DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

NOTES TO CHAPTER V 143
Satyakama Jabala was accepted (ChUp. 4.4) as a student by Haridru-mata Gotama
though even his mother did not know who his father was, let alone the gotra. Lists of
brahmin teachers in these Upani§ads are given with a matronymic, which again proves
fluidity of tradition ; some elements not completely used to patriarchy were entering the
Aryan fold as brahmins even at this period — and they continued to do so whenever
they could get away with it, even in later times.
15. The opening phrase of the RV : agnim lie purohitam contains the verb il which
does not seem Aryan, and may be connected with the Assyrian llu (god, or honorofic
title for kings) : the Assyrian darlnu — heroic can be made responsible for ddnava. The
question, why Assyrian, would then remain unsolved. Professor Leo Wiener of Harvard
used to show unpublished notes dating from 1913 or earlier, tracing roots in Sumerian,
Babylonian, and Assyrian common to Sanskrit, and* Dravi-dian languages. This
concordance means little, but it might be a field for systematic investigation, if one is
prepared to face negative results after considerable expenditure of time. The major
question to which such coincidences give rise is the following. In any given case, how
should one ascertain whether a given * un-Aryan * feature was adopted by some group
of Aryans from older civilizations outside India (say the Mesopo-tamian) with which
they had at some time in their migrations come into contact ? Or, was it a survival from
an older culture in India (the Indus Valley) ? At present, we have not material enough for
a clear decision. The usual fantastic conjectures disguise the main fact, namely that the
means of production permitted such acquisition and survival of an odd word, trait, or
superstition. Conjectures such as the identification of the great Akkadiam conqueror
Sargon (circa 2400 B. c.) with the puranic “ universal emperor” Sagara remain worthless
unless one can trace the literary genealogy of the sources or show why the fine technical
achievements of the Sargonid age do not appear in India.
16. J. W. Hauer’s Der Vratya (vol. I, Stuttgart, 1927 no further volume available, if
published) shows his approach in the subtitle : die vratya ah nichtbrahmanische
Kultgenossenschaften arischer Herkunft. While the collection of references in systematic,
the author failed to note successive changes in the meaning of “ Aryan “, as of “ Vratya
“. In Patafijali’s time vrata seems to have meant tribes living by use of weapons,
implements, or guild crafts, but retaining the tribal chief and structure (cf. the comment
on Pan. 5.2.21). The original connotation of “wanderers” or “nomads” remained only
in so far as the group was not tied down to fixed lands by farming settlements.