Different sociolinguistics

A Different Sociolinguistics for Brahmins, Buddhists and Jains

PROFESSOR ASHOK AKLUJKAR Professor of Sanskrit, Department of Asiun Studies, University of British Columbia

Intro

Much writing has been done on the social and political aspects of the selection and use by Brahmins and Sramaņas of Sanskrit, Pāḷi and Prākr̥ta (particularly Ardha-māgadhi). Especially in the last few decades, Professor Madhav M. Deshpande has been very active in this area of research. With great effort and considerable awareness of the complexity of social life, he has tried to reconstruct the history of sociolinguistic relationships between the followers of the three major religions of ancient India. My paper, out of necessity, is principally a comment on the research of Deshpande (no one else has written on the subject as much as he has by keeping in view many different periods of Indian history), but since the more important of his assumptions are older and the more important of his conclusions have an affinity with what is currently accepted as historical truth in much of Indology, what I have to say is also a comment on Indology from the point of view of sociolinguistics as far as it pertains to the ancient period. In particular, I argue that the religiolinguistic universes of the Brahmins, Buddhists and Jains were more in harmony than has been assumed and that the use of Pāli and Ardha-māgadhi as languages of religious communication by the Buddhists and Jains was modeled after the use of Sanskrit by the Brahmins.+++(5)+++

My paper is extracted from a monograph I am trying to complete. Over the years I have had many occasions to discuss with my good and learned friend Professor Madhav M. Deshpande (henceforth “D” in abbreviation) some parts of his extensive writings on the sociolinguistic history of ancient and early medieval India. Those discussions which directly bore upon the emergence and hold of Sanskrit as the pre-eminent language of early India have formed part of my paper “The Early History of Sanskrit as Supreme Language" (Aklujkar, 1996). The monograph in the making that I just referred to states the rest of the reactions and substantiates them, specifically as well as on the background of larger issues in Indology.

Although I may seem to speak exclusively of D in the present text, I am not, in effect, locking horns with only one scholar. References to D are made necessary by more than one reason. In the last twenty-five years, he has written more than anyone else on the topic of sociolinguisti of pre-modern India. He has sound preparation in the languages concerned, is widely read and is cautious in methodology. He represents the dominant thinking in the field. He thus provides a good case of how even a very capable and conscientious scholar reads the evidence problematically when he reads it under the influence of dominant tendencies in present-day Indology.+++(5)+++ Accordingly, it is the larger frame in which we situate the specific issues of Indology and to which we expose the newcomers to the fieid that interests me more than the individual scholar.

I think of the frame as having two layers or levels. One layer or level consists of generalizations regarding the languages and communities or groups concerned; the other of even wider and fundamental presuppositions of classical Indology. Most of the paradigmatic elements I have in mind have become formidable presences in Indology. They concern such pivotal and time-honored notions in the field as Arya, Mleccha, the antagonism between Brahmanism and Sramanic religions, the varṇa division of Indian society in theory and practice, and the rivalry between Brahmins and Ksatriyas. To expand the point slightly, the configurations of notions which one comes across in scholarly explorations of the specified study area can be presented thus: *

  • Status: attitude

  • Chandas: Päņini’s Bhāṣā

  • Vedic (as understood by modern scholars): Saṁsksta / Sanskrit (as understood by modern scholars)

  • Sanskrit: Präkrit, Pāli, Māgadhī, Ardha-māgadhī

  • Sanskrit: Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, Jain Sanskrit, vernacular Sanskrit

  • Brahmanism: Sramaņic religions

  • varṇa theory: varṇa practice (Brāhmana “priest, educator, ‘Ksatriya adminis trator, military person’, Vaisya ‘cultivator, manufacturer, merchant,’ Sūdra · ‘servant, helper of the other three classes)

  • Arya: Aryan 2

  • Ārya: Dāsa, Dasyu, Mleccha, Barbara, Sūdra, speakers of Dravidian languages

  • Ārya: speakers of other Indo-Iranian languages

  • Ārya: speakers of other Indo-European languages

  • Vedic Āryas: pre-Vedic Aryas

  • Āryas: Vedic non-Aryas

  • Aryana / airyana vaeja: Aryāvarta

    1. Sociolinguistic Attitudes in India: an Historical Reconstruction, Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, 1993. Sanskrit & Prakrit: Sociolinguistic Issues; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1995. Samskr̥ta āni Prākyta Bhaşa: Vyavahāra, Niyamana, āņi Sastra-carcā, Pune: Subhadā Sārasvata Prakāśana (Marathi). In addition, Deshpande has published several articles in journals and other kinds of volumes, only some of which have been included in the 1993 and 1995 books to which I just made reference.

