VEDIC HINDUISM by S. W. Jamison and M. Witzel - people.fas ...

Jamison & Witzel VEDIC HINDUISM 24
measure, to argue from within the Brahmanical system of thought. The only
handbook of both the solemn (śrauta) and domestic (g�hya) rituals has been
compiled by Hillebrandt 1897, and the Śrautasūtra texts as such have been
described by Kashikar 1968. Present day Vedic recitation has been described by,
among others, Staal 1961, Howard 1977, 1986.
The amount of space just devoted to text editions, translations, and
purely philological research tools may seem excessive, but it should not be
forgotten that a major barrier to the understanding of Vedic religion has always
been the difficulty of Vedic language and expression. In fact, by no means all
Vedic texts have been edited and even less have been translated. It is perhaps no
wonder that, because many of the untranslated texts, such as MS, KS, JB, BŚS,
have been neglected, often enough even by Sanskrit scholars, comprehensive
research into Hindu and Vedic religion has suffered, and many interesting
points, such as the mentioning of the Indo-Aryan immigration (BŚS) or the
later fate of the Kuru tribe (JB), have escaped general notice.
The grammar of Vedic differs in important ways, especially in the verb,
from Classical Sanskrit (cf. Renou 1952, Gonda 1971). Lexical items often have
entirely different meanings and usually have entirely different connotations.
The syntax, especially of the mantras, can be contorted and elliptical. Since we
must rely entirely on texts, it is imperative that we interpret them correctly. But
since we lack an unbroken native commentatorial tradition, -- we often have to
rely on what can be gleaned from the parallel versions in the various schools -much
of this work of interpretation has fallen to modern philologists. Progress
comes in very small steps -- a new understanding of the meaning of a word, the
identification of a particular verb form, the elucidation of a syntactic
construction -- but without it the broader work of interpretation to be
discussed in the next sections could not be accomplished.
It is not possible to mention all those who have made or are making
significant contributions in this philological area; we will make simply make
reference to a few of the more prominent and productive of these scholars, e.g.
H. Oldenberg (1967, repr. 1987), and the still active K. Hoffmann (1975-6, 1992),
P. Thieme (1967 / 1984, 1991), and F.B.J. Kuiper (1983, forthc. 1992) -- whose
shorter works are conveniently collected in their Kleine Schriften and similar
volumes.
Further important articles on the Veda have been published by the
Glasenapp-Stiftung (Wiesbaden / Stuttgart 1967ff.), in the collections of papers,
the "Kleine Schriften", e.g. those of Hillebrandt 1987, Caland 1990, Lüders 1973,
Oertel 1991, Neisser 1980, Simon 1979, Sieg 1991, Lommel 1978, Alsdorf 1974.