The VratyasAuthor(s): A. Berriedale KeithReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, (Jan., 1913), pp.155-160Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25188932 .Accessed: 11/01/2012 12:47

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THE VttATVAS 155

IV.?He [i.e. the author, Sarngadeva] has definitely fixed the measure of an angula as settled in the science

of arithmetic: uo angula of five yavas is seen either in

the Sastras or in popular use. An angula is made ly six yavodaras free from husk and placed crosswise? :

in the measure of the khdni [the hollow stick of the

Vina] the little finger of the right hand (is used).

V.?Sarngadeva has described the form of a Vina-stick

on another measure : ly four and a half ojavodaoxts free

from husk and placed crosswise (is onade) an oiigida here: in accordance with this measure there are, as

described before, twenty-two varieties of Vina-sticks,

commencing with the Ekavira [the name of the first] ; about these we are going to speak.

II. Shamasastry.

The Vratvas

In a recent contribution to the Vienna Oriental

Journal1 Paul Charpentier has endeavoured to establish a new account of the Vratyas of the Vedic tradition. He

finds in them the founders of the widespread Rudra-Siva

cult, and the spiritual ancestors of the later and modern

Sivaites. The Vratyastomas of the ritual were per formances to mark the admission within the Brahmin

circle of such Vratyas, whose addiction to the cult of

Siva in his dread forms rendered them an object of

suspicion to their more orthodox fellows. Further, the

Vratya of the Atliao'vaveda, book xv, is no other than

Uudra-Siva himself and simultaneous^7 hisearthty counter

part, the Sivaite ascetic.

The theoiy is attractive and interesting: it remains to

consider how far it can claim to be more than a speculation or to have real value. In the first place the argument from the later literature can be disregarded : its point is

1 xxv, 355-GS. Cf. xxiii, 151 seq<|.

156 THE VRATVAS

that Manu l derives from a Rajanya Vratya bhe Licchavis

and Mallas of Buddhisb fame ; now bhese families cannob

have been derived from the despised mixed castes, but

for the fact that they practised an unbrahininic religion, that of Rudra-Siva, and it is stated that they never

appear in the Buddhist texts as practising Brahminical

offerings. This suggestion can clearly be of no value for

early Vedic times or throw light on the early character of

the Vratya, and it is therefore needless to consider what

validity it has for later days.

Secondly,it is argued that in the PancavimsaBrahmana2

the Vratyas are described as those left behind when the

gods went to the world of heaven. In the Satapatha* the gods go to the sky and Rudra is left behind. It is

deduced that the Vratyas must be connected with Siva.

The argument is wholly without value, as the passages stand in no conceivable relation, and any theory could be

supported if such evidence were allowed to stand good ;

yet the leader of those left behind in the Pancavimsa is

expressly given as Dyutana Maruta, not Siva at all.

Thirdly, it is argued that the Grhapati of the Vratyas in their offerings is Siva himself because his apparatus is

similar to that of Siva. The apparatus includes a turban

(tiryaiinaddhd), a goad (pratoda), a particular kind of bow

(jydhroda, explained by Katyayana4 as an ayogyam dhanuh and by Latyayana6 as a dhanuska ani?u), a black garment (krsnasam vdsah), a rough wagon

planked over, drawn by a horse and an ass, a silver

ornament (niska), two sheepskins fastened at the sides

and krsnabalakse. Now Rudra-Siva has the turban, he

carries a bow, and in the Aitareya Brahmana c is referred

to as li/snasavdsi, and in one passage in the Rgveda7 he

has a niskdm yajatdm visvdrrvpam, and yajata and

1 x, 22. 2

xvii, 1. 1. a i, 7. 3. 1.

4 Srauta Sutra, xxii. 4, 11. * Srauta Siitra, viii, 0, S. * v, 14. Sec Roth, ZDMG. vi, 24(1. 7

ii, 33. 11.

THE VRATYAS 157

raj ata "stehen einander jedenfalls sehr nahe ". Thus

attired Rudra-Siva is accepted by the ottering into the

regular circle of the gods, and the followers of the

Grhapati also abandon their older faith by the rite, but at

the same time represent the uncanny, ghostty comrades

of Rudra-Siva. The whole ceremoiy is comparable iu its

dramatic character to the performances at the Soma

buying or the Mahavrata.

But all this is without sure ground. The greater part of the Grhapati's attire and accompaniments has no parallel in Rudra at all : where are the wagon, the sheepskins, the goad ? The turban is there, but not tiryaiinaddha, and it is the mode, not the common turban, that matters.

The bow is there, but not the jydhroda, and it is the bow

of a peculiar kind that is the point. Nor will yajo.ta transform itself into oxljata to please us. It is onty open to fall back on the krsnasaoii vasas, but be it remembered

that black is a common colour regularly associated with

the uncanny and dread. There is, in fact, wholty lacking the exact correspondence in detail which is essential for

any proof of the identity of the Grhapati and Rudra-Siva.

The obvious explanation of the whole of the outfit is that

it is the description of a local form of dress worn ly the

Vratyas, known to the texts: indeed, Latyayana1 oxpressty tells us that the vipatha is a prdcyaratha,

" a chariot of

the easterners," and the rite ends with the bestowal of the

apparatus to a Mdgadhades'iya2 brahona-baoidhu, an

easterner. In the face of this obvious explanation, that

of Charpentier is clearty invalid.

Nor does it win any real support from the effort to

confirm it hy Atharvareda, xv. That this section deals

with the Vratya is shown beyond doubt by the references

to the turban, the goad, the vipatha, and the Magadha. But I find nothing in it to show that the Vratya is

1 Srauta Sutra, viii, 0. 9. 2

Katyayaiia, xxii, 4. 22 ; Latyayana, viii, G. 28.