  • A few scholars have suggested that we should no longer treat “Aryan” as an anglicized form of “Ārya,” because some significant connotations the former has acquired were not intended in the latter.

  • Whenever in this essay I use a colon to distinguish notions especially to identify pairs of contrasting notions, please imagine a blank space before the colon.

It would be najve to expect that a discussion like the present one, focused on only one aspect of Indian history, will wrestle to the ground the problem giants inhabiting these notions. But I do hope that a fresh critical ray, although cast only from the sociolinguistic vantage point, will reveal an opening or two in the armour of the giants and will eventually facilitate their subduing.

  1. This was a very general clarification about procedure. The specific substance related clarifications that I should offer in order to minimize the potential for misunderstanding are these:
  • (a) The two dominant strands in my discussion will be
    • (1) the condition (extent or status) of Sanskrit and Prakrit use at different periods and
    • (ii) the attitudes of different authors and communities toward Sanskrit, Prakrit and, wherever appropriate, other languages (as far as we can glean such attitudes from the surviving evidence).
    • It will seldom be possible to keep the two strands apart because of their mutual dependence in real life. Attitudes are frequently determined by the status of a particular language, and status is frequently the result of attitudes held.
  • (b) Those readers who do not specialize in the history of ancient Indian languages should note that the usage of a key term like “Sanskrit” is not and cannot be uniform or very rigid in a study like the present one. Only a certain literary language type represented by the works of Kālidãsa etc. has come to occupy the reference range of “Sanskrit.” That this language type could have had relatives which were not exactly Samskr̥ta ‘marked by samskāra’, refined or polished, derived by grammar, approved by the grammarians, which were entirely natural and which need not be seen as aberrations of a constant norm has been a realisation slow in coming even in the case of specialists.
  • (c) It is important to recall that “Pāḷi” is not really a language name, although it will be employed as such in this paper. The usage of the word as a language name has become too widespread even in the writings of specialists to have it replaced by “Māgadhi,” the term the Theravada Buddhists themselves employed for the language of their best-preserved body of religio-philosophical documents.
  • (d) I use the term “Brahmanism" mainly because no other widely intelligible term roughly co-extensive with “Hinduism” and yet not leading to the problems of “Hinduism” is available. I do not wish to suggest that Brahmins were the sole authors, followers or preservers of the religion or tradition recognized as Brahmanism, or that Brahmanism was only a religion, or that the ancient Indians viewed it as religion or as dharma, or that their understanding of what we include in Brahmanism would have been the same as ours. I would have no objection if, in the present context, Brahmanism was replaced by “Vedism” or “Ancient Hinduism.”
  1. With these clarifications regarding the context, purpose, mode and terminology of my presentation, let me come to the substance proper.

It is generally bome out by D’s discussion that the headings under which the sociolinguistic history of ancient and early medieval India can be studied conveniently are five:

  • (a) The pre-Vedic and earliest Vedic periods.
  • (b) The period between the composition of the late Saṁhitās and Brāhmaṇas, on the one hand, and the composition of Pāṇini’s grammar, on the other.
  • (c) The post-vedic period nearer to the rise of Jainism and Buddhism.
  • (d) The post-Pāņini period and
  • (e) The first few centuries of the Christian era.

Among these, (c) and (d) will engage our attention in particular. However, since D’s view of this period is determined by what he thinks he has proved regard ing the two earlier periods, especially regarding the Vedic Aryan’s view of the languages of non-Aryans, I should first examine his understanding of the sociolinguistics of that earlier period to the extent he presumes this sociolinguistics as flowing into the period of early Brahmin, Jain and Buddhist interaction,

