgunī. The śatapatha Brāhmana adds Mrgaśīrsa and Citrā as possibilities. On the other hand, Punarvasū is recommended by all authorities as suitable for the Punarādheya, 'relaying of the sacred fires,’ which takes place if the first fire has failed to effect the aim of its existence, the prosperity of the sacrificer. The Kāthaka Samhitā, however, allows Anurādhās also. In the ceremony of the Agnicayana, or 'piling of the fire- altar,’ the bricks are assumed to be equal in number to the Naksatras. The bricks number 756, and they are equated to 27 Naksatras multiplied by 27 secondary Naksatras, reckoned as 720 (instead of 729), with the addition of 36 days, the length of an intercalary month. Nothing can be usefully derived from this piece of priestly nonsense. But in connexion with this ceremony the Yajurveda Samhitās enumerate the 27, The Taittirīya Brāhmana has a list of the Naksatras which agrees generally with the list of the Samhitās. It runs as follows: Kyttikās, Rohinī, Invakās, Bāhū (dual), Tisya, Aśleṣās, Maghās, Pūrve Phālgunī, Uttare Phālgunī, Hasta, Citrā, Nistyā, Viśākhe, Anūrādhās, Rohinī, Mūlabarhanī, Pūrvā Asādhās', Uttarā Asādhās, Sronā, Sravisthās, Satabhisaj, Pūrve Prosthapadās, Uttare Prosthapadās, Revatī, Aśvayujau, Apabharanīs. In a later book, however, the list grows to 28, and the full moon is inserted after number 14, and the new moon after number, as an attempt to bring the Naksatra (lunar) month into accordance with the Sāvana (solar) month of 30 days. The names in this second list are as in the Samhitās with the following exceptions. The seven stars of the Krttikās are named as Ambā, Dulā, Nitatnī, Abhrayantī, Meghayantī, Varsayantī, Cupunīkā, names found also in the Taittirīya and Kāthaka Samhitās. Beside Mrgaśīrsa, Invakās are also mentioned. Then come Ardrā, Punarvasū, Tisya, Aśresās, Maghās (beside which Anaghās, Agadās, and Arun- dhatīs are also mentioned), Phalgunyas (but elsewhere in the dual, Phalgunyau), Phalgunyas, Hasta, Citrā, Nistyā, Viśākhe, Anūrādhās, Jyesthā, Mūla, Asādhās, Asā(jhās, Abhijit, śronā, Sravisthās, Satabhisaj, Prosthapadās, Prosthapadās, Revatī, Aśvayujau, Bharanyas, but also Apabharanīs. Abhijit, which occurs also in an earlier part of the Brāhmana, is perhaps interpolated. But Weber’s argument that Abhijit is out of place in this list because Brāhmana is here mentioned as the 28th Naksatra, loses some force from the fact (of course unknown to him) that the list in the Maitrāyanī Samhitā contains 28 Naksatras, including Abhijit, and adds Brāhmana at the end as another. In another passage the Taittirīya Brāhmana divides the Naksatras into two sets, the Deva Naksatras and the Yama Naksatras, being 1-14 and 15-27 (with the omission of Abhijit) respectively. This division corresponds with one in the third book of the Brāhmana60 where the days of the light half of the month and those of the dark half are equated with the Naksatras. The Brāhmana treats the former series as south, the latter as north; but this has no relation to facts, and can only be regarded as a ritual absurdity. The late nineteenth book of the Atharvaveda contains a list of the Naksatras, including Abhijit. The names here (masc.), Viśākhe, Anurādhā, Jyesthā, Mūla, Pūrvā Asādhās, Uttarā Asādhās, Abhijit, śravana, śravisthās, śatabhisaj, Dvayā Prosthapadā, Revatī, Aśvayujau, Bharanyas. The Position of the Naksatras.—There is nothing definite in Vedic literature regarding the position of most of the Naksatras, but the later astronomy precisely locates all of them, and its statements agree on the whole satisfactorily with what is said in the earlier texts, though Weber was inclined to doubt this. The determinations adopted below are due to Whitney in his notes on the Sūrya Siddhānta. 1.Krttikās are unquestionably η Tauri, etc., the Pleiades. The names of the seven stars forming this constellation, and given above from Yajurveda texts, include three --------abhrayantī, forming clouds meghayantī, ‘making cloudy’; varsayantī, ‘causing rain’—which clearly refer to the rainy Pleiades. The word krttikā possibly means ‘web/ from the root krt, spin.’ 2. Rohinī, ‘ ruddy,’ is the name of the conspicuously reddish star, a Tauri or Aldebaran, and denotes the group of the Hyades, <* θ y 8 e Tauri. Its identification seems absolutely assured by the legend of Prajāpati in the Aitareya Brāhmana. He is there represented as pursuing his daughter with incestuous intention, and as having been shot with an arrow (Isu Trikāndā, ‘ the belt of Orion ’) by the huntsman ’ (Mrgavyādha, Sirius ’). Prajāpati is clearly Orion (Mrgaśiras being the name of the little group of stars in Orion’s head). 3.Mrgaśīrsa or Mrgaśiras, also called Invakā or Invagā, seems to be the faint stars λ, φ,1 φ2 Orionis. They are called Andhakā, * blind,’ in the śāntikalpa of the Atharvaveda, probably because of their dimness. 4.Ardrā, ‘ moist,’ is the name of the brilliant star, α Orionis. But the names by which it is styled, in the plural as Árdrās in the śāñkhāyana Grhya Sūtra and the Naksatrakalpa, and in the dual as Bāhú, in the Taittirīya Brāhmana, point to a constellation of two or more stars, and it may be noted that the corresponding Chinese Sieou includes the seven brilliant stars composing the shoulders, the belt, and the knees of Orion. 5. Punarvasu, the two that give wealth again,’ denotes the two stars, a and β Geminorum, on the heads of Castor and Pollux. The name is no doubt connected with the beneficent character of the Aśvins, who correspond to the Dioscuri. 6.Tisya or Pusya includes the somewhat faint group in the body of the Crab, 7, δ, and θ Cancri. The singular is rather curious, as primarily one star would seem to have been meant, and none of the group is at all prominent. 7. Aśresās or Aślesās, which in some texts is certainly to be read Aśresās or Aślesas, denotes δ, e, η, p, σ, and perhaps also ζ, Hydrse. The word means ‘embracer,’ a name which admirably fits the constellation. 8. Maghās, the ‘bounties,’ are the Sickle, or α, γ, ζ, μ, e Leonis. The variants Anaghā, the ‘ sinless one,’ etc.,clearly refer to the auspicious influence of the constellation. 9. 10. Phālgunī, Phalgunyau, Phalgū, Phalg-unīs, Phal- gunyas, is really a double constellation, divided into Pūrve, ‘ former,’ and Uttare, ‘latter.’ The former is δ and θ Leonis, the latter β and Leonis. According to Weber, the word denotes, like Arjunī, the variant of the Rigveda, a ‘ bright- coloured ’ constellation. 11. Hasta, ‘hand,’ is made up of the five conspicuous stars (δ> Ί, e, a, β) in Corvus, a number which the word itself suggests. According to Geldner, the ‘ five bulls ’ of the Rigveda are this constellation. 12. Citrā, ‘bright,’ is the beautiful star, a Virginis. It is mentioned in a legend of Indra in the Taittirīya Brāhmana, and in that of the ‘ two divine dogs ’ (divyau śvānau) in the śatapatha Brāhmana. 13. Svāti or Nistyā is later clearly the brilliant star Arcturus or a Bootis, its place in the north being assured by the notice in the śāntikalpa, where it is said to be ‘ ever traversing the northern way ’ (nityam uttara-mārgagam). The Taittirīya Brāhmana, however, constructs an asterismal Prajāpati, giving him Citrā (α Virginis) for head, Hasta (Corvus) for hand, the Viśākhe (α and β Librae) for thighs, and the Anurādhās (β, δ, and 7r Scorpionis) for standing place, with Nistyā for heart. But Arcturus, being 30° out, spoils this figure, while, on the other hand, the Arabic and Chinese systems have respectively, instead of Arcturus, Virginis and κ Virginis, which would well fit into the Prajāpati figure. But in spite of the force of this argument of Weber’s, Whitney is not certain that Nistyā here must mean a star in Virgo, pointing out that the name Nistyā, ‘outcast,’ suggests the separation of this Naksatra from the others in question. 14.Viśākhe is the couple of stars a and β Librae. This mansion is later called Rādhā according to the Amarakośa, and it is curious that in the Atharvaveda the expression rādho Viśākhe, the Viśākhe are prosperity,’ should occur. But probably Rādhā is merely an invention due to the name of the next Naksatra, Anurādhā, wrongly conceived as meaning that which is after or follows Rādhā.’ 15. Anūrādhās or Anurādhā, propitious,’ is β, δ, and tγ (perhaps also p) Scorpionis. 16. Rohinī, ‘ ruddy ’; Jyesthaghnī, * slaying the eldest ’; or Jyesthā, ‘eldest,’ is the name of the constellation σ, α, and τ Scorpionis, of which the central star, a, is the brilliant reddish Antares (or Cor Scorpionis).
17.Vicrtau, ‘ the two releasers ’; Mūla, ‘ root or Mūla- barhanī, ‘ uprooting,’ denote primarily λ and v at the extremity of the tail of the Scorpion, but including also the nine or eleven stars from e to v.
18.19. Asādhās (‘ unconquered ’), distinguished as Pūrvās, ‘ former,’ and Uttarās, ‘ latter,’ are really two constellations, of which the former is composed of γ, δ, e, and η Sagittarii, or of 8 and e only, and the latter of θ, σ, t, and ξ Sagittarii, or of two, σ and ζ, only. It is probable that originally only four stars forming a square were meant as included in the whole constellation —viz., σ and f, with 8 and e.
20. Abhijit is the brilliant star a Lyrse with its two companions e and ζ. Its location in 6o° north latitude is completely discordant with the position of the corresponding Arabian and Chinese asterisms. This fact is considered by Oldenberg to support the view that it was a later addition to the system; its occurrence, however, as early as the Maitrāyanī Samhitā, which he does not note, somewhat invalidates that view. In the Taittirīya Brāhmana Abhijit is said to be ‘over Asādhās, under śronā,’ which Weber held to refer to its position in space, inferring thence that its Vedic position corresponded to that of the Arab Manāzil and the Chinese Sieou—viz., a, β Capricorni. But Whitney argues effectively that the words ‘ over ’ and ‘ under ’ really refer to the place of Abhijit in the list, ‘ after ’ Asādhās and ‘ before ’ Sronā.
21. Sronā, ‘lame,’ or Sravana, ‘ ear,’ denotes the bright star a Aquilai with β below and 7 above it. Weber very need- lessly thinks that the name Sravana suggested two ears and the head between. It is quite out of correspondence with the Manāzil and the Sieou, and is clearly an Indian invention.
22. śravisthās, ‘ most famous,’ or later Dhanisthās, ‘most wealthy,’ is the diamond-shaped group, α, β, δ, and 7, in the Dolphin, perhaps also ζ in the same constellation. Like the preceding Naksatra, it is out of harmony with the Manāzil and Sieou. 23. Satabhisaj or śatabhisa, ‘having a hundred physicians,’ seems to be λ Aquarii with the others around it vaguely conceived as numbering a hundred.
24. 25. Prostha-padās (fem. plur.), ‘ feet of a stool,’ or later Bhadra-padās,100 ‘auspicious feet,’ a double asterism forming a square, the former (pūrva) consisting of a and β Pegasi, the latter (uttara) of γ Pegasi and a Andromedse.