158 THE VRATYAS

Rudra-Siva. The piece is a late one, in Brahmana style, and it celebrates in the highest way the Vratya, but such

theological speculations are peculiarly common in the

Atharvaveda, and render it needless to suppose that behind

the Vratya lies the figure of a great god. Charpentier *

sees proof of this in xv, I, 4-8, but all that is there said

is that the Vratya became Mahadcva and I&ina, while in

xv, 5, 1 seq., Bhava, Sarva, Pas u pati, Ugradeva, I sana,

Rudra, are his servants, all signs of his cosmic potency, not proofs of his original nature. Nor can any weight be

assigned to the conjecture2 that the Vratya is depicted as

healing Prajapati from the wound inflicted on him by Rudra for his incest with his daughter. The faets are

all adequately accounted for on Bloomfield's3 hypothesis that the Vratya is celebrated as Brahman under Sivaite

influence.

But not only is there a complete lack of serious evidence

for the theory, it makes no attempt to deal with the

fundamental difficulties with which it is confronted. In

the first place no explanation is offered of the peculiar nature of the rite in which the god is supposed himself to

be received into the order of the orthodox gods. That

such a rite is conceivable is no doubt the case, for in

religion denials of possibility are hardly ever wise. But

there is no trace of any such rite in the Vedic religion, and a priori it is not a very probable one. Secondly? and this is still more serious?it assumes that to the

Hindus of the Brahmana period Rudra-Siva was a strange

god, and one outside the usual circle of the pantheon. But nothing can be further from the truth ; the Sataru

driya of all the Yajurveda Samhitas is clear proof of

his full acceptance in all his aspects by those to whom

the period owes its religious tendencies, and, as Aufrecht4

1 VOJ. xxv, 374. 2 Ibid. 370, n. 2.

3 Atharraveda, p. 1)4.

4. Seo his Aitareya Brdhmana, pp. vi, vii.

THE VRATYAS 159

long ago pointed out, it is Rudra-Siva who is the great

god of such texts as the Aitareya and the Kausltaki

Brdhonanas. We nuy, having regard to the Rgvedic

Rudra, believe that the Rudra of the Brahmanas is a god with characteristics borrowed from aboriginal tribes, but

we cannot believe that to the composers of the Brahmanas

he was a god not wholty received into the circle of the

<*ods. We must not confound the fact that a "od is

a dreadful god in some aspects with the view that he

is a strange god. Thirdty, the theoiy of Charpentier

completety fails to explain the characteristics of the

Vratyas as they appear in the Pancavimsa Brdhmana.1

We are there told that the3r do not practise krsi or trade,

i.e. that they are distinct in culture from the Brahminical

Indians who practise in the times of the Brahmanas both.

Moreover, they have a different code of law, for that is the

real meaning of adandyam dandeoia ghnanlas caranti,2

and they have a different speech, for they call what is

easy to say diflicult, a point indicating at the least a

Prakrit speech in which conjunct consonants had been

softened. They are described as speaking diksitavdcam

though adiksitdh, but this characteristic is not realty

intelligible. Charpentier:i thinks diksitavddam may be

meant in sense, and that the sense is that, though Sudras,

they reckon their genealogies, comparing the dlksitavdda

of the Satapatha Boxihmana,4 but this theoiy is very

doubtful, for vac is not vada. 'But in aiy case why should worshippers of Rudra-Siva have been ignorant of agriculture and trading, and have differed in speech from the ordinary Vedic Indians ? There is no explanation

possible unless we accept the view that Rudra-Siva was

a strange

new god of extraneous

origin to the Brahmana

period, and this contradicts all the texts. On the other

hand, the obvious view that the persons meant are

1 xvii, 4. 2. 2

xvii, 4. 0. 3

VOJ. xxv, 303. 4 iii, 2. 1. 40; see Weber, IS. x. 83.

160 SOME BENGALI VERUS

non-Brahminical tribes of a less advanced culture is open to no intelligible objection.

Of minor* points three may be noted. Charpenticrl

suggests that the famous crux in the Rgveda2 as to the

sense of naicdsdkha may receive some light from the

obscure saikhaka or saisaka, which are among the variants

of the names of castes sprung from Vratyas in Manu,3 but the suggestion is clearly of no help or serious value, nor does prdmaganda really suggest Magadha on any scientific principle. Secondly, Charpentier4 repeatedly

quotes the views of Dhanamjapya, but, though he has many

predecessors in this practice, have we really anyone else

but Dhanamjayya ? Neither early Indian editions5 nor

MSS. can be really expected to distinguish py and yy in

Devanagari. Nor is it fair to banish paragraphs 15-18

of Atharvaveda, xv, as a later addition : they are perfectly reasonable in a glorification of the Vratya, even if they do not help to bear out the theory that the Vratya is

really Rudra-Siva.

To the authorities on the Vratyastomas as used by

Charpentier should be added the text of the Baudhayana, Srauta Sutra, which the energy of Caland has now made

available.0 It does not, however, add any tiling which,

so far as I can. judge, throws additional light on this

obscure and curious rite.

A. Berriedale Keith.

Some Bengali Verrs

I should premise that this note is not the result of

learning or research. On the contraiy, the only justification

1 V0J. xxv, 357, n. 5.

iii, 53. 14. See Macdonell & Keith, Vedic Index, i, 459 ; ii, 38, 474. M

x, 21. The text i? wholly uncertain, the commentators having dift'erenb readings.

4 VOJ. xxv, 306-8. 5 Viz. that of Latyayana.

6 xviii, 24-6 ; Uber das ritncVa Sutra (Us Baudhayana, p. 21.