  • D 1979:1-3: “At the time they entered India and conquered the indigenous peoples, … The Aryans do not seem to have made any significant socio-linguistic distinctions between the various non-Aryan peoples they encountered … The non-Aryan language … was held to be ritually inferior to the Aryan language. … Hatred is the dominant Aryan reaction to non-Aryan languages in the Rgveda."
  • D 1993:2: “[The Vedic Aryans] glorified their language as being divine and produced by the gods themselves.”
  • D 1979: 1-2 (after referring to Rgveda 8.100,11 as relevant evidence): “An entire hymn in the Rgveda (10.125) is ascribed to the Goddess of Speech. Here the personified Aryan language (vāk) sings her own glory …”

If the vāc passages referred to by D (and other similar passages not specifically referred to by him) are really praises only of the Aryan vāc, I wonder why it is that no words amounting to the meaning ‘āryā vāc’ appear in there? Would we be justified in dismissing the alternative possibility that, with them, the Vedic poets praised language or speech in general?

Rg-veda 8.100.11 reads: devim vācam ajanayanta devās tām viśva-rūpāh pašavo vadanti / sā no mandreşam ürjum duhānă dhenur vāg asman upa suştutaitu // “The divine ones gave birth to Speech, which is divine, All kinds of living creatures give expression to her. May that sweet-sounding milch-cow Speech, when properly praised, approach us, bestowing juicy nourishment (as she approaches us).”

It thus speaks of a vāc that visva-rūpa pasus ‘beasts or creatures of all kinds’ speak. The same se expresses the desire that vác should approach its speaker and his people (asmān). Is a composer likely to speak of his usual native speech, one which he already possesses, in this manner?

In Rg-veda 10.125, the Vāgāmbhřnī sūkta, vāc is raised to a status superior to that of all the usually recognized Vedic gods. The hymn does not at all read like a narrowly ethnic or parochially religious statement.

The preceding lines point out that a certain intention read in certain passages cannot be so read. To speak positively, it is clear from the contexts of almost all Rgveda references to vāc that vāc was praised probably because language was thought to be an unmistakable manifestation and perhaps, also a wonderful manifestation of life. This is in consonance with the Vedic fascination with prāna ‘breath,’ which also is a mark of life and is closely associated with the operation of language.

Similarly, when one studies closely the contexts of terms such as mdhra-vāc and of verses such as Rgveda 10.71.5, one realises that whatever criticism is expressed by the terms or by the hymns is not at all meant in exclusive communal or ethnic terms. The criticism is applied even to persons such as Pūru whom most modern historians take to be an Aryan. Moreover, in many lines of the Rgveda, the spells of the enemy are assumed to be possibly effective. Would they be so assumed if the Veda speakers’ attitude was one of complacent or disdainful ignoring of the language or languages of the enemy or enemies?+++(5)+++

  1. As the research carried out by several modem scholars (Kuiper, Parpola, Witzel, for example) has shown, it is extremely unlikely that there was no linguistic diversity where the Āryas or the Däsas lived, originally or later. Also, on their way to India (assuming that they in fact moved into India), the Aryans are unlikely to have escaped contact with the speakers of several non-Indo-European languages. Is this not likely to have made them sensitive to linguistic diversity? If they are scen as shunning such a diversity, not acknowledging it, or striving to ensure that their own language remained impervious to it, would this stance of theirs not be due more to some consciously held, relatively sophisticated— perhaps bigoted and sophisticated— view than to a persistent, blind hatred that lumped the ‘other’ together?

Also, is it likely that all non-Aryan languages were lumped together and had their status determined merely on the basis of the criterion ’non-Aryan = lower social stratum’? Is it not common experience that even the conquerors (again, assuming that the Aryans were conquerors in a politico-economic sense - so far an unproved assumption) treat the individual groups they subdue differently in accordance with the economic and political might, usefulness and culture of the groups and in accordance with their own (that is, the conquerors’ own) needs at the time?

Furthermore, even if one were to imagine that the criterion ’non-Aryan = lower social stratum’ was consistently applied over several centuries (an improbable proposition, given our knowledge of history elsewhere and in other periods), how was it applied to languages? A feeling of disdain toward certain languages cannot then be thought of as a part of the criterion, for then there would be no difference between ’non-Aryan = lower slotting in society’ and ’non-Aryan language = substandard language’. The former, in that case, cannot be used as a cause or reason to assert the latter. The question ‘How did the Aryans determine what was non-Aryan?’ thus assumes crucial importance. It cannot be answered unless the Aryan self-understanding is defined. If D is willing to hold that this was purely or essentially in racial or physical terms, there would be no immediate problem. But his observation elsewhere (1979; 1)-a correct observation—that the Aryans “were in no objective sense a pure race” makes one wonder what exactly he has in mind. If it was culture that served to identify someone as an Aryan, what components other than that of language constituted culture?