26. Revatī, ‘ wealthy,’ denotes a large number of stars (later 32), of which ζ Piscium, close upon the ecliptic where it was crossed by the equator of about 570 a.d., is given as the southernmost. 27. Aśva-yujau, ‘the two horse-harnessers,’ denotes the stars β and ζ Arietis. Aśvinyau101 and Aśvinī102 are later names. 28. Apabharanīs, Bharanīs, or Bharanyas, ‘ the bearers,’ is the name of the small triangle in the northern part of the Ram known as Musca or 35, 39, and 41 Arietis. The Naksatras and the Months.—In the Brāhmanas the Naksatra names are regularly used to denote dates. This is done in two ways. The name, if not already a feminine, may be turned into a feminine and compounded with pūrna-māsa, ‘the full moon,’ as in Tisyā-pūrnamāsa, ‘the full moon in the Naksatra Tisya.’103 Much more often, however, it is turned into a derivative adjective, used with paurnamāsī, ‘the full moon (night)/ or with amāvāsyā, ‘the new moon (night)/ as in Phālgunī paurnamāsl, ‘the full-moon night in the Naksatra Phālgunī’;104 or, as is usual in the Sūtras, the Naksatra adjective alone is used to denote the full-moon night. The month itself is called by a name derived105 from that of a Naksatra, but only Phālguna,106 Caitra,107 Vaiśākha,108 Taisya,109 Māgha110 occur in the Brāhmanas, the complete list later being Phālguna, Caitra, Vaiśākha, Jyaistha, Asādha, Srāvana, Prausthapada, Aśvayuja, Kārttika, Mārgaśīrsa, Taisya, Māgha. Strictly speaking, these should be lunar months, but the use of a lunar year was clearly very restricted: we have seen that as early as the Taittirīya Brāhmana there was a tendency to equate lunar months with the twelve months of thirty days which made up the solar year (see Māsa). The Naksatras and Chronology.—(i) An endeavour has been made to ascertain from the names of the months the period at which the systematic employment of those names was intro¬duced. Sir William Jones111 refers to this possibility, and Bentley, by the gratuitous assumption that śrāvana always marked the summer solstice, concluded that the names of the months did not date before b.c. Ii8I. Weber112 considered that there was a possibility of fixing a date by this means, but Whitney113 has convincingly shown that it is an impossible feat, and Thibaut114 concurs in this view. Twelve became fixed as the number of the months because of the desire, evident in the Brāhmanas, somehow or other to harmonize lunar with solar time; but the selection of twelve Naksatras out of twenty-seven as connected with the night of full moon can have no chronological significance, because full moon at no period occurred in those twelve only, but has at all periods occurred in every one of the twenty-seven at regularly recurrent intervals. (2) All the lists of the Naksatras begin with Krttikās. It is only fair to suppose that there was some special reason for this fact. Now the later list of the Naksatras begins with Aśvinī, and it was unquestionably rearranged because at the time of its adoption the vernal equinox coincided with the star ζ Piscium on the border of Revatī and Aśvinī, say in the course of the sixth century A.D. Weber has therefore accepted the view that the Krttikās were chosen for a similar reason, and the date at which that Naksatra coincided with the vernal equinox has been estimated at some period in the third millennium B.C. A very grave objection to this view is its assumption that the sun, and not the moon, was then regarded as connected with the Naksatras; and both Thibaut and Oldenberg have pronounced decidedly against the idea of connecting the equinox with the Krttikās. Jacobi has contended that in the Rigveda the commencement of the rains and the summer solstice mark the beginning of the new year and the end of the old, and that further the new year began with the summer solstice in Phālgunī.121 He has also referred to the distinction of the two sets of Deva and Yama Naksatras in the Taittirīya Brāhmana as supporting his view of the connexion of the sun and the Naksatras. But this view is far from satisfactory: the Rigveda passages cannot yield the sense required except by translating the word dvādaśa123 as 4 the twelfth (month) * instead of consisting of twelve parts,’ that is, ‘year/ the accepted interpretation; and the division of the Naksatras is not at all satisfactorily explained by a supposed connexion with the sun. It may further be mentioned that even if the Naksatra of Krttikās be deemed to have been chosen because of its coincidence with the vernal equinox, both Whitney and Thibaut are pre¬pared to regard it as no more than a careless variant of the date given by the Jyotisa, which puts the winter solstice in Māgha. (3) The winter solstice in Māgha is assured by a Brāhmana text, for the Kausītaki Brāhmana12® expressly places it in the new moon of Māgha (māghasyāmāυāsyāyām). It is not very important whether we take this with the commentators as the new moon in the middle of a month commencing with the day after full moon in Taisa, or, which is much more likely, as the new moon beginning the month and preceding full moon in Māgha. The datum gives a certain possibility of fixing an epoch in the following way. If the end of Revatī marked the vernal equinox at one period, then the precession of the equinoxes would enable us to calculate at what point of time the vernal equinox was in a position corresponding to the winter solstice in Māgha, when the solstitial colure cut the ecliptic at the beginning of Sravisthās. This would be, on the strict theory, in the third quarter of Bharanī, 6f asterisms removed from Sravisthās, and the difference between that and the beginning of Aśvinī = if asterisms = 23 (27 asterisms being = 360°). Taking, the starting-point at 499 a.d., the assured period of Varāha Mihira, Jones arrived at the date B.C. 1181 for the vernal equinox corresponding to the winter solstice in Māgha—that is, on the basis of ι° = 72 years as the precession. Pratt arrived at precisely the same date, taking the same rate of precession and adopting as his basis the ascertained position in the Siddhantas of the junction star of Maghā, a Leonis or Regulus. Davis and Colebrooke arrived at a different date, B.C. 1391, by taking as the basis of their calculation the junction star of Citrā, which happens to be of uncertain position, varying as much as 30 in the different textbooks. But though the twelfth century has received a certain currency as the epoch of the observation in the Jyotisa, it is of very doubtful value. As Whitney points out, it is impossible to say that the earlier asterisms coincided in position with the later asterisms of 13J0 extent each. They were not chosen as equal divisions, but as groups of stars which stood in conjunction with the moon; and the result of subsequently making them strictly equal divisions was to throw the principal stars of the later groups altogether out of their asterisms. Nor can we say that the star ζ Piscium early formed the eastern boundary of Revatī; it may possibly not even have been in that asterism at all, for it is far remote from the Chinese and Arabic asterisms corresponding to Revatī. Added to all this, and to the uncertainty of the starting-point— 582 a.d., 560 a.d., or 491 a.d. being variants —is the fact that the place of the equinox is not a matter accurately determin¬able by mere observation, and that the Hindu astronomers of the Vedic period cannot be deemed to have been very accurate observers, since they made no precise determination of the number of days of the year, which even in the Jyotisa they do not determine more precisely than as 366 days, and even the Sūrya Siddhānta136 does not know the precession of the equinoxes. It is therefore only fair to allow a thousand years for possible errors,137 and the only probable conclusion to be drawn from the datum of the Kausītaki Brāhmana is that it was recording an observation which must have been made some centuries B.C., in itself a result quite in harmony with the probable date of the Brāhmana literature,138 say B.C. 800-600. (4) Another chronological argument has been derived from the fact that there is a considerable amount of evidence for Phālguna having been regarded as the beginning of the year, since the full moon in Phālgunī is often described as the ‘ mouth (mukham) of the year.’139 Jacobi140 considers that this was due to the fact that the year was reckoned from the winter solstice, which would coincide with the month of Phālguna about B.C. 4000. Oldenberg and Thibaut, on the other hand, maintain that the choice of Phālguna as the ‘ mouth ’ of the year was due to its being the first month of spring. This view is favoured by the fact that there is distinct evidence of the correspondence of Phālguna and the beginning of spring : as we have seen above in the Kausītaki Brāhmana, the new moon in Māgha is placed at the winter solstice, which puts the full moon of Phālgunī at a month and a half after the winter solstice, or in the first week of February, a date not in itself improbable for about B.C. 800, and corresponding with the February 7 of the veris initium in the Roman Calendar. This fact accords with the only natural division of the year into three periods of four months, as the rainy season lasts from June 7-10 to October 7-10, and it is certain that the second set of four months dates from the beginning of the rains (see Cāturmāsya). Tilak, on the other hand, holds that the winter solstice coincided with Māghī full moon at the time of the Taittirīya Samhitā (b.c. 2350), and had coincided with Phālgunī and Caitrī in early periods—viz., B.C. 4000-2500, and B.C. 6000¬4000. (5) The passages of the Taittirīya Samhitā and the Pañca¬vimśa Brāhmana, which treat the full moon in Phālguna as the beginning of the year, give as an alternative the full moon in Caitra. Probably the latter month was chosen so as to secure that the initial day should fall well within the season of spring, and was not, as Jacobi believes, a relic of a period when the winter solstice corresponded with Caitra. Another alternative is the Ekāstakā, interpreted by the commentators as the eighth day after the full moon in Maghās, a time which might, as being the last quarter of the waning half of the old year, well be considered as representing the end of the year. A fourth alternative is the fourth day before full moon; the full moon meant must be that of Caitra, as Álekhana quoted by Ápastamba held, not of Māgha, as Asmarathya, Laugāksi and the Mīmāmsists believed, and as Tilak believes. (6) Others, again, according to the Grhya ritual, began the year with the month Mārgaśīrsa, as is shown by its other name Agrahāyana (‘ belonging to the commencement of the year ’). Jacobi and Tilak think that this one denoted the autumn equinox in Mrgaśiras, corresponding to the winter solstice in Phālgunī. But, as Thibaut shows clearly, it was selected as the beginning of a year that was taken to commence with autumn, just as some took the spring to commence with Caitra instead of Phālguna. (7) Jacobi has also argued, with the support of Buhler, from the terms given for the beginning of Vedic study in the Grhya Sūtras, on the principle that study commenced with the rains (as in the Buddhist vassā) which mark the summer solstice. He concludes that if Bhādrapada appears as the date of commencing study in some texts, it was fixed thus because at one time Prosthapadās (the early name of Bhadra- padās) coincided with the summer solstice, this having been the case when the winter solstice was in Phālguna. But Whitney155 has pointed out that this argument is utterly illegitimate; we cannot say that there was any necessary connexion between the rains and learning—a month like Srāvana might be preferred because of its connexion with the word Sravana, 4 ear ’—and in view of the precession of the equinoxes, we must assume that Bhādrapada was kept because of its traditional coincidence with the beginning of the rains after it had ceased actually so to coincide. the other astronomical phenomena; the discovery of a series of 27 lunar mansions by them would therefore be rather surprising. On the other hand, the nature of such an operation is not very complicated ; it consists merely in selecting a star or a star group with which the moon is in conjunction. It is thus impossible a priori to deny that the Vedic Indians could have invented for themselves a lunar Zodiac. But the question is complicated by the fact that there exist two similar sets of 28 stars or star groups in Arabia and in China, the Manāzil and the Sieou. The use of the Manāzil in Arabia is consistent and effective ; the calendar is regulated by them, and the position of the asterisms corresponds best with the positions required for a lunar Zodiac. The Indians might therefore have borrowed the system from Arabia, but that is a mere possibility, because the evidence for the existence of the Manāzil is long posterior to that for the existence of the Naksatras, while again the Mazzaroth or Mazzaloth of the Old Testament may really be the lunar mansions. That the Arabian system is borrowed from India, as Burgess held, is, on the other hand, not at all probable. Biot, the eminent Chinese scholar, in a series of papers published by him between. 1839 and 1861, attempted to prove the derivation of the Naksatra from the Chinese Sieou. The latter he did not regard as being in origin lunar mansions at all. He thought that they were equatorial stars used, as in modern astronomy, as a standard to which planets or other stars observed in the neighbourhood can be referred; they were, as regards twenty-four of them, selected about B.C. 2357 on account of their proximity to the equator, and of their having the same right ascension as certain circumpolar stars which had attracted the attention of Chinese observers. Four more were added in B.C. IIOO in order to mark the equinoxes and solstices of the period. He held that the list of stars commenced with Mao (= Krttikās), which was at the vernal equinox in B.C. 2357. Weber, in an elaborate essay of i860, disputed this theory, and endeavoured to show that the Chinese literary evidence for the Sieou was late, dating not even from before the third century B.C. The last point does not appear to be correct, but his objections against the basis of Biot’s theory were rein¬forced by Whitney, who insisted that Biot’s supposition of the Sieou’s not having been ultimately derived from a system of lunar mansions, was untenable. This is admitted by the latest defender of the hypothesis of borrowing from China, Lśopold de Saussure, , but his arguments in favour of a Chinese origin for the Indian lunar mansions have been refuted by Oldenberg, who has also pointed out that the series does not begin with Mao ( = Krttikās). There remains only the possibility that a common source for all the three sets—Naksatra, Manāzil, and Sieou—may be found in Babylonia. Hommel has endeavoured to show that recent research has established in Babylonia the existence of a lunar zodiac of twenty-four members headed by the Pleiades ( = Krttikās); but Thibaut’s researches are not favourable to this claim. On the other hand, Weber, Whitney, Zimmer, and Oldenberg all incline to the view that in Babylonia is to be found the origin of the system, and this must for the present be regarded as the most probable view, for there are other traces of Babylonian influence in Vedic literature, such as the legend of the flood, perhaps the Adityas, and possibly the word Manā.
