why do different shakhas have different content even in samhitas? i can understand if they differ in brahmanas aranyakas etc but shouldnt the core once fixed be immutable?
… Finally, the second question of why are saMhitA-s divergent: Anyone who understands molecular evolution will see this as entirely unsurprising. The original vaidika tradition was entirely oral; even the early switches to writing affected only some like kANva. Unlike certain white indologists, we hold that at the time of the shAkhA divergence, the people still spoke the accented register of the language, not classical Skt, leave alone a vulgar prAkR^ita as those indologists would have it. Hence, when an oral text is transmitted there would be the usual phenomenon of mutation: insertions, deletions, substitutions by homophonic or homosemic words. There will also be incomplete sorting & incorporation of family traditions that went into saMhitA collections. So there was divergence from all this.
However, though they might be divergent, it should be stressed that they are broadly concordant in terms of material – even be tween schools – say parallels between jaiminIya, shatpatha and gopatha brAhmaNa-s.
Drift in verses
Source: TW
The paTha-bheda-s are typical of oral tradition. In the early phase alternative turns of the phrase that match the meter are adopted by different reciters. In the late phase, when