  1. D has attached much weight to certain passages in which some non-Sanskritic expressions (e.g., gāvī, goņi, gotā, gopotalikā, ļtaka etc. and a passage containing helayo helaya possibly for he arayaḥ, he arayaḥ) are declared to be apaśabdas or bramśas. His reasoning basically is that since the expressions are clearly looked down upon, the languages from which they come must have been looked down upon and, further, the people who used or adopted those languages must also have been looked down upon.

However, the evidence consists of individual linguistic expressions accompa nied by some reinarks about them. These remarks do not indicate that their authors thought in terms of languages. It is we who (a) associate the cited expressions with languages like the Prakrits and then (b) extend the attitudes expressed about the expressions to the languages. While (a), the first step, is justified a researcher should by all means try to determine which languages arc likely to have been known to an ancient author—there is a possibility that we may misunderstand or distort the perspectives of our sources when we take the second step or (b). It is at least possible that the authors concerned might not have thought of the expressions as belonging to a different language or that their low estimate might have been confined only to certain expressions in the language concemed. To take the evidence from the word level to the language level, while a good move for determining which languages could have existed or were emerging, just for linguistic history–would not be an unquestionable procedure for the purpose of determining sociolinguistic history.

In fact, the procedure becomes questionable when one takes into account the fact that the later Prakrit grammarians do not see a sharp break between Sanskrit and the Prakrits. They derive Prakrit word forms on the tatra bhavah “existing there, that is, having their locus in Sanskrit principle. Eivind Kahrs (1992) has pointed out the correct meaning of tatra bhavaḥ and its significance, albeit not with sociolinguistic history as his concern

Recall also something that the sharp mind of R.G. Bhandarkar (1877) noticed more than 100 years ago. In the cited apaśabdas, the most prominent feature of the Prakrits, namely the loss of consonants coming between vowels, is missing.+++(4)+++ The forms are close to Sanskrit and also to what some scholars have called prakritisins or prakriticisms.

D (1979:10) asserts that the very words cited as apabhramśas of go are “found in the Jaina Ardhamāgadhi texts” and “some” can be traced in the Pāli canon." He refers to Gandhi 1927: Intro. p. 72 and Pischel 1965: 6 as his sources for this information. However, Gandhi records occurrences of only gāvi and goņi (with gona as a masculine variant) from Ardha-māgadhi literature. Pischel too does the same. The two forms and gotā and gopotalikā, in which the intervocalic consonants have not disappeared, can at least equally be quoted words, loan words or fossil words in the Prakrits or words that occurred only in certain dialects of Sanskrit-dialects we would probably consider non-standard, given our current, relatively narrow, understanding of “Sanskrit” as a language name. It is especially hard to think of gopotalikā as a genuine Prakrit form. 6. About the ‘post-vedic period nearer to the rise of Jainism and Buddhism’ specifically, this is what D says:

D (1979: 41-55): “[The Buddhist use of the word ariya) represents an attempt on the part of Buddha to create a new concept of Aryanhood, and to combat the conservative concept of Aryanhood held in the Brahmanical traditions. (Cf. D 1993:5]. It is the self-assertion of the segment of Indian society which perhaps represents historically a mixed non-Vedic population, whose claims to Aryanhood were never accepted by the orthodox Brahmanical traditions. … Buddha must have considered his own dialect superior to that of the Brahmins, as he considered his own Ksatriya rank superior to theirs. [Cf. D 1993: 5] This must be so; only on this interpretation can we explain why the Pāli Buddhist tradition came to view Päli to be the supreme original language of all beings including gods. …

[On the Jain side] The historical implication of [the Pannavaņā-sutta) passage seems to be that, according to the Jainas, Aryanization could come about by means of any of these factors [: region, birth, clan, function, profession, language, wisdom, realization and conduct]. … The Brahmanical systems themselves had indeed incorporated Aryanized indigenous peoples to a certain extent, and yet the Brahmanical system was much more conservative as compared to Jaina and Buddhist social perspectives. … [in] the Brahmanical conception … The Aryas mainly reside in Aryāvartta…. seven of these regions listed by Baudhāyana as “impure” and having ‘mixed populations” are included in the Jaina list of Aryan lands. … The Jainas are not using Brahmanical categories to describe society. The Brahmins nowhere appear among Aryans by birth. … the center of sociocultural prestige among the Outer Aryans was defined precisely in non-Brahmanical terms. It is not clear whether the Brahmanical traditions would accept any non-Sanskrit language as an Aryan language. … the seeds of a regional, social and cultural conflict were present, and the conflict concerning the status of their languages was only a part of the larger conflicts."