Is found in several passages of the Rigveda, but its sense is still obscure. It is identified by Pischel with Nada, being explained by him in one passage as a reed boat, which is split, and over which the waters go; in another4 as a reed whip, of which the sharp points (karηa) are used to urge horses on; and in others again as figuratively designating the penis. Roth takes the sense to be ‘ bull ’ (either literally or meta-phorically) in all passages. Once at least the ‘ neigher ’ (from the root nadf ‘sound’) seems to be meant with reference to Indra’s horse. In the phrase nadasya karnaih8 the sense is, perhaps, ‘ through the ears of the (side) horse ’ (that is, by their being ready to hear the word of command) of their chariot, the Maruts ‘ hasten On with their swift steeds ’ (turayanta āśubhih).
‘Name,’ is a common word from the Rigveda onwards. The Grhya Sūtras give elaborate rules for the formation of the names of children, but more important is the distinction between the secret (guhya) and the ordinary name, though the rules as to the secret name are not at all consistent. The secret name is already recognized in the Rigveda, and is referred to in the Brāhmanas, one secret name, that of Arjuna for Indra, being given in the Satapatha Brāhmana. It is to be noted that the rule as to giving the designation of a Naksatra (lunar asterism) as the secret name or otherwise is not illustrated by a single recorded name of a teacher in the Brāhmanas. The śatapatha Brāhmana several times mentions the adoption of a second name with a view to securing success, and also refers to the adoption of another name for purposes of distinction. In actual practice two names are usually found in the Brāhmanas, the second being a patronymic or a metronymic, as in Kaksīvant Auśija (if the story of the slave woman Uśij as his mother is correct), or Brhaduktha Vāmneya, ‘ son of Vāmnī,’ though the relationship may, of course, be not direct parentage, but more remote descent. Three names are less common—for example, Kūśāmba Svāyava Lātavya, ‘ son of Svāyu, of the Lātavya (son of Latu) family,’ or Devataras Syāvasāyana Kāśyapa, where the patronymic and the Gotra name are both found. In other cases the names probably have a local reference—e.g., Kauśāmbeya and Gāñgya. Fre¬quently the patronymic only is given, as Bhārgava, Maudgalya, etc., or two patronymics are used. The simple name is often used for the patronymic—e.g., Trasadasyu. In a few cases the name of the wife is formed from the husband’s name, as Uśīnarānī, Purukutsānī, Mudgalānī.
Is found in the later Samhitās and the Brāhmanas. The word seems to denote not so much a particular tribe, but to be the general term for the non-Aryan tribes who were not under Aryan control, as the Sūdras were, for Aupamanyava took the five peoples (pañca jaηāh) to be the four castes (catvāro varnāh) and the Nisādas, and the commentator Mahīdhara explains the word where it occurs in the Vājasaneyi Samhitā as meaning a Bhilla, or Bhīl. A village of Nisādas is men¬tioned in the Lātyāyana Srauta Sūtra, and a Nisāda Sthapati, a leader of some kind, is referred to in the Kātyāyana Srauta Sūtra and in a Brāhmana cited by the scholiast on that passage. Weber thinks that the Nisādas were the settled aborigines (from ni, ‘down,’ and sad, ‘settle’), a view sup-ported by the fact that the ritual of the Viśvajit sacrifice requires a temporary residence with Nisādas; for the Nisādas who would permit an Aryan to reside temporarily amongst them must have been partially amenable to Aryan influence. But the name might easily be applied to the whole body of aborigines outside the Aryan organization. Von Schroeder thinks that the Nisādas were most probably identical with the Nysseans, who, according to the Greek account, sent an embassy to Alexander when he was in the territory of the Aśvakas, but this identification is doubtful.
Is the name of a people in the Rigveda, where they appear as one of the tribes that opposed the Trtsu-Bharatas in the Dāśarājña, or ‘ battle of the ten kings.’ Zimmer compares them with the tribe of Tlá/cτves and their country ΤΙακτυική, mentioned as in the north-west of India by Herodotus,4 and with the modern Pakhthūn in Eastern Afghanistan, holding that they were a northern tribe; this is probable, since the Bharatas seem to have occupied the Madhyadeśa, or ‘ Middle Land.’ In three passages of the Rigveda5 a Paktha is referred to as a protágá of the Aśvins. The second connects him wifh Trasadasyu, whose tribe, the Pūrus, were aided by the Pakthas in their unsuccessful onslaught on Sudās. In the third passage he seems specified as Tūrvāyana, and appears as an opponent of Cyavāna.6 Probably, therefore, Paktha in all cases denotes the king of the Paktha people.
The ‘five peoples,’ are mentioned under various names in Vedic literature. Who are meant by the five is very uncertain. The Aitareya Brāhmana explains the five to be gods, men, Gandharvas and Apsarases, snakes, and the Fathers. Aupamanyava held that the four castes (Varna) and the Nisādas made up the five, and Sāyana is of the same opinion. Yāska thinks that the five are the Gandharvas, fathers, gods, Asuras, and Raksases. No one of these explanations can be regarded as probable. Roth and Geldner think that all the peoples of the earth are meant: just as there are four quarters (Diś), there are peoples at the four quarters (N. E. S. W.), with the Aryan folk in the middle. Zimmer opposes this view on the ground that the inclusion of all peoples in one expression is not in harmony with the distinction so often made between Aryan and Dāsa ; that neither janāsah, ‘ men,’ nor mānusāh, ‘people,’ could be used of non-Aryans; that the Soma is referred to as being among the five tribes; that the five tribes are mentioned as on the Sarasvatī, and that Indra is pāñca- jany a, ‘ belonging to the five peoples.’ Pie concludes that Aryans alone are meant, and in particular the five tribes of the Anus, Druhyus, Yadus, Turvaśas, and Pūrus, who are all mentioned together in one or perhaps two hymns of the Rigveda, and four of whom occur in another hymn. But he admits that the expression might easily be used more generally later. Hopkins has combated Zimmer’s view, but his own opinion rests mainly on his theory that there was no people named Turvaśa, but only a king of the Yadus called Turvaśa, and that theory is not very probable. In the śatapatha Brāhmana and the Aitareya Brāhmana the five peoples are opposed to the Bharatas, and in the former work seven peoples are alluded to.
Is the name of a king who is mentioned several times in the Rigveda. In one passage he is mentioned as a contemporary of Sudās, but whether as a foe, according to Ludwig, or merely as a contemporary, according to Hillebrandt, is uncertain. In two other passages he is mentioned as victorious by divine favour, and in another he appears as a king of the Pūrus and a conqueror of the Dāsas. His son was Trasadasyu, who is accordingly called Paurukutsya or Paurukutsi. Different conclusions have been drawn from one hymn of the Rigveda in which the birth of Purukutsa’s son, Trasadasyu, is mentioned. The usual interpretation is that Purukutsa was killed in battle or captured, whereupon his wife secured a son to restore the fortunes of the Pūrus. But Sieg offers a completely different interpretation. According to him the word daurgahe, which occurs in the hymn, and which in the ordinary view is rendered descendant of Durgaha,' an ancestor of Purukutsa, is the name of a horse, the hymn recording the success of an Aśvamedha (‘horse sacrifice’) undertaken by Purukutsa for his wife, as by kings in later times, to secure a son. This interpretation is supported by the version of daurgahe given in the śatapatha, but is by no means certain. Moreover, if Purukutsa was a contemporary of Sudās, the defeat of the Pūrus by Sudās in the Dāśarājña might well have been the cause of the troubles from which Purukutsānī, by the birth of Trasadasyu, rescued the family. In the śatapatha Brāhmana Purukutsa is called an Aiksvāka.
Is mentioned twice in the Rigveda as an ancient sage, in which capacity he appears in the Atharvaveda also. Perhaps the same Purumīlha is intended in an obscure hymn in the Rigveda, where, according to the legends reported in the Brhaddevatā and by Sadguruśisya in his commentary on the Sarvānukramanī, and by Sāyana in his commentary on the Rigveda, he as well as Taranta was a son of Vidadaśva, and a patron of the singer Syāvāśva. The correctness of the legend has been shown to be most improbable by Oldenberg, who points out that the legend misinterprets the Rigveda by making Purumīlha a Vaidadaśvi, for he is there only compared in generosity to one. In another legend found in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana, and based on a hymn of the Rigveda, Purumīlha and Taranta appear as persons who received gifts from Dhvasra and Puru- isanti, and as sons of Vidadaśva. The legend, which also occurs in the śātyāyanaka, is apparently best explained by Sieg, who says that as the two were kings they could not under the rules of caste accept gifts, unless for the nonce they became singers. The legend has no claim at all, as Oldenberg shows, to validity.
Is the generic term for man ’ in the Rigveda and later. Man is composed of five parts according to the Atharvaveda, or of six according to the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, or of sixteen, or of twenty, or of twenty-one, or of twenty-four, or of twenty-five, all more or less fanciful enumerations. Man is the first of animals, but also essentially an animal (see Paśu). The height of a man is given in the Kātyāyana śrauta Sūtra as four Aratnis (‘cubits’), each of two Padas ('feet’), each of twelve Añgulis ('finger’s breadths’); and the term Puruṣa itself is found earlier as a measure of length. Puruṣa is also applied to denote the length of a man’s life, a ‘generation’ ;the * pupil ’ in the eye ; and in the gram¬matical literature the * person of the verb.
