Transcript
REVIEWS OF BOOKS
203
Maurya Empire (c. 300-200 B.C.), yet commonly ascribed to an extremely wide bracket of 600-100 B.C. (e.g. p. 121), or 700-200 B.C. (p. 142). An outsider could suspect here some stretching of the chronology, into the hiatus of the prehistoric Indian "Dark Age", as happened also with excavators' interpretations of punch-marked coinage. The account of the historical period is briefer, though the influence of Wheeler shows here with the discussion of Arikamedu, as it does elsewhere in the superb precision of the trenching, e.g. fig. 20, at Kuchai in Orissa. "No attempt has been made to give a detailed account of all the discoveries" (p. 1). The focus is understandably on the work of the central authority. Nine sites are described, but there is no mention of Kausambi, Rajghat, Sravasti, or Vaisali. Indeed, the catalogue of India's historic capitals is endless, and the curtain has to fall somewhere. With so much information closely packed, we miss the luxury of an index. But as a manageable and well-documented entry to the subject, this carefully-printed book will find appreciative readers. A. D. H. BIVAR
BRUDERSCHAFT UND WORFELSPEIL, UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR ENTWICKLUNOSGESCHICHTE DES
VEDISCHEN OPFERS. Von HARRY FALK. pp. 216. Freiburg: Hedwig Falk, 1986.
Over the last quarter of a century or so several attempts have been made to construct a convincing picture of the development of the sacrificial ritual - the names of Heesterman, Parpola and Staal immediately come to mind - but the considerable divergences in the views propounded and the problems left unresolved by each show only too clearly that finality has not been reached. In this book Falk adopts a slightly different approach towards the same goal; he examines two distinct elements in the Vedic ritual and social complex in some detail and endeavours to extract from them pointers to the overall scheme, rather than starting from general theories and seeking corroboration for them in the texts. In its layout, indeed, the book appears at first sight to be two separate studies on the Vedic brotherhoods or bands (Falk prefers the term Bruderschaft to the more usual Mannerbund because of what he sees as misleading implications of the latter term) and on dicing, but as the argument develops it becomes clear that the two are significantly interrelated and, as Falk tells us in his introduction, the first was undertaken as a necessary preliminary to the second. The first inevitably involves a reworking of the material on the Vratyas but also ranges more widely and includes several new insights. Perhaps the most significant occurs in the section on Rudra and the Maruts (1.8 on pp. 63-5) where he plausibly resolves the problematic relationship between Rudra's host and the Maruts as a kind of before-and-after connection: the menacing hosts of Rudra (the Vratyas) conciliated by the offering of the cow and so no longer linked with Rudra (except as being his sons) but with "positive" deities like Indra and Visnu. This along with certain points in later parts of the book, would — if followed through — involve a more radical reassessment of Rudra's role in the Rgveda than he felt appropriate in the present enquiry. The greater part of the book is devoted to analysis of the Vedic references to dicing, emphasizing both its ritual context (without however excluding its economic aspects) and the discrepancies between several of the references. Essentially, Falk argues that in fact these allude to two types of play: an older form normally using 150 (3 x 50) vibhidakas, where the result is produced by counting those grasped or extracted from the pool, and a later form with two cubic dice. He suggests that the earlier form is concerned not with finding a winner but with selecting a "loser" (as it were, the one who "draws the short straw"), the ivaghnin, interpreted as the one linked to the hound (specifically as hunting-dog, i.e. killer of the cow, thus Rudra and also the leader of the Vratyas); he also interprets the term vibhidaka as originally describing Rudra and as only secondarily applied to the nuts or rather the fruit, since he argues that the whole fruit was rolled (vartante, RV 10.34.9) not just the nut. Such an interpretation certainly goes a long way to explain the emphasis on the kali throw. He buttresses the argument by reference to the use of terms for dog or hound to denote the worst
204
REVIEWS OF BOOKS
throw in other Indo-European languages; on this occasion the parallels may well be relevant but elsewhere appeal to a common Indo-Eurpean background seems less convincing. An interesting minor point here is his explanation of the term irina for the place of dicing as a hollow, which not only explains analogies with the sacrificial fire-pit but is also consistent with its later use for a saline and so desert place. The switch from the earlier to the later type of dicing is linked also with changes in the method of counting and used to explain discrepancies in the numerical interpretation of krta and kali. Although much of Falk's detailed argument relies on the precise interpretation, and in some cases reinterpretation, of specific passages, the overall scheme is attractive and does have the merit of making a coherent picture out of the disparate elements, while also incidentally casting interesting sidelights on many other issues. One example is the linking of the wife's fate as alluded to in AV 6.118.3 and AV 10.34.2 with the story of Draupadi at the Sabha, as well as with that of Damayantl. In general, he is concerned to discover links forward as well as back, arguing that the pre-classical Vedic sacrifice did not just develop into the srauta ritual but also underlies much of later, more popular Hinduism. As a contribution to the continuing debate on the nature of early Vedic religion, Falk's book is distinguished by a careful attention to the texts themselves and a willingness to accept a degree of complexity in the picture discovered. His main arguments will need to be tested against their implications for the wider understanding of Vedic literature but he has already shed a great deal of new light on it and his book will undoubtedly prove a stimulus to our thinking on the subject. J. L. BROCKINGTON
A NET CAST WIDE: INVESTIGATIONS INTO INDIAN THOUGHT IN MEMORY OF DAVID FRIEDMAN. E d i t e d
by JULIUS J. LIPNER. pp. x, 82, one illus. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Grevatt and Grevatt, 1986. £7.50. This short Gedenkschrift for David Friedman is the work of four of his former pupils, Julius Lipner, Dermot Killingley (who is also Assistant Editor and contributes a brief memoir), Rita Gupta and Trevor Ling, along with a piece by Bimal Matilal, who met Friedmann in 1971-2 while on a Visiting Fellowship at S.O.A.S. As is the case with many such volumes, the contributions are disparate, as the title indicates, but it contains useful material. The book is unpretentiously produced (unlike many such volumes), from a small press in Newcastle; although printed in unjustified typescript, it is easily readable and contains no serious typographical errors. Very usefully, all important Sanskrit passages are given in footnotes. The book is available direct from the publisher, as well as through ordinary distributors. The best contribution by far, in my opinion, is Killingley's study of "Om: the sacred syllable in the Veda". Modestly describing his essay as "intended to show how Vedic ideas can be made available to non-specialists", he has succeeded brilliantly in synthesizing and summarizing the complex amalgam of ritual, mythological and metaphysical ideas surrounding the notion of Speech in the Vedic hymns, Brahmanas and Upanisads. I shall make this essay required reading for all my students studying Hinduism, and recommend that others do the same. Apart from the intrinsic interest of the material, the essay is exemplary for its insightful and helpful use of modern interpretative categories (such as that between type and token), combined with the clear awareness that the original material does not make anything like the same distinctions. In a similar way, Lipner's essay, on the interpretations given by Sankara and Ramanuja of the term brahman in the Bhagavad Gita, is interesting, and should prove pedagogically useful. Personally, I suspect that the real principle of interpretation used by these Vedantins is something like "since brahman is everything [in different senses for the two thinkers, of course], then the word brahman can be taken to mean anything and everything". But Lipner is more sympathetic, and ends by suggesting that Ramanuja's view has the greater "exegetical plausibility". Both Gupta and Matilal offer detailed and technical analyses of matters of philosophy.