As far as I know, there is no evidence available which would enable us to assume that the Jains and Bauddhas were Sūdras or Anāryas ’non-Aryan’ in Brahmanical cyes. The Sramanic groups might have been avaidika ’non-Vedic for the Brahmins but not necessarily Anārya, Mleccha, Barbara, Dāsa or Dasyu.

To look at the matter from the point of view of the other side, the Jains and the Buddhists do not seem to have criticized the Brahmanical authors for leaving them out of the Arya category. Also, contrary to what we would expect after coming to know the philosophies of Jainism and Buddhism, there is no indication of any special empathy on the part of the Jains and Buddhists toward the Mlecchas (Halbfass 1988: 187–189) or toward the Vaisyas and Sūdras for that matter.

  • *Pannavaņā-sutta lists of Aryas:
    • (a) r̥ddhi-prāpta ’exalted."
    • (b) anrddhi-prăpta ‘unexalted,’ subdivided into:
      • (i) region,
      • (ii) birth, jätyārya /jati-ariya = Ambattha (= Ambaştha), Kalinda - (Kālinda), Videha (Vaideha), Vedaga, Hariya Harita), Cumcuna (Cumcu),
      • (iii) clan, kulārya / kulāriya = Ugga (= Ugra), Bhoga (= Bhoja Bhojaka), Rā.iņņa (= Rajanya), Ikkhāga (= Ikşvāku), Nāta (= Jnāta), Koravva (= Kauravya),
      • (iv) function,
      • (v) profession,
      • (vi) language,
      • (vii) wisdom,
      • (viii) realization,
      • (ix) conduct
    • Some of the identifications in (ii) and (iii) have been provided by Deshpande. Kālinda, Harita, and Bhoja/Bhojaka come from me. Cumcu is the suggestion of Professor Michael Witzel.

In their surviving literature too, the engagement witnessed is overwhelmingly with the Brahmins and Kşatriyas.

Let us also ask if there are sufficient grounds in the Buddha’s and Jina’s opposition to Brahmanical social ranking for them to feel a need to redefine ārya. First, what we should note is that this opposition is quite specific as befits the careful thinkers that the Buddha and Jina were. There is clear evidence of rejecting supremacy based solely on birth in the Brahmin class as almost every serious student of the Pāli and Ardha-magadhī canons knows, and there is inarguable evidence of not allowing the Brahmin to be ranked ahead of the Ksatriya as D (1993: 6) notes. However, what D should have also noted is that there is no rejection of the four social classes as a system or of the spiritually advanced or ’true’ Brahmin as supreme, and that it is the worldly, nonspiritual or spiritually unadvanced Brahmin (such as the one serving as a minister, messenger or interlocutor) who is indicated or stated to be not ahead of the Ksatriya. It would have been blatantly inconsistent for the Buddha and Jina to deny supremacy based on birth to the Brahmins and then to assert the same in the case of the Kşatriyas. Neither they for the contemporary society comes across as being so naive as not to catch such a contradiction. The Brahmins too ranked a Brahmin employed in someone’s service as low.

Nor is there any evidence of contemporary Brahmanical authors taking umbrage at the Jain and Buddhist assignment of primacy to spirituality (Laddu .1992: 722–724). This indicates that the disagreement was principally in the arena of practice, as distinct from theory, but the Brahmanical community did not feel threatened by a Jain or Buddhist social agenda beyond the fact that, in becoming Jain or Buddhist monks and nuns, members of the mainstream community were losing their ‘proper’ varņa and āśrama. In other words, it is not the disturbance within the ordinary society that seems to worry the Brahmanical thinkers as far as their relationship with the Jains and Buddhists goes. It is what happens between the mainstream society and the renunciate community as a result of Jain and Buddhist preachings that causes them concern. In the eyes of the Brahmanical thinkers, more members of the mainstream society than the truly eligible and ‘ripe ones were being taken into the renunciate community and, to that extent, the mainstream society was becoming weak and the renunciate community was adding to social problems. A consideration of whether the Brahmanical thinkers were justified in this perception of the situation need not detain us here, but we do owe it to ourselves as historians to note as precisely as possible the nature of what they did not approve of in the Jain and Buddhist teachings.