Is the name of a people and their king in the Rigveda. They are mentioned with the Anus, Druhyus, Turvaśas, and Yadus in one passage. They also occur as enemies of the TrtSUS in the hymn of Sudās’ victory. In another hymn Agni of the Bharatas is celebrated as victorious over the Pūrus, probably a reference to the same decisive overthrow. On the other hand, victories of the Pūrus over the aborigines seem to be referred to in several passages. The great kings of the Pūrus were Purukutsa and his son Trasadasyu, whose name bears testimony to his prowess against aboriginal foes, while a later prince was Trksi Trāsa- dasyava. In the Rigveda the Pūrus are expressly mentioned as on the Sarasvatī. Zimmer thinks that the Sindhu (Indus) is meant in this passage. But Ludwig and Hillebrandt with much greater probability think that the eastern Sarasvatī in Kuruksetra is meant. This view accords well with the sudden disappearance of the name of the Pūrus from Vedic tradition, a disappearance accounted for by Oldenberg’s conjecture that the Pūrus became part of the great Kuru people, just as Turvaśa and Krivi disappear from the tradition on their being merged in the Pañcāla nation. Trāsadasyava, the patronymic of Kuruśravana in the Rigveda, shows that the royal families of the Kurus and the Pūrus were allied by intermarriage. Hillebrandt, admitting that the Pūrus in later times lived in the eastern country round the Sarasvatī, thinks that in earlier days they were to be found to the west of the Indus with Divodāsa. This theory must fall with the theory that Divodāsa was in the far west. It might, however, be held to be supported by the fact that Alexander found a Πώρος—that is, a Paurava prince on the Hydaspes, a sort of half-way locality between the Sarasvatī and the West. But it is quite simple to suppose either that the Hydaspes was the earlier home of the Pūrus, where some remained after the others had wandered east, or that the later Paurava represents a successful onslaught upon the west from the east. In several other passages of the Rigveda the Purus as a people seem to be meant. The Nirukta recognizes the general sense of ‘man,’ but in no passage is this really necessary or even probable. So utterly, however, is the tradition lost that the śatapatha Brāhmana explains Pūru in the Rigveda as an Asura Rakṣas; it is only in the Epic that Pūru revives as the name of a son of Yayāti and śarmiṣṭhā.
Descendant of a Brahman' (i.e., of a priest), is found only a few times in the Rigveda, and mostly in its latest parts. In the Atharvaveda and later it is a very common word denoting ‘priest,’ and it appears in the quadruple division of the castes in the Purusa-sūkta (‘hymn of man’) of the Rigveda. It seems certain that in the Rigveda this Brāhmaṇa, or Brahmin, is already a separate caste, differing from the warrior and agricultural castes. The texts regularly claim for them a superiority to the Kṣatriya caste, and the Brahmin is able by his spells or manipulation of the rite to embroil the people and the warriors or the different sections of the warriors. If it is necessary to. recognize, as is sometimes done, that the Brahmin does pay homage to the king at the Rājasūya, nevertheless the unusual fact is carefully explained away so as to leave the priority of the Brahmin unaffected. But it is expressly recognized that the union of the Ksatriya and the Brāhmaṇa is essential for complete prosperity. It is admitted that the king or the nobles might at times oppress the Brahmins, but it is indicated that ruin is then certain swiftly to follow. The Brahmins are gods on earth, like the gods in heaven, but this claim is hardly found in the Rigveda. In the Aitareya Brāhmana the Brahmin is said to be the ‘ recipient of gifts * (ādāyt) and the * drinker of the offering ’ (āpāyT). The other two epithets applied, āvasāyī and yathā- kāma-prayāpya, are more obscure; the former denotes either ‘ dwelling everywhere ’ or ‘ seeking food ’; the latter is usually taken as * moving at pleasure,’ but it must rather allude to the power of the king to assign a place of residence to the Brahmin. In the śatapatha Brāhmana the prerogatives of the Brah¬min are summed up as Arcā, ‘honour’; Dāna, ‘gifts’; Aj'yeyatā,‘ freedom from oppression ’; and Avadhyatā, ‘ freedom from being killed.’ On the other hand, his duties are summed up as Brāhmanya, ‘ purity of descent’; Pratirūpa-caryā, ‘devotion of the duties of his caste’; and Loka-pakti, ‘the perfecting of people ’ (by teaching). ī. Respect paid to Brahmins. The texts are full of references to the civilities to be paid to the Brahmin. He is styled bhagavant, and is provided with good food and entertain¬ment wherever he goes. Indeed, his sanctity exempts him from any close inquiry into his real claim to Brahminhood according to the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana. Gifts to Brahmins. The Dānastuti (‘Praise of gifts’) is a recognized feature of the Rigveda, and the greed of the poets for Dakṣiṇās, or sacrificial fees, is notorious. Vedic texts themselves recognize that the literature thence resulting (Nārā- śamsī) was often false to please the donors. It was, however, a rule that Brahmins should not accept what had been refused by others; this indicates a keen sense of the danger of cheapening their wares. So exclusively theirs was the right to receive gifts that the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa has to explain how Taranta and Purumīlha became able to accept gifts by composing a Rigvedic hymn. The exaggerations in the celebration of the gifts bestowed on the priests has the curious result of giving us a series of numerals of some interest (Daśan). In some passages certain gifts those of a horse or sheep are forbidden, but this rule was not, it is clear, generally observed. Immunities of Brahmins. The Brahmin claimed to be exempt from the ordinary exercise of the royal power. When a king gives all his land and what is on it to the priests, the gift does not cover the property of the Brahmin according to the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa. The king censures all, but not the Brahmin, nor can he safely oppress any Brahmin other than an ignorant priest. An arbitrator (or a witness) must decide (or speak) for a Brahmin against a non-Brahmin in a legal dispute. The Brahmin’s proper food is the Soma, not Surā or Parisrut, and he is forbidden to eat certain forms of flesh. On the other hand, he alone is allowed to eat the remains of the sacrifice, for no one else is sufficiently holy to consume food which the gods have eaten. Moreover, though he cannot be a physician, he helps the physician by being beside him while he exercises his art. His wife and his cow are both sacred. 4.Legal Position of. Brahmins.—The Taittirīya Samhitā lays down a penalty of a hundred (the unit meant is unknown) for an insult to a Brahmin, and of a thousand for a blow ; but if his blood is drawn, the penalty is a spiritual one. The only real murder is the slaying of a Brahmin according to the śatapatha Brāhmana. The crime of slaying a Brahmin ranks above the sin of killing any other man, but below that of killing an embryo (bhrūna) in the Yajurveda ; the crime of slaying an embryo whose sex is uncertain is on a level with that of slaying a Brahmin. The murder of a Brahmin can be expiated only by the horse sacrifice, or by a lesser rite in the late Taittirīya Araṇyaka.The ritual slaying of a Brahmin is allowed in the later ceremonial, and hinted at in the curious legend of śunahśepa ; and a Purohita might be punished with death for treachery to his master. 5.Purity of Birth. The importance of pure descent is seeη in the stress laid on being a descendant of a Rṣi (ārseya). But, on the other hand, there are clear traces of another doctrine, which requires learning, and not physical descent, as the true criterion of Rsihood. In agreement with this is the fact that Satyakāma Jābāla was received as a pupil, though his parentage was unknown, his mother being a slave girl who had been connected with several men, and that in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa the ceremony on acceptance as a pupil required merely the name of the pupil. So Kavasa is taunted in the Rigveda Brāhmaṇas as being the son of a female slave (Dāsī), and Vatsa cleared himself of a similar imputation by a fire ordeal. Moreover, a very simple rite was adequate to remove doubts as to origin. In these circumstances it is doubtful whether much value attaches to the Pravara lists in which the ancestors of the priest were invoked at the beginning of the sacrifice by the Hotṛ and the Adhvaryu priests.66 Still, in many parts of the ritual the knowledge of two or more genera¬tions was needed, and in one ceremony ten ancestors who have drunk the Soma are required, but a literal performance of the rite is excused. Moreover, there are clear traces of ritual variations in schools, like those of the Vasisthas and the Viśvāmitras. 6. The Conduct of the Brahmin. The Brahmin was required to maintain a fair standard of excellence. He was to be kind to all and gentle, offering sacrifice and receiving gifts. Especial stress was laid on purity of speech ; thus Viśvan- tara’s excuse for excluding the Syaparnas from his retinue was their impure (apūtā) speech. Theirs was the craving for knowledge and the life of begging. False Brahmins are those who do not fulfil their duties (cf, Brahmabandhu). But the penances for breach of duty are, in the Sūtras, of a very light and unimportant character. 7. Brahminical Studies. The aim of the priest is to obtain pre-eminence in sacred knowledge (brahma-varcasam), as is stated in numerous passages of Vedic literature. Such distinction is not indeed confined to the Brahmin: the king has it also, but it is not really in a special manner appropriate to the Kṣatriya. Many ritual acts are specified as leading to Brahmavarcasa, but more stress is laid on the study of the sacred texts : the importance of such study is repeatedly insisted upon. The technical name for study is Svādhyāya : the śatapatha Brāhmana is eloquent upon its advantages, and it is asserted that the joy of the learned śrotriya, or ‘student,’ is equal to the highest joy possible. Nāka Maudgfalya held that study and the teaching of others were the true penance (tapas).7δ The object was the ‘ threefold knowledge’ (trayī vidyā), that of the Rc, Yajus, and Sāman, a student of all three Vedas being called tri-śukriya or tn-sukra, ‘thrice pure.’ Other objects of study are enumerated in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, in the Taittirīya Aranyaka, the Chāndogya Upanisad, etc. (See Itihāsa, Purāna; Gāthā, Nārāśamsī; Brahmodya; Anuśās- ana, Anuvyākhyāna, Anvākhyāna, Kalpa, Brāhmaria; Vidyā, Ksatravidyā, Devajanavidyā, Nakçatravidyā, Bhūta- vidyā, Sarpavidyā; Atharvāñgirasah, Daiva, Nidhi, Pitrya, Rāśi; Sūtra, etc.) Directions as to the exact place and time of study are given in the Taittirīya Araṇyaka and in the Sūtras. If study is carried on in the village, it is to be done silently (manasā); if outside, aloud (vācā).
