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

Jamison & Witzel VEDIC HINDUISM 30
c. �gvedic ritual and its forerunners
Early Vedic ritual can be compared not only with what follows it, but
with what precedes it -- or, rather, it can be compared with cognate ritual
tradition(s), and an attempt can be made to reconstruct the shared ritual system
from which each of these traditions derived. Striking parallels to Vedic ritual
and religion appear in ancient Iranian religion, as found in the texts of
Zoroastrianism preserved in a language closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, namely
Avestan.33 Although Iranian religion seems to have undergone significant
changes, especially the revolutionary reforms apparently led by the prophet
Zarathustra, it still shows many remarkable similarities to Vedic religion: the
poetic phraseology is often identical across the languages; there are identically
named deities (e.g. Vedic Mitra, Avestan Miθra); and the ritual foci are the same.
In both the fire is the center of ritual activity (e.g. Narten 1986); in both the
most highly valued oblation is an invigorating drink (of still debatable
identity), Vedic soma, Avestan haoma. [The two words are historically identical,
despite superficial appearance.] Moreover, even the types of texts preserved in
Iran mirror those of Vedic India: the praise poetry of Zarathustra (in his Gåθås)
recalls that of the less personal �gveda; the Yasna Hapta�håiti, a highly
ritualistic text, is stylistically close to the non-metrical mantras of the Yajur
Veda; in the later Avesta, a Bråhma�a-like passage has been preserved in Yasna
19-21; and the Nirangistån is a sort of Zoroastrian Śrautasūtra.34
Indeed, the most ancient purely ritual text in Avestan, the Yasna
Hapta�håiti, shows traces of a triple division of liturgical speech exactly like that
in Vedic and a consequent splintering of ritual functions reminiscent of Vedic.
For a convenient collection of technical religious terms shared by Vedic and
Avestan, see Hillebrandt 1897, p. 11. For connections between Vedic and
Zoroastrian religion in general, see, e.g., Keith 1925, 32-36; Thieme 1957b
[reprinted with changes in R. Schmitt 1968, 204-241].
33 We may add comparisons with the Roman October horse sacrifice, and similar accounts,
even from the turn of this century, from the Altai; cf. further the widespread Eurasian fire
rituals (cf. Witzel 1992).
34 Actually, the similarities go beyond this: the text of the Zoroastrian hymns (Gåθås) has
been transmitted in what can only be called a Padapå�ha, with even more of the idiosyncrasies
that mark this kind of text but in a much less pure transmission. And while the Yašts and parts
of the Yasna correspond in character to �gvedic hymns addressed to various gods, much of
the Vīdẽvdåd reads like a G�hya or Dharma Sūtra.