In consonance with the foregoing reading of the evidence is the fact that, when our ancient sources speak of varņa-samkara ‘genetic mixing of social classes’, the Jains and the Buddhists do not figure as culprits.

  1. A possible piece of evidence intended by D to establish that the Brahmanical concept of Arya was conservative could be Manu 10.73:

anāryam ārya-karmāṇam áryam çānārya-karmiņam /
sampradharyābravid dhātā na samau nāsamāv iti //
“Having considered the case of a non-Aryan who acts like an Aryan, and that of an Aryan who acts like a non-Aryan, the creator declared, ‘Those two are neither equal nor unequal.’ ”

D (1979: 53) takes this as implying that, according to the Brahmanical tradition, acting like an Aryan cannot make a non-Aryan an Aryan. However, would Manu, regarding whose preference for Arya there can be no doubt, have responded the way he does- like a hung, undecided jury- if a certain mentality and conduct were not a part of his criterion of aryatva? Would he have rather not said that the question of āryatva does not arise or that an Arya is superior, no matter what? It is precisely because he recognizes the possibility of an Anārya being eligible for Arya treatment and of an Arya losing his claim for such treatment that he takes the position that no generalization be made. This understanding of Manu’s position is supported by Manu 7.211 and 10.58.

Another Manu verse to which D refers is 10.57:

varṇāpetam avijñātam naram kaluşa-yonijam /
ārya-rūpam ivānāryam karmabhiḥ svair vibhāvayet //
“One should cause a man who is not an Arya (but) has, as it were, the look of an Arya to appear (in his true identity, that is, one should trace out a man of possible but doubtful membership in the Arya community) through (one’s own (testing) actions or his) own actions (or responses)—a man) who is not associated with any varṇa, who is not specifically known (to oneself and) who is born of obscure parentage.”

I think D (1979: 118 note 173) does injustice to the verse by concentrating only on its third quarter–ārya-rūpam ivānāryam–and interpreting it merely as an expression of the possibility of a “non-Aryan person who may look exactly like an Aryan.” The verse does refer to appearance as Ārya of someone who (in Manu’s view) is not an Arya. However, this appearance need not be only in terms of what we may call racial, physical or bodily features. It could also be in terms of dress, mannerisms, speech, behaviour or conduct, etc. Secondly, the rest of the words in the verse make it clear that Manu is talking about a person whom he considers to be born in a society in which varṇa designations are not conferred and in whose case the process of varṇa-saṅkara has gone so far that not even a relative varṇa determination can be made. And what criterion does Manu advise us to apply to arrive at a determination? karmans ‘actions and the presence or absence of mental qualities mentioned in the next verse (especially, nişṭhuratā, krūrată, nişkriyātmatā).

  1. One must also remember in this context that, in the ‘historical perspective of Manu and other Brahmanical thinkers, there are no natural Anāryas. All Anāryas64 were Aryas in a pristine past; they had descended to their present status because of failure to observe a certain mode of thinking and behaviour, especially the varṇa social class’ norms.

Note also that the early literatures of both the Buddhists and the Jains simply apply the term Arya. They do not seem to be concerned that they may be misunderstood and hence should clarify the racially or ethnically non-restrictive sense they are said to have in mind. A juxtaposition of the current sense and the sense they prefer to read in the term is not found, as it is found (cf. Mālavaniyā 1983: 20-25) in the case of Brāhmaṇa, yajña and sauca in the Pāli and Ardha-māgadhi canons. The impression one gets is that an easily understood and already respectable term has been picked up from the street and used.

Moreover, in the Jain list of Aryas (note 3), no common logical basis or application of a specific set of criteria can be detected. All we have are groupings which need not be mutually exclusive. This would hardly be the situation if the Jains had a fundamentally or significantly different kind of understanding of Arya to put forward-an essentially philosophical or theoretical stance to defend. Especially, why would they retain categories such as jātyārya ‘Aryan by birth’ and kulārya ‘Aryan by clan’?