Learning is expected even from persons not normally competent as teachers, such as the Carakas, who are recognized in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa as possible sources of information. Here, too, may be mentioned the cases of Brahmins learning from princes, though their absolute value is doubtful, for the priests would naturally represent their patrons as interested in their sacred science: it is thus not necessary to see in these notices any real and independent study on the part of the Kṣatriyas. Yājñavalkya learnt from Janaka, Uddālaka Aruni and two other Brahmins from Pravāhaṇa Jaivali, Drptabālāki Gārgya from Ajātaśatru, and five Brahmins under the lead of Aruṇa from Aśvapati Kaikeya. A few notices show the real educators of thought: wandering scholars went through the country and engaged in disputes and discussions in which a prize was staked by the disputants. Moreover, kings like Janaka offered rewards to the most learned of the Brahmins; Ajātaśatru was jealous of his renown, and imitated his generosity. Again, learned women are several times mentioned in the Brāhmaṇas. A special form of disputation was the Brahmodya, for which there was a regular place at the Aśvamedha (‘ horse sacrifice ’) and at the Daśarātra (‘ ten-day festival,). The reward of learning was the gaining of the title of Kavi or Vipra, ‘ sage.’ 8. The Functions of the Brahmin. The Brahmin was required not merely to practise individual culture, but also to give others the advantage of his skill, either as a teacher or as a sacrificial priest, or as a Purohita. As a teacher the Brahmin has, of course, the special duty of instructing his own son in both study and sacrificial ritual. The texts give examples of this, such as Áruṇi and Svetaketu, or mythically Varuṇa and Bhṛgu. This fact also appears from some of the names in the Vamśa Brāhmana" of the Sāmaveda and the Vamśa (list of teachers) of the śāñkhāyana Áraṇyaka. On the other hand, these Vamśas and the Vamśas of the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa show that a father often preferred to let his son study under a famous teacher. The relation of pupil and teacher is described under Brahmacarya. A teacher might take several pupils, and he was bound to teach them with all his heart and soul. He was bound to reveal everything to his pupil, at any rate to one who was staying with him for a year (saηivatsara-vāsin), an expression which shows, as was natural, that a pupil might easily change teachers. But, nevertheless, certain cases of learning kept secret and only revealed to special persons are enumerated. The exact times and modes of teaching are elaborately laid down in the Sūtras, but not in the earlier texts. As priest the Brahmin operated in all the greater sacrifices; the simple domestic {grhya) rites could normally be performed without his help, but not the more important rites {śrauta). The number varied : the ritual literature requires sixteen priests to be employed at the greatest sacrifices (see Rtvij), but other rites could be accomplished with four, five, six, seven, or ten priests. Again, the Kauçītakins had a seventeenth priest beside the usual sixteen, the Sadasya, so called because he watched the performance from the Sadas, seat.’ In one rite, the Sattra (‘sacrificial session') of the serpents, the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa, adds three more to the sixteen, a second Unnetṛ, an Abhigara, and an Apagara. The later ritual places the Brahman at the head of all the priests, but this is probably not the early view (see Brahman). The sacrifice ensured, if properly performed, primarily the advantages of the sacrificer (yajamāna), but the priest shared in the profit, besides securing the Daksiṇās. Disputes between sacrificers and the priests were not rare, as in the case of Viśvantara and the śyāparṇas, or Janamejaya and the Asitamrgras and the Aiçāvīras are referred to as undesirable priests. Moreover, Viśvāmitra once held the post of Purohita to Sudās, but gave place to Vasiṣtha. The position of Purohita differed considerably from that of the ordinary priest, for the Purohita not merely might officiate at the sacrifice, but was the officiator in all the private sacrifices of his king. Hence he could, and undoubtedly sometimes did, obtain great influence over his master in matters of secular importance; and the power of the priesthood in political as opposed to domestic and religious matters, no doubt rested on the Purohita. There is no recognition in Vedic literature of the rule later prevailing by which, after spending part of his life as a Brahma- cārin, and part as a householder, the Brahmin became an ascetic (later divided into the two stages of Vānaprastha, ‘forest-dweller,’ and Samnyāsin, ‘mystic ’). Yājñavalkya's case shows that study of the Absolute might empty life of all its content for the sage, and drive him to abandon wife and family. In Buddhist times the same phenomenon is seen applying to other than Brahmins. The Buddhist texts are here confirmed in some degree by the Greek authorities. The practice bears a certain resemblance to the habit of kings, in the Epic tradition,of retiring to the forest when active life is over. From the Greek authorities it also appears what is certainly the case in the Buddhist literature that Brahmins practised the most diverse occupations. It is difficult to say how far this was true for the Vedic period. The analogy of the Druids in some respects very close suggests that the Brahmins may have been mainly confined to their professional tasks, including all the learned professions such as astronomy and so forth. This is not contradicted by any Vedic evidence ; for instance, the poet of a hymn of the Rigveda says he is a poet, his father a physician (Bhiṣaj), and his mother a grinder of corn (Upala-prakṣiṇī). This would seem to show that a Brahmin could be a doctor, while his wife would perform the ordinary household duties. So a Purohita could perhaps take the field to assist the king by prayer, as Viśvāmitra, and later on Vasiṣtha do, but this does not show that priests normally fought. Nor do they seem normally to have been agriculturists or merchants. On the other hand, they kept cattle: a Brahmacarin’s duty was to watch his master’s cattle.129 It is therefore needless to suppose that they could not, and did not, on occasion turn to agricultural or mercan¬tile pursuits, as they certainly did later. But it must be remembered that in all probability there was more purity of blood, and less pressure of life, among the Brahmins of the Vedic age than later in Buddhist times, when the Vedic sacrificial apparatus was falling into grave disrepute. It is clear that the Brahmins, whatever their defects, represented the intellectual side of Vedic life, and that the Kṣatriyas, if they played a part in that life, did so only in a secondary degree, and to a minor extent. It is natural to suppose that the Brahmins also composed ballads, the precursors of the epic; for though none such have survived, a few stanzas of this character, celebrating the generosity of patrons, have been preserved by being embedded in priestly compositions. A legend in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa shows clearly that the Brahmins regarded civilization as being spread by them only: Kosala and Videha, no doubt settled by Aryan tribes, are only rendered civilized and habitable by the influence of pious Brahmins. We need not doubt that the non-Brahminical tribes (see Vrātya) had attained intellectual as well as material civilization, but it is reasonable to assume that their civilization was inferior to that of the Brahmins, for the history of Hinduism is the conquest by the Brahmins not by arms, but by mind of the tribes Aryan and non-Aryan originally beyond the pale.
Is the name of a people of great importance in the Rigveda and the later literature. In the Rigveda they appear prominently in the third and seventh Maṇdalas in connexion with Sudās and the Tftsus, while in the sixth Maṇdala they are associated with Divodāsa. In one passage the Bharatas are, like the Tṛtsus, enemies of the Pūrus: there can be little doubt that Ludwig’s view of the identity of the Bharatas and and Tṛtsus is practically correct. More precisely Oldenberg considers that the Tṛtsus are the Vasiṣhas, the family singers of the Bharatas; while Geldner recognizes, with perhaps more probability, in the Tṛtsus the royal family of the Bharatas. That the Tṛtsus and Bharatas were enemies, as Zimmer holds, is most improbable even on geographical grounds, for the Tṛtsus in Zimmer’s view occupied the country to the east of the Paruçṇī (Ravi), and the Bharatas must therefore be regarded as coming against the Tṛtsus from the west, whereas the Rigveda recognizes two Bharata chiefs on the Sarasvatī, Ápayā, and Dpçadvatī that is, in the holy land of India, the Madhyadeśa. Hillebrandt sees in the connexion of the Tṛtsus and the Bharatas a fusion of two tribes; but this is not supported by any evidence beyond the fact that in his opinion some such theory is needed to explain Divodāsa's appearing in connexion with the Bharadvāja family, while Sudās, his son, or perhaps grandson {cf. Pijavana), is connected with the Vasiṣthas and the Viśvāmitras. In the later literature the Bharatas appear as especially famous. The śatapatha Brāhmaṇa mentions Bharata Dauh- ṣanti as a king, sacrificer of the Aśvamedha (‘ horse sacrifice ’) and śatānīka Sātrājita, as another Bharata who offered that sacrifice. The Aitareya Brāhmaṇa mentions Bharata Dauh- ṣanti as receiving the kingly coronation from Dlrghatamas Māmateya, and śatānīka as being consecrated by Somaśuçman Vājaratnāyana, a priest whose name is of quite late origin. The geographical position of the Bharata people is clearly shown by the fact that the Bharata kings win victories over the Kāśis, and make offerings on the Yamunā (Jumna) and Gañgfā (Ganges). Moreover, in the formula of the king’s proclamation for the people, the variants recorded include Kuravah, Pañcālāh, Kuru-Pañcālāh,, and Bharatāh ; and the Mahābhārata consistently recognizes the royal family of the Kurus as a Bharata family. It is therefore extremely probable that Oldenberg is right in holding that the Bharatas in the times of the Brāhmaṇas were merging in the Kuru-Pañcāla people. The ritual practices of the Bharatas are repeatedly mentioned in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa, the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, and the Taittirīya Aranyaka. Already in the Rigveda there is mention made of Agni Bhārata (‘of the Bharatas’). In the Apr! hymns occurs a goddess Bhāratī, the personified divine protective power of the Bharatas : her association in the hymns with Sarasvatī reflects the connexion 'of the Bharatas with the Sarasvatī in the Rigveda. Again, in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa Agni is referred to as brāhmana Bhārata, ‘priest of the Bharatas,’ and is invited to dispose of the offering Manusvat Bharatavat, ‘like Manu,’ ‘like Bharata.’ In one or two passages Sudās or Divodāsa and, on the other hand, Purukutsa or Trasadasyu appear in a friendly relation. Possibly this points, as Oldenberg suggests, to the union of Bharatas and Pūrus with the Kurus. A Bharata is referred to in the fifth Mandala of the Rigveda who he was is uncertain.
‘Descendant of Manutantu,’ is the patronymic of AikādaśāJcça in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa. The Saumāpau Mānutantavyau, ‘two Saumāpas, descendants of Manutantu,’ are mentioned in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa.
Is in one passage of the Rigveda taken by Roth to denote a ‘ female animal,’ while Zimmer urges that it means a ‘ female slave.’ As far as the use of Vadhū goes, either meaning is abnormal, for if Vadhū never elsewhere means a female animal (from vah, to draw ’ a cart), neither does it denote a slave: as the passage refers to a gift of fifty Vadhūs by Trasadasyu Paurukutsya to the singer, the latter must have been a polygamist of an advanced type to require fifty wives. The same doubt arises in the case of vadhūmant, which is used in the Rigveda and Atharvaveda as an epithet of the chariot (Ratha), of horses (Aśva), and of buffaloes (Uçtra). Zimmer sees in all cases a reference to slaves in the chariots or with the horses: this interpretation has the support of the Brhaddevatā. Roth’s version of the references to horses or buffaloes as suitable for draught ’ is not very happy ; if vadhū is really a female animal vadhūmant means rather ‘ together with mares,’ or together with female buffaloes,’ which makes reasonable sense.