Furthermore, the Buddhists and Jains can be viewed as interested in increasing the number of Buddhists and Jains. Why would they be interested in increasing the number of Aryas, unless the designation Ārya had already become a tool in gaining respectability or earning positive publicity? + LLL JL LI ALL ET V TL 9. How does one, then, account for the evidence recorded by D, which shows a greater number of geographical, professional etc. entries in the referential domain of Jain Arya than in that of the Brahmanical Arya spoken of by authors such as Baudhayana, Patañjali and Manu? First one must note that the interpretation put by D (1979: 43–53, 1993: 9-13) on the Jain list reproduced in note 3 above is problematic. If a text presents list A and list B, with the latter divided into several sublists according to certain headings, it does not necessarily follow that the items in list A are inadmissible in list B on “any’s one of the characteristics mentioned in list B. The possibility still remains open that the author of the lists already knew what was to be included in list A and what in list B, that he had no interest in classifying list A and that he saw some gain in classifying list B. His decision regarding the contents of A need not be based on the bases of classification in B. As long as A and B are mutually exclusive in their totality his purpose can be viewed as having been served. Secondly, headings or bases of classification are not the same as criteria. Headings can have a pragmatic orientation, whereas criteria are exclusivistic in nature. Thus, in grouping the Aryas under fddhi-prāpta ’exalted’ and anțddhi LL TI FV TE TILL I A Different Sociolinguistics for Brahmins, Buddhists and Jains 65 LLLL 2 21 TUT LE i T 1 L 1 E II TYY A L YIY 2 . LIZI I VII + 22 1TT LLL L + r z LLC prāpta “unexalted’ and the latter under region, birth, clan, function, profession, language, wisdom, realization and conduct, the intention of the Pannavaņā-sutta author can simply be one of collecting or preserving the two sets of information he came to know. It need not be one of attempting a theoretical or logical determination of who an Arya is.. That this indeed was the case is indicated by the absence of a common logical basis for the nine subsets (the last three arise out of Jain teachings and the first six out of extraneous considerations), by the partial overlap in the meanings of classification headings such as (a) birth and clan and (b) function and profession, and by the absence of agricultural professionals, regarding the ethicality of which the Jains had much reason to be concerned.” This being the situation, the implication scen by D in the list, namely that “according to the Jains, Aryanization could come about by means of any of” the listed factors, cannot be drawn. Besides, if the list were to be interpreted as he suggests, the entry to Aryanhood would be next to impossible to control for the Jains. Non-Aryans could become Aryans simply by moving into the Aryan regions, and the so-called Mleccha communities could claim to be communities with Aryan majority in terms of functions and professions. There would ultimately be no gain in formulating a definition of “Arya.” The Pannavanā-sutta author’s purpose in presentir:g the lists must, therefore, be different from what D has taken it to be. It must be to inform the sutta readers about the contemporary state of affairs, (a) by drawing attention to those details lich do not follow from the common understanding of who an Arya is and (b) by drawing attention to specifically Jain applications of the common under standing Also significant in this context is the fact that there is no evidence of Jain or Buddhist opposition to the term Āryāvarta itseif or of any Jain or Buddhist attempi to redefine the term. If the Jains or Buddhists had changed the meaning of Arya in any fundamental way, if they had prepared exclusivistic (albeit longer) lists of Āryas by region and if these Aryas were different from the inhabitants of Aryävarta, would the term āryāvarta have totaily escaped their criticism or redefinition? A closer examination of the Pannavaņā-sutta list reveals that the list, in fact, UL + LIEL L2L IT TIT JL . T11 TI 12 LVL 11 IT LL VV14 LT T 1 TTT 2 ET TIT TIS " * *Agriculture invariably involved violence, but it could not be avoided for that reason. Non-violence had an especially strong presence in Jain spirituality, a notion inseparabic from äryatva in the present context. If a Jain author was redefining āryatva logically or in a way fundamentally different from that of the Brahınins, he would have found it impossible not to make a reference to the agricultural professionals . 66 Contemporary Views on Indian Civilization V ILL II G

.. LT 11

T TH + T H I furnishes evidence of Jain interest in following developments in Brahmanism and of Jain willingness to accept the Brahmanical changes in varṇa association. In the list of Jātyārya/Jāti-ariya ‘Aryas by birth’ and Kulārya/Kulāriya ‘Āryas by clan’ (D 1979:50), we have no general varṇa names. All we have are relatively specific names of groups or clans within varṇas. Thus, the list shows the same feature as the Brahmin lists of inter-varma (anuloma and pratiloma) groups, Further, in the case of three names in the Pannavanā-sutta’s Jātyārya and Kulārya categories, we see an uncanny correspondence. Ambattha and Videha, having the potential to lay claim to brahminhood,’ are together in the Jātyārya catcgory with other names that sound like names of Brahmins of refer to groups having a Brahmin element in them (see note 3 above). On the other hand, Ugra, bom of a Kşatriya father, is in a category consisting of Kșatriyas only. It is highly improbable that such correspondence could be a mere coincidence. That Kulāryas consist only of Ksatriyas and Jātyāryas consist only of Brahmins constitutes an implicit recognition of the varṇa system and a highly interesting acknowledgement of the principle that, as a criterion of varṇa assignment, birth is more important in the case of a Brahmin than that of a Ksatriya, . one could be a Brahmin only through conception in a Brahmin family, but ono could be a Ksatriya even if conceived anuloma outside a Kşatriya family and brought up in a Kșatriya family or like a Kșatriya. ROT-’

12 11 1 10

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  1. Thus, the Jains and the Buddhists were not the first ones to transport the term le physical-racial or narrowly ethnic domain to that of spirituality (if. in fact, such a transporting took place). Language status could have depended on the designation Arya, but not on redefining Arya. The Brahmins, Jains and Buddhists generally understood what constituted aryatva and shared that under standing in all important respects if not in every detail or emphasis. Āryatva was not exclusively or primarily associated with language, although some languages could have come to be associated with the groups that came to be known as Āryas as their languages and as especially valued languages. The component more important and fundamental than language in the understanding of Arya seems to have been the mode of living and thinking. This is where the evidence from all U VY
  1. It is more instructive that the Jain and Buddhist mode of claiming a special status for their canonical languages is Brahmanical than the fact that a special status is claimed. To hold that Ardha-māgadhi is a language of gods, īşis, or Āryas is essentially similar to the view held in the Brahmanical tradition on behalf of (what we call) Sanskrit. The view, furthermore, fits naturally in the Brahmanical tradition and hence must be present in it at an earlier period and must have been taken over in the Jain tradition. Likewise, to say that Pāli is a language of all living beings is a continuation of the kind of thinking which is implicit in the Brahmanical connecting of Sanskrit with the Language Principle through the TITA LIF T
  1. A view like D’s of Bralunin puritanism or conservatism and of the Brahmins’ ability to influence society is extreme, static and one-sided. There is usually no recognition in such a view of the undeniable historical reality that there were various kinds of Brahmins, whose interests and notions about their relative standing in society are unlikely to have always coincided. There is also no recognition of what the Brahmins achieved in the area of race relations or spread of the Aryan, Vedic or Sanskritic culture to southern and eastern India. One must see in the Brahmins’ linguistic behaviour the possibility that they could be making a sagacious use of white lies—that they could have had (a) a well-thought-out view of social change and (b) institutions necessary to implement that view. Without discounting the possibility that their motives could have had a selfish political-economic underbelly, one must attribute to them some decency, some vision, and some capacity for flexibility. Otherwise, how could they have achieved what they did while remaining a minority with no direct control over physical power and with no passion or egalitarianism necessary for increasing their number and without giving rise to any long class warfare? In spite of their exclusivism and emphasis on purity in diet, marital relations etc., the Brahmins were probably not all that puritanical or lacking in diversity. Their puritanism in the period we have considered could have been highly pragmatic, probably directed more toward assimilating communities through a step-by-step process than toward excluding them.
  • 7 This possibility is yet to be proved with strong evidence in the case of the period with which we are concerned. Yet one may entertain it because there is frequently a gap between what the leaders of social groups proclaim and what they actually intend or do.

REFERENCES

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  • Mālavaniyā, Dalasukha. 1983. Jaināgama aura Pāḷi-pitaka-gata kucha samāna visayon kī carcă. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Post-graduate and Research Department Series No. 19. Acharya Dharmananda Kosambi Memorial Lectures [First Series]. Hindi.
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