(lit. ‘colour’) In the Rigveda is applied to denote classes of men, the Dāsa and the Aryan Varṇa being contrasted, as other passages show, on account of colour. But this use is confined to distinguishing two colours: in this respect the Rigveda differs fundamentally from the later Samhitās and Brāhmaṇas, where the four castes (varnūh) are already fully recognized. (a) Caste in the Rigveda.—The use of the term Varṇa is not, of course, conclusive for the question whether caste existed in the Rigveda. In one sense it must be admitted to have existed: the Puruṣa-sūkta, ‘hymn of man,’ in the tenth Maṇdala clearly contemplates the division of mankind into four classes—the Brāhmaṇa, Rājanya, Vaiśya, and śūdra. But the hymn being admittedly late,6 its evidence is not cogent for the bulk of the Rigveda.' Zimmer has with great force com- batted the view that the Rigveda was produced in a society that knew the caste system. He points out that the Brāhmaṇas show us the Vedic Indians on the Indus as unbrah- minized, and not under the caste system; he argues that the Rigveda was the product of tribes living in the Indus region and the Panjab; later on a part of this people, who had wandered farther east, developed the peculiar civilization of the caste system. He adopts the arguments of Muir, derived from the study of the data of the Rigveda, viz.: that (a) the four castes appear only in the late Purusasūkta; (6) the term Varṇa, as shown above, covers the three highest castes of later times, and is only contrasted with Dāsa; (c) that Brāhmaṇa is rare in the Rigveda, Kṣatriya occurs seldom, Rājanya only in the Purusasūkta, where too, alone, Vaiśya and śūdra are found; (d) that Brahman denotes at first ‘poet,’ ‘sage,’ and then ‘ officiating priest,’ or still later a special class of priest; (e) that in some only of the passages where it occurs does Brahman denote a ‘priest by profession,’ while in others it denotes something peculiar to the individual, designating a person distinguished for genius or virtue, or specially chosen to receive divine inspiration. Brāhmaṇa, on the other hand, as Muir admits, already denotes a hereditary professional priesthood. Zimmer connects the change from the casteless system of the Rigveda to the elaborate system of the Yajurveda with the advance of the Vedic Indians to the east, comparing the Ger¬manic invasions that transformed the German tribes into monarchies closely allied with the church. The needs of a conquering people evoke the monarch; the lesser princes sink to the position of nobles ; for repelling the attacks of aborigines or of other Aryan tribes, and for quelling the revolts of the subdued population, the state requires a standing army in the shape of the armed retainers of the king, and beside the nobility of the lesser princes arises that of the king’s chief retainers, as the Thegns supplemented the Gesiths of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies. At the same time the people ceased to take part in military matters, and under climatic influences left the conduct of war to the nobility and their retainers, devoting themselves to agriculture, pastoral pursuits, and trade. But the advantage won by the nobles over the people was shared by them with the priesthood, the origin of whose power lies in the Purohitaship, as Roth first saw. Originally the prince could sacrifice for himself and the people, but the Rigveda itself shows cases, like those of Viśvāmitra and Vasiçtha illustrating forcibly the power of the Purohita, though at the same time the right of the noble to act as Purohita is seen in the case of Devāpi Arṣtisena.le The Brahmins saw their opportunity, through the Purohitaship, of gaining practical power during the confusion and difficulties of the wars of invasion, and secured it, though only after many struggles, the traces of which are seen in the Epic tradition. The Atharvaveda also preserves relics of these conflicts in its narration of the ruin of the Spñjayas because of oppressing Brahmins, and besides other hymns of the Atharvaveda, the śatarudriya litany of the Yajurveda reflects the period of storm and stress when the aboriginal population was still seething with discontent, and Rudra was worshipped as the patron god of all sorts of evil doers. This version of the development of caste has received a good deal of acceptance in it's main outlines, and it may almost be regarded as the recognized version. It has, however, always been opposed by some scholars, such as Haug, Kern, Ludwig, and more recently by Oldenberg25 and by Geldner.25 The matter may be to some extent simplified by recognizing at once that the caste system is one that has progressively developed, and that it is not legitimate to see in the Rigveda the full caste system even of the Yajurveda; but at the same time it is difficult to doubt that the system was already well on its way to general acceptance. The argument from the non- brahminical character of the Vrātyas of the Indus and Panjab loses its force when it is remembered that there is much evidence in favour of placing the composition of the bulk of the Rigveda, especially the books in which Sudās appears with Vasiṣṭha and Viśvāmitra, in the east, the later Madhyadeśa, a view supported by Pischel, Geldner, Hopkins,30 and Mac¬donell.81 Nor is it possible to maintain that Brahman in the Rigveda merely means a ‘poet or sage.’ It is admitted by Muir that in some passages it must mean a hereditary profession ; in fact, there is not a single passage in which it occurs where the sense of priest is not allowable, since the priest was of course the singer. Moreover, there are traces in the Rigveda of the threefold or fourfold division of the people into brahma, ksafram, and vitofi, or into the three classes and the servile population. Nor even in respect to the later period, any more than to the Rigveda, is the view correct that regards the Vaiśyas as not taking part in war. The Rigveda evidently knows of no restriction of war to a nobility and its retainers, but the late Atharvaveda equally classes the folk with the bala, power,’ representing the Viś as associated with the Sabhā, Samiti, and Senā, the assemblies of the people and the armed host. Zimmer explains these references as due to tradition only; but this is hardly a legitimate argument, resting, as it does, on the false assumption that only a Kṣatriya can fight. But it is (see Kçatriya) very doubtful whether Kṣatriya means anything more than a member of the nobility, though later, in the Epic, it included the retainers of the nobility, who increased in numbers with the growth of military monarchies, and though later the ordinary people did not necessarily take part in wars, an abstention that is, however, much exaggerated if it is treated as an absolute one. The Kṣatriyas were no doubt a hereditary body; monarchy was already hereditary (see Rājan), and it is admitted that the śūdras were a separate body: thus all the elements of the caste system were already in existence. The Purohita, indeed, was a person of great importance, but it is clear, as Oldenberg37 urges, that he was not the creator of the power of the priesthood, but owed his position, and the influence he could in consequence exert, to the fact that the sacrifice required for its proper performance the aid of a hereditary priest in whose possession was the traditional sacred knowledge. Nor can any argument for the non-existence of the caste system be derived from cases like that of Devāpi. For, in the first place, the Upaniṣads show kings in the exercise of the priestly functions of learning and teaching, and the Upaniṣads are certainly contemporaneous with an elaborated caste system. In the second place the Rigvedic evidence is very weak, for Devāpi, who certainly acts as Purohita, is not stated in the Rigveda to be a prince at all, though Yāska calls him a Kauravya; the hymns attributed to kings and others cannot be vindicated for them by certain evidence, though here, again, the Brāhmaṇas do not scruple to recognize Rājanyarṣis, or royal sages’; and the famous Viśvāmitra shows in the Rigveda no sign of the royal character which the Brāhmaṇas insist on fastening on him in the shape of royal descent in the line of Jahnu. (6) Caste in the later Samhitās and Brāhmanas. The relation between the later and the earlier periods of the Vedic history of caste must probably be regarded in the main as the hardening of a system already formed by the time of the Rigveda. etc. Three castes Brāhmaṇa, Rājan, śūdraare mentioned in the Atharvaveda, and two castes are repeatedly mentioned together, either Brahman and Kṣatra, or Kṣatra and Viś. 2.The Relation of the Castes. The ritual literature is full of minute differences respecting the castes. Thus, for example, the śatapatha prescribes different sizes of funeral mounds for the four castes. Different modes of address are laid down for the four castes, as ehi, approach ’; āgaccha, ‘come’; ādrava, run up ’; ādhāva, hasten up,’ which differ in degrees of politeness. The representatives of the four castes are dedicated at the Puruṣamedha (‘human sacrifice’) to different deities. The Sūtras have many similar rules. But the three upper castes in some respects differ markedly from the fourth, the śūdras. The latter are in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa declared not fit to be addressed by a Dīkṣita, consecrated person,’ and no śūdra is to milk the cow whose milk is to be used for the Agnihotra ('fire-oblation’). On the other hand, in certain passages, the śūdra is given a place in the Soma sacrifice, and in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa there are given formulas for the placing of the sacrificial fire not only for the three upper castes, but also for the Rathakāra, chariot-maker.’ Again, in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, the Brāhmaṇa is opposed as eater of the oblation to the members of the other three castes. The characteristics of the several castes are given under Brāhmaṇa, Kçatriya and Rājan, Vaiśya, śūdra: they may be briefly summed up as follows : The Viś forms the basis of the state on which the Brahman and Kṣatra rest;®3 the Brahman and Kṣatra are superior to the Viś j®4 while all three classes are superior to the śūdras. The real power of the state rested with the king and his nobles, with their retainers, who may be deemed the Kṣatriya element. Engaged in the business of the protection of the country, its administration, the decision of legal cases, and in war, the nobles subsisted, no doubt, on the revenues in kind levied from the people, the king granting to them villages (see Grāma) for their maintenance, while some of them, no doubt, had lands of their own cultivated for them by slaves or by tenants. The states were seemingly small there are no clear signs of any really large kingdoms, despite the mention of Mahārājas. The people, engaged in agriculture, pastoral pursuits, and trade (Vaṇij), paid tribute to the king and nobles for the protection afforded them. That, as Baden- Powell suggests, they were not themselves agriculturists is probably erroneous; some might be landowners on a large scale, and draw their revenues from śūdra tenants, or even Aryan tenants, but that the people as a whole were in this position is extremely unlikely. In war the people shared the conflicts of the nobles, for there was not yet any absolute separation of the functions of the several classes. The priests may be divided into two classes the Purohitas of the kings, who guided their employers by their counsel, and were in a position to acquire great influence in the state, as it is evident they actually did, and the ordinary priests who led quiet lives, except when they were engaged on some great festival of a king or a wealthy noble. The relations and functions of the castes are well summed up in a passage of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, which treats of them as opposed to the Kṣatriya. The Brāhmaṇa is a receiver of gifts (ā-dāyī), a drinker of Soma (ā-pāyī), a seeker of food (āvasāyī), and liable to removal at will (yathākāma-prayāpyaīi).n The Vaiśya is tributary to another (anyasya balikrt), to be lived on by another (anyasyādyal}), and to be oppressed at will (yathā- kāma-jyeyal}). The śūdra is the servant of another (anyasya j>resyah), to be expelled at will (kāmotthāpyah), and to be slain at pleasure {yathākāma-vadhyah). The descriptions seem calculated to show the relation of each of the castes to the Rājanya. Even the Brāhmaṇa he can control, whilst the Vaiśya is his inferior and tributary, whom he can remove without cause from his land, but who is still free, and whom he cannot maim or slay without due process. The śūdra has no rights of property or life against the noble, especially the king. The passage is a late one, and the high place of the Kṣatriya is to some extent accounted for by this fact. It is clear that in the course of time the Vaiśya fell more and more in position with the hardening of the divisions of caste. Weber shows reason for believing that the Vājapeya sacrifice, a festival of which a chariot race forms an integral part, was, as the śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra says, once a sacrifice for a Vaiśya, as well as for a priest or king. But the king, too, had to suffer diminution of his influence at the hands of the priest: the Taittirīya texts show that the Vājapeya was originally a lesser sacrifice which, in the case of a king, was followed by the Rājasūya, or consecration of him as an overlord of lesser kings, and in that of the Brahmin by the Bṛhaspatisava, a festival celebrated on his appointment as a royal Purohita. But the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa exalts the Vājapeya, in which a priest could be the sacrificer, over the Rājasūya, from which he was excluded, and identifies it with the Bṛhaspatisava, a clear piece of juggling in the interests of the priestly pretentions. But we must not overestimate the value of such passages, or the exaltation of the Purohita in the later books of the śatapatha and Aitareya Brāhmanas as evidence of a real growth in the priestly power: these books represent the views of the priests of what their own powers should be, and to some extent were in the Madhyadeśa. Another side of the picture is presented in the Pāli literature, which, belonging to a later period than the Vedic, undoubtedly underestimates the position of the priests ; while the Epic, more nearly contemporaneous with the later Vedic period, displays, despite all priestly redaction, the temporal superiority of the nobility in clear light. Although clear distinctions were made between the different castes, there is little trace in Vedic literature of one of the leading characteristics of the later system, the impurity communicated by the touch or contact of the inferior castes, which is seen both directly in the purification rendered necessary in case of contact with a śūdra, and indirectly in the prohibition of eating in company with men of lower caste. It is true that prohibition of eating in company with others does appear, but hot in connexion with caste: its purpose is to preserve the peculiar sanctity of those who perform a certain rite or believe in a certain doctrine; for persons who eat of the same food together, according to primitive thought, acquire the same characteristics and enter into a sacramental communion. But Vedic literature does not yet show that to take food from an inferior caste was forbidden as destroying purity. Nor, of course, has the caste system developed the constitution with a head, a council, and common festivals which the modern caste has; for such an organization is not found even in the Epic or in the Pāli literature. The Vedic characteristics of caste are heredity, pursuit of a common occupation, and restriction on intermarriage. 3. Restrictions on Intermarriage. Arrian, in his Indica, probably on the authority of Megasthenes, makes the prohibi¬tion of marriage between <γevη, no doubt castes,’ a characteristic of Indian life. The evidence of Pāli literature is in favour of this view, though it shows that a king could marry whom he wished, and could make his son by that wife the heir apparent. But it equally shows that there were others who held that not the father’s but the mother’s rank determined the social standing of the son. Though Manu recognizes the possibility of marriage with the next lower caste as producing legitimate children, still he condemns the marriage of an Aryan with a woman of lower caste. The Pāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra allows the marriage of a Kṣatriya with a wife of his own caste or of the lower caste, of a Brahmin with a wife of his own caste or of the two lower classes, and of a Vaiśya with a Vaiśya wife only. But it quotes the opinion of others that all of them can marry a śūdra wife, while other authorities condemn the marriage with a śūdra wife in certain circumstances, which implies that in other cases it might be justified. The earlier literature bears out this impression: much stress is laid on descent from a Rṣi, and on purity of descent ; but there is other evidence for the view that even a Brāhmaṇa need not be of pure lineage. Kavaṣa Ailūṣa is taunted with being the son of a Dāsī, ‘slave woman,’ and Vatsa was accused of being a śūdrā’s son, but established his purity by walking unhurt through the flames of a fire ordeal. He who is learned (śiiśruvān) is said to be a Brāhmaṇa, descended from a Rṣi (1ārseya), in the Taittirīya Samhitā; and Satyakāma, son of Jabālā, was accepted as a pupil by Hāridrumata Gautama, though he could not name his father. The Kāthaka Samhitā says that knowledge is all-important, not descent. But all this merely goes to show that there was a measure of laxity in the hereditary character of caste, not that it was not based on heredity. The Yajurveda Samhitās recognize the illicit union of Árya and śūdrā, and vice versa: it is not unlikely that if illicit unions took place, legal marriage was quite possible. The Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa, indeed, recognizes such a case in that of Dīrghatamas, son of the slave girl Uśij, if we may adopt the description of Uśij given in the Brhaddevatā. In a hymn of the Atharvaveda extreme claims are put forward for the Brāhmaṇa, who alone is a true husband and the real husband, even if the woman has had others, a Rājanya or a Vaiśya: a śūdra Husband is not mentioned, probably on purpose. The marriage of Brāhmaṇas with Rājanya women is illustrated by the cases of Sukanyā, daughter of king śaryāta, who married Cyavana, and of Rathaviti’s daughter, who married śyāvāśva. 4.Occupation and Caste.—The Greek authorities and the evidence of the Jātakas concur in showing it to have been the general rule that each caste was confined to its own occupations, but that the Brāhmaṇas did engage in many professions beside that of simple priest, while all castes gave members to the śramaṇas, or homeless ascetics. The Jātakas recognize the Brahmins as engaged in all sorts of occupations, as merchants, traders, agriculturists, and so forth. Matters are somewhat simpler in Vedic literature, where the Brāhmaṇas and Kṣatriyas appear as practically confined to their own professions of sacrifice and military or administrative functions. Ludwig sees in Dīrgliaśravas in the Rigveda a Brahmin reduced by indigence to acting as a merchant, as allowed even later by the Sūtra literature; but this is not certain, though it is perfectly possible. More interesting is the question how far the Ksatriyas practised the duties of priests; the evidence here is conflicting. The best known case is, of course, that of Viśvāmitra. In the Rigveda he appears merely as a priest who is attached to the court of Sudās, king of the Tftsus ; but in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa he is called a king, a descendant of Jahnu, and the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa refers to śunahśepa’s succeeding, through his adoption by Viśvāmitra, to the divine lore (daiva veda) of the Gāthins and the lordship of the Jahnus. That in fact this tradition is correct seems most improbable, but it serves at least to illustrate the existence of seers of royal origin. Such figures appear more than once in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmana, which knows the technical terms Rājanyarçi and Devarājan corresponding to the later Rājarṣi, royal sage.’ The Jaiminiya Brāhmaṇa says of one who knows a certain doctrine, ‘being a king he becomes a seer’ (rājā sann rsir bhavati), and the Jaiminiya Upanisad Brāhmana applies the term Rāj'anya to a Brāhmaṇa. Again, it is argued that Devāpi Árstiseṇa, who acted as Purohita, according to the Rigveda, for śantanu, was a prince, as Yāska says or implies he was. But this assumption seems to be only an error of Yāska’s. Since nothing in the Rigveda alludes to any relationship, it is impossible to accept Sieg’s view that the Rigveda recognizes the two as brothers, but presents the fact of a prince acting the part of Purohita as unusual and requiring explanation. The principle, however, thus accepted by Sieg as to princes in the Rigveda seems sound enough. Again, Muir has argued that Hindu tradition, as shown in Sāyaṇa, regards many hymns of the Rigveda as composed by royal personages, but he admits that in many cases the ascription is wrong; it may be added that in the case of Prthī Vainya, where the hymn ascribed to him seems to be his, it is not shown in the hymn itself that he is other than a seer; the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa calls him a king, but that is probably of no more value than the later tradition as to Viśvāmitra. The case of Viśvantara and the śyāparṇas mentioned in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa has been cited as that of a king sacrificing without priestly aid, but the interpretation iś quite uncertain, while the parallel of the Kaśyapas, Asitamrgas, and Bhūtavīras mentioned in the course of the narrative renders it highly probable that the king had other priests to carry out the sacrifice. Somewhat different are a series of other cases found in the Upaniṣads, where the Brahma doctrine is ascribed to royal persons. Thus Janaka is said in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa to have become a Brahman; Ajātaśatru taught Gārgya Bālāki Pravāhaṇa Jaivali instructed śvetaketu Áruṇeya, as well as śilaka śālāvatya and Caikitāyana Dālbhya; and Aśvapati Kaikeya taught Brahmins. It has been deduced from such passages that the Brahma doctrine was a product of the Kṣatriyas. This conclusion is, however, entirely doubtful, for kings were naturally willing to be flattered by the ascription to them of philosophic activity, and elsewhere the opinion of a Rājanya is treated with contempt. It is probably a fair deduction that the royal caste did not much concern itself with the sacred lore of the priests, though it is not unlikely that individual exceptions occurred. But that warriors became priests, that an actual change of caste took place, is quite unproved by a single genuine example. That it was impossible we cannot say, but it seems not to have taken place. To be distinguished from a caste change, as Fick points out, is the fact that a member of any caste could, in the later period at least, become a śramaṇa, as is recorded in effect of many kings in the Epic. Whether the practice is Vedic is not clear: Yāska records it of Devāpi, but this is not evidence for times much anterior to the rise of Buddhism. On the other hand, the Brahmins, or at least the Purohitas, accompanied the princes in battle, and probably, like the mediaeval clergy, were not unprepared to fight, as Vasistha and Viśvāmitra seem to have done, and as priests do even in the Epic from time to time. But a priest cannot be said to change caste by acting in this way. More generally the possibility of the occurrence of change of caste may be seen in the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa,138 where śyāparṇa Sāyakāyana is represented as speaking of his off¬spring as if they could have become the nobles, priests, and commons of the śalvas; and in the Aitareya Brāhmana,139 where Viśvantara is told that if the wrong offering were made his children would be of the three other castes. A drunken Rṣi of the Rigveda140 talks as if he could be converted into a king. On the other hand, certain kings, such as Para Átṇāra, are spoken of as performers of Sattras, ‘sacrificial sessions.’ As evidence for caste exchange all this amounts to little; later a Brahmin might become a king, while the Rṣi in the Rigveda is represented as speaking in a state of intoxication; the great kings could be called sacrificers if, for the nonce, they were consecrated (dīksita), and so temporarily became Brahmins.The hypothetical passages, too, do not help much. It would be unwise to deny the possibility of caste exchange, but it is not clearly indicated by any record. Even cases like that of Satyakāma Jābāla do not go far; for ex hypothesi that teacher did not know who his father was, and the latter could quite well have been a Brahmin. It may therefore be held that the priests and the nobles practised hereditary occupations, and that either class was a closed body into which a man must be born. These two Varṇas may thus be fairly regarded as castes. The Vaiśyas offer more difficulty, for they practised a great variety of occupations (see Vaiśya). Fick concludes that there is no exact sense in which they can be called a caste, since, in the Buddhist literature, they were divided into various groups, which themselves practised endogamy such as the gahapatis, or smaller landowners, the setthis, or large merchants and members of the various guilds, while there are clear traces in the legal textbooks of a view that Brāhmana and Kṣatriya stand opposed to all the other members of the community. But we need hardly accept this view for Vedic times, when the Vaiśya, the ordinary freeman of the tribe, formed a class or caste in all probability, which was severed by its free status from the śūdras, and which was severed by its lack of priestly or noble blood from the two higher classes in the state. It is probably legitimate to hold that any Vaiśya could marry any member of the caste, and that the later divisions within the category of Vaiśyas are growths of divisions parallel with the original process by which priest and noble had grown into separate entities. The process can be seen to-day when new tribes fall under the caste system: each class tries to elevate itself in the social scale by refusing to intermarry with inferior classes on equal terms—hypergamy is often allowed—and so those Vaiśyas who acquired wealth in trade (śreṣthin) or agriculture (the Pāli Gahapatis) would become distinct, as sub-castes, from the ordinary Vaiśyas. But it is not legitimate to regard Vaiśya as a theoretic caste; rather it is an old caste which is in process of dividing into innumerable sub-castes under influences of occupation, religion, or geographical situation. Fick denies also that the śūdras ever formed a single caste: he regards the term as covering the numerous inferior races and tribes defeated by the Aryan invaders, but originally as denoting only one special tribe. It is reasonable to suppose that śūdra was the name given by the Vedic Indians to the nations opposing them, and that these ranked as slaves beside the three castes—nobles, priests, and people—just as in the Anglo-Saxon and early German constitution beside the priests, the nobiles or eorls, and the ingenui, ordinary freemen or ceorls, there was a distinct class of slaves proper; the use of a generic expression to cover them seems natural, whatever its origin (see śūdra). In the Aryan view a marriage of śūdras could hardly be regulated by rules; any śūdra could wed another, if such a marriage could be called a marriage at all, for a slave cannot in early law be deemed to be capable of marriage proper. But what applied in the early Vedic period became no doubt less and less applicable later when many aboriginal tribes and princes must have come into the Aryan community by peaceful means, or by conquest, without loss of personal liberty, and when the term śūdra would cover many sorts of people who were not really slaves, but were freemen of a humble character occupied in such functions as supplying the numerous needs of the village, like the Caṇdālas, or tribes living under Aryan control, or independent, such as the Niṣādas. But it is also probable that the śūdras came to include men of Aryan race, and that the Vedic period saw the degradation of Aryans to a lower social status. This seems, at any rate, to have been the case with the Rathakāras. In the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa the Rathakāra is placed as a special class along with the Brāhmaṇas, Rājanyas, and Vaiśyas: this can hardly be interpreted except to mean that the Rathakāras were not included in the Aryan classes, though it is just possible that only a subdivision of the Vaiśyas is meant. There is other evidence that the Rathakāras were regarded as śūdras. But in the Atharvaveda the Rathakāras and the Karmāras appear in a position of importance in connexion with the selection of the king; these two classes are also referred to in an honourable way in the Vājasaneyi Sarphitā; in the śata¬patha Brāhmaṇa, too, the Rathakāra is mentioned as a a person of high standing. It is impossible to accept the view suggested by Fick that these classes were originally non- Aryan ; we must recognize that the Rathakāras, in early Vedic times esteemed for their skill, later became degraded because of the growth of the feeling that manual labour was not dignified. The development of this idea was a departure from the Aryan conception; it is not unnatural, however undesirable, and has a faint parallel in the class distinctions of modern Europe. Similarly, the Karmāra, the Takṣan the Carmamna, or ‘tanner,’ the weaver and others, quite dignified occupations in the Rigveda, are reckoned as śūdras in the Pāli texts. The later theory, which appears fully developed in the Dharma Sūtras, deduces the several castes other than the original four from the intermarriage of the several castes. This theory has no justification in the early Vedic literature. In some cases it is obviously wrong; for example, the Sūta is said to be a caste of this kind, whereas it is perfectly clear that if the Sūtas did form a caste, it was one ultimately due to occupation. But there is no evidence at all that the Sūtas, Grāmaηīs, and other members of occupations were real castes in the sense that they were endogamic in the early Vedic period. All that we can say is that there was a steady progress by which caste after caste was formed, occupation being an important determining feature, just as in modern times there are castes bearing names like Gopāla (cowherd ’) Kaivarta or Dhīvara ('fisherman'), and Vaṇij (‘merchant’). Fick finds in the Jātakas mention of a number of occupations whose members did not form part of any caste at all, such as the attendants on the court, the actors and dancers who went from village to village, and the wild tribes that lived in the mountains, fishermen, hunters, and so on. In Vedic times these people presumably fell under the conception of śūdra, and may have included the Parṇaka, Paulkasa, Bainda, who are mentioned with many others in the Vājasaneyi Samhitā and the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa in the list of victims at the Puruṣamedha (‘human sacrifice’). The slaves also, whom Fick includes in the same category, were certainly included in the term śūdra. 5. Origin of the Castes.—The question of the origin of the castes presents some difficulty. The ultimate cause of the extreme rigidity of the caste system, as compared with the features of any other Aryan society, must probably be sought in the sharp distinction drawn from the beginning between the Aryan and the śūdra. The contrast which the Vedic Indians felt as existing between themselves and the conquered population, and which probably rested originally on the difference of colour between the upper and the lower classes, tended to accentuate the natural distinctions of birth, occupation, and locality which normally existed among the Aryan Indians, but which among other Aryan peoples never developed into a caste system like that of India. The doctrine of hypergamy which marks the practical working of the caste system, seems clearly to point to the feeling that the Aryan could marry the śūdrā, but not the śūdra the Aryā. This distinction probably lies at the back of all other divisions: its force may be illustrated by the peculiar state of feeling as to mixed marriages, for example, in the Southern States of America and in South Africa, or even in India itself, between the new invaders from Europe and the mingled population which now peoples the country. Marriages between persons of the white and the dark race are disapproved in principle, but varying degrees of condemnation attach to (1) the marriage of a man of the white race with a woman of the dark race; (2) an informal connexion between these two; (3) a marriage between a woman of the white race and a man of the dark race; and (4) an informal connexion between these two. Each category, on the whole, is subject to more severe reprobation than the preceding one. This race element, it would seem, is what has converted social divisions into castes. There appears, then, to be a large element of truth in the theory, best represented by Risley, which explains caste in the main as a matter of blood, and which holds that the higher the caste is, the greater is the proportion of Aryan blood. The chief rival theory is undoubtedly that of Senart, which places the greatest stress on the Aryan constitution of the family. According to Senart the Aryan people practised in affairs of marriage both a rule of exogamy, and one of endogamy. A man must marry a woman of equal birth, but not one of the same gens, according to Roman law as interpreted by Senart and Kovalevsky ; and an Athenian must marry an Athenian woman, but not one of the same γez/oç. In India these rules are reproduced in the form that one must not marry within the Gotra, but not without the caste. The theory, though attractively developed, is not convincing; the Latin and Greek parallels are not even probably accurate ; and in India the rule forbidding marriage within the Gotra is one which grows in strictness as the evidence grows later in date. On the other hand, it is not necessary to deny that the development of caste may have been helped by the family traditions of some gentes, or Gotras. The Patricians of Rome for a long time declined intermarriage with the plebeians; the Athenian Eupatridai seem to have kept their yevη pure from contamination by union with lower blood; and there may well have been noble families among the Vedic Indians who intermarried only among themselves. The Germans known to Tacitus163 were divided into nobiles and ingenui, and the Anglo-Saxons into eorls and ceorls, noble and non-noble freemen.1®4 The origin of nobility need not be sought in the Vedic period proper, for it may already have existed. It may have been due to the fact that the king, whom we must regard as originally elected by the people, was as king often in close relation with, or regarded as an incarnation of, the deity;165 and that hereditary kingship would tend to increase the tradition of especially sacred blood: thus the royal family and its offshoots would be anxious to maintain the purity of their blood. In India, beside the sanctity of the king, there was the sanctity of the priest. Here we have in the family exclusiveness of king and nobles, and the similar exclusiveness of a priesthood which was not celibate, influences that make for caste, especially when accompanying the deep opposition between the general folk and the servile aborigines. Caste, once created, naturally developed in different directions. Nesfield166 was inclined to see in occupation the one ground of caste. It is hardly necessary seriously to criticize this view considered as an ultimate explanation of caste, but it is perfectly certain that gilds of workers tend to become castes. The carpenters (Tak§an), the chariot-makers (Rathakāra), the fisher¬men (Dhaivara) and others are clearly of the type of caste, and the number extends itself as time goes on. But this is not to say that caste is founded on occupation pure and simple in its first origin, or that mere difference of occupation would have produced the system of caste without the interposition of the fundamental difference between Aryan and Dāsa or śūdra blood and colour. This difference rendered increasingly important what the history of the Aryan peoples shows us to be declining, the distinction between the noble and the non-noble freemen, a distinction not of course ultimate, but one which seems to have been developed in the Aryan people before the separation of its various.branches. It is well known that the Iranian polity presents a division of classes comparable in some respects with the Indian polity. The priests (Athravas) and warriors (Rathaesthas) are unmistakably parallel, and the two lower classes seem to correspond closely to the Pāli Gahapatis, and perhaps to the śūdras. But they are certainly not castes in the Indian sense of the word. There is no probability in the view of Senart or of Risley that the names of the old classes were later superimposed artificially on a system of castes that were different from them in origin. We cannot say that the castes existed before the classes, and that the classes were borrowed by India from Iran, as Risley maintains, ignoring the early Brāhmaṇa evidence for the four Varnas, and treating the transfer as late. Nor can we say with Senart that the castes and classes are of independent origin. If there had been no Varṇa, caste might never have arisen; both colour and class occupation are needed for a plausible account of the rise of caste.
Is credited by the Anukramanī (Index) with the authorship of a number of hymns of the Rigveda. This attribution is supported by the occurrence in this group of the name of the seer, and once of his family, the Vimadas, besides the repeated refrain vi vo made, ‘in your carouses.’ Vimada is occasionally alluded to later.
‘Descendant of Vidadaśva,’ is the patronymic of Taranta in the Rigveda. In the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa and the Jaiminlya Brāhmaṇa the Vaidadaśvis are Taranta and Purumflha. The latter is not a Vaidadaśvi in the Rigveda, a clear sign of the worthlessness of the legends relative to these two men in the Brāhmanas.
Is the name of a man mentioned several times in the Rigveda. The Anukramanī (Index) assigns to him a series of hymns in the fifth, eight, and ninth books. In one of the hymns śyāvāśva mentions, apparently as his patrons, Taranta (a son of Vidadaśva) and Purumīlha, as well as Rathavīti. On this hymn is based a legend found in the Bṛhaddevatā, that he was the son of Arcanānas, who was sacrificing for Rathavīti Dālbhya. The father was anxious to obtain the king’s daughter for his son in marriage; but though the father was willing, his wife insisted on her son-in-law being a Rṣi. The father and son, repulsed, were returning home, when they met on the way Taranta and Purumīdha, former patrons of the father. These showed him respect, while Taranta’s wife, śaśīyasī, presented śyāvāśva with much wealth. The son was then fortunate enough to meet the Maruts in the forest, and praised them, thus becoming a seer. As a result the king himself ultimately offered his daughter to śyāvāśva. Sieg seeks to show that this legend is presupposed in the Rigveda; but it is difficult to accept this view, since the references in the Rigveda are very obscure, and śaśīyasī is probably no more than an epithet. That there is some Itihāsa at the back of the hymn is clear: what it is can hardly now be determined. śyāvāśva's obtaining gifts from Vaidadaśvi is referred to also in the śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra. His name occurs in the Atharvaveda in two lists of persons, of which the former includes Purumīdha, the latter also Arcanānas and Atri. A Sāman is ascribed to him in the Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa, and he is perhaps referred to in the Taittirīya Araṇyaka. In the śānkhāyana śrauta Sūtra and the Pañcaviφśa Brāhmana he is styled Arcanānasa, ‘ son of Arcanānas,’ and later he is called Atreya, ‘descendant of Atri.’
(‘Descendant of Aruṇa’) or Auddālaki (‘son of Uddālaka’) is mentioned repeatedly in the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. In the Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad he appears as śvetaketu, son of Áruṇi, and as a Gautama. In the Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa he is quoted as an authority on the vexed question of the duty of the Sadasya, or the seventeenth priest, at the ritual of the Kauṣītakins, to notify errors in the sacrifice; Áruṇi, his father, is also cited. He was a person of some originality, for he insisted on eating honey despite the general prohibition of the use of that delicacy by Brahmacārins or religious students. He was a contemporary of, and was instructed by the Pañcāla king Pravāhaṇa Jaivala. He was also a contemporary of Janaka, of Videha, and figured among the Brahmin disputants at his court. A story is told of him in the śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra:[6] Jala Jātūkarṇyā was lucky enough to become the Purohita of three peoples or kings, of Kāśi, Kosala, and Videha. Seeing this, śvetaketu felt annoyed and reproached his father with his excessive devotion to sacrifice, which merely enriched and glorified others, not himself. His father replied, forbidding him to speak thus: he had learned the true method of sacrificing, and his ambition in life had been to discuss it with every Brahmin. All the references to śvetaketu belong to the latest period of Vedic literature. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Ápa- stamba Dharma Sūtra should refer to him as an Avara, or person of later days, who still became a Rṣi by special merit. His date, however, must not be fixed too low, because the śatapatha Brāhmaṇa in which he plays so marked a part is certainly earlier than Pāṇini, and was apparently even in that grammarian’s time believed to be an ancient work; hence 500 B.c. is probably rather too late than too early a period for śvetaketu as a rough approximation to a date.
Is the name of the Tṛtsu king who won a famous victory over the ten kings, as described in a hymn of the Rigveda. At one time Viśvāmitra was his Purohita, and accompanied him in his victorious raids over the Vipāś (Beās) and śutudrī (Sutlej). The Aśvins gave him a queen, Sudevī, and also helped him on another occasion. He appears with Trasadasyu in a late hymn without hint of rivalry, but elsewhere he seems to be referred to as defeated by Pupukutsa, Trasadasyu’s father. In the Aitareya Brāhmana he is recognized as a great king, with Vasiṣha as his Purohita, and similarly in the śāñkhāyana śrauta Sūtra, where his generosity to his priest is related. His exact ancestry is a little uncertain, because he is called Paijavana, ‘son of Pijavana,’ as Yāska explains the patro¬nymic. If this explanation is correct, Divodāsa must have been his grandfather. If he was the son of Divodāsa, Pijavana must be understood as a more remote ancestor. The former alternative seems the more probable. Cf. Turvaśa, Dāśarājña. Paijavana, Bharata, Saudāsa.
‘Rich in gold,’ is apparently an epithet of Trasa- dasyu in one verse of the Rigveda, referring to the golden raiment or possessions of the king. Ludwig, however, thinks the word is a proper name, possibly of Trasadasyu’s son.
noun (neuter) a seat (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
a shed erected in the sacrificial enclosure to the east of the Prācīnavaṃśa (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
abode (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
assembly (esp. at a sacrifice) (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
dwelling (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
heaven and earth (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
place of meeting (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
residence (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
adjective being and not being (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
good and bad (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
real and unreal (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
true and false (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
noun (neuter) existence and non-existence (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
good and evil (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
the true and the false (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
truth and falsehood (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
what is existent and existence (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
noun (masculine) a person belonging to a learned court-circle (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
a superintending priest (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
an assessor (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
member of an assembly (at a sacrifice) (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
spectator (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
the seventeenth priest (Monier-Williams, Sir M. (1988))
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Special Searches
Type sandhi: and a phrase to search for the sandhi of the two words example.
sandhi:sam yoga will search for saṃyoga
Type root: and a word to do a root search only for the word. You can also use the √ symbol, this is easily typed by typing \/ in SanskritWriter software.
Feedback
icon to enable a popup keybord and you can toggle between देवनागरी and IAST characters. If you want a system software for typing easily in देवनागरी or IAST you can download our software called SanskritWriter