It is unfortunately clear that the ritual as it is presented to us in the ritual Sūtras, in general and often very minute accord with the texts of the Samhitās of the Yajurveda and Sāmaveda, is not precisely that which is contemplated by the hymns of the Rigveda. The divergences which can be proved, even with the comparatively scanty material available, are such as to cause it to be necessary to recognize that in many cases, where there is nothing available to show difference, the ritual may yet have considerably altered between the period of the collection, and still more the composition of the hymns, and the collections of the Yajus formulae and the Samans. The result, of course, is only what must be expected: the ritual in the Sūtras shows alterations as compared with the texts on which it is based: the priests were restless personages, far from content with merely following out a traditional ritual. They were given to reflection on the ritual, and to discussions of its meaning as is proved to the hilt by the Brāhmaṇas, and as a result we must regard the whole of the Vedic period as one of steady modification in detail of the rite. That the modification was only in detail we have every reason to believe: it is proved for the period from the later Samhitas to the Sutras, as we can see that the ritual presupposed by the former is very closely similar in all essentials to that laid down by the latter, while for the period of the Rigveda the many similarities between the expressions of the hymns and the actual practice of the later ritual is conclusive of an ordered development, free from any catastrophic change.
It has also to be remembered that there are recorded in the Rigveda hymns from many families, and that we must assume that there existed according to the divisions of these families variations in the ritual and in the terminology, helped doubtless by considerations of metre which evidently weighed a good deal with the poets. The Rigveda contains in some places almost a superabundance of technical terms,2 the precise point of which we cannot always now determine. The number of priests engaged is proof of the already high complication of the ritual. We have the names Hotṛ, Adhvaryu, Avayās, Agnimindha, Grāvagrābha, and Śanstṛ in one place, and Hotṛ, Potṛ, Neṣtr, Agnidh, Praśāstṛ, Adhvaryu, and Brahman in another. In other
1 Cf. Oldenberg, GGA. 1907, pp. 221 ff.; 1908, pp. 711 ff.
• Hillebrandt, Rituallitteratur, PP. 11-19.
Chap. 17]
The Ritual in the Rigveda
253
passages we find Upavaktṛ, Udagrābha, Purohita, Sāmagas, Samanyas, and the two Śamitrs. Of these the Udagrābha and Grāvagrābha disappear as such in the later ritual: their manual acts became doubtless of less moment, and were left to the assistants of the Adhvaryu: the Upavaktṛ or Praśastṛ became the Maitrāvaruṇa, and his duty of giving to the Hotṛ the direction to recite his verses is expressly mentioned.1 Moreover, we find the clear distinction already made between the recitations of the Hotṛs to which the words uktha and śans apply and the songs of the Saman singers which are distinguished by the use of the Gayatri and Pragātha metres, and by the frequent use of triads of verses for singing as strophes. For the Adhvaryus there were no doubt prose formulae: the long sets of verses which the Yajurveda provides for them are never hinted at.
The hymns of the Hotṛs were evidently even at this period united into litanies, Ukthas, and in the litanies were inserted the formulae called Nivids, celebrating the gods who were to enjoy the offering; the term Puroruc, which later means merely a Nivid in a different place from the usual Nivid, is also mentioned: even the curious breaking up and transposing of a verse in recitation which is common later (viharaṇa) is mentioned, it seems, in jest.3 The Nivids are not preserved for us in the Rigveda, but they are extant in a collection, and it was asserted by Haug that they take us to an earlier stage in the offering than the Rigveda itself; this is not borne out by their form and contents; while the Nivids of the Rigveda must often have been similar to those preserved, the latter are elaborated and later in date. The Saman singers were already divided into the two classes of Udgatṛs and Prastotṛs at least: the Samans, or tunes, Bṛhat and Rathantara were known, perhaps also others like the Śākvara: as in the ritual, the Sāmans were sung to the verses used by the Hotṛs in some degree at least. The Śakvari verses preserved only in the Samaveda were known. The technical terms are found in which the Adhvaryu in the ritual is asked to give the word for the recitation to begin, and his response, and the frequent formulae astu śrauṣaṭ,” vaṣaṭ, and svāhā. But one class of priest which is found in the later ritual, the Brahman as overseer of the whole sacrifice, is not recognized in most, if not the whole, of the Rigveda; the Brahman mentioned there seems to be the priest later distinguished from the Brahman as Brāhmaṇācchansin, and the Purohita of the king, who is mentioned in the Rigveda as securing rain by an offering, probably was at this stage of the offering ready to perform the part of one of the priests, not to supervise the whole. At this time we may fairly say that the importance of the ceremony must have belonged to the
8
1 RV. ix. 95, 5.
8
- Oldenberg, ZDMG. xxxviii. 489 ff.; cf.
xlii. 246.
• RV. vi. 67. 10 as rendered by Ludwig,
Rigveda, iii. 222.
Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, i. 36 ff. For the text see Scheftelowitz Die Apokryphen des
Rgveda, pp. 136–41.
• Oldenberg, Religion des Veda’, p. 387, n. 2.
• śañsāvādhvaryo and prati gṛṇthi, RV.
iii. 53. 8.
’ RV. i. 189.
• RV, x. 98.
254
Vedic Ritual
[Part III
Hotr, as the composer of the hymns, rather than to any other priest. The name Hotṛ, which is the Avestan Zaotar, carries us a step farther back in the ritual when the priest was called by the name he bore from his performing the actual offering,1 but the Hotṛ, who first meant offerer, had by the time of the Rigveda left to the Adhvaryu the actual manual work of the sacrifice. With this complication of the sacrifice it well accords that it seems clear that the practice was well established for Vedic priests to wander here and there, giving their services for hire for the performance of offerings. The formal choice of the priest (rtvig-varana) which is known from the later ritual is clearly alluded to in the Rigveda.
The nature of the sacrifice appears clearly from the number of priests mentioned: it was as dealt with in the Rigveda an elaborate procedure destined for the advantage of some rich patron, prince, or noble, or wealthy commoner: the term Vivasvant here and there seems given in honour to the mortal sacrificer, as the priests liken themselves to the gods in their activity. The Vedic ritual and the Rigveda alike know no temple service or abiding places of worship: the altar, Vedi, is made in the house of the offerer: before it is placed the fire which is said to sit upon it: the pressing stones are there, and there the bunch of grass, which is gathered in the early morning in the east, and to which the gods are invited to come and sit down. The two altars2 of the later ritual are here reduced to one only: this is in accord with the obvious fact that in the later rite the duplication of altars is artificial. The fire was carefully kindled by friction, and then placed in three separate places within the altar ground: one only, the Garhapatya, appears by name in the Rigveda, but Hillebrandt 3 has attempted to prove that the later Ahavaniya and Daksina are to be found in the Vaiśvanara and Narāśañsa or Kravyavā- hana, though not with convincing evidence. The taking of the fire from one fire altar to another as later on is referred to. Thrice a day was honour paid to the fire with sacrifice, wood, and hymns. Mention is made of the ladle, Sruc, and two Darvis used in making the offerings to the gods, around which fire was borne, doubtless as a magic purificatory spell. Among the offerings appear milk, butter, grain, and cakes, and animal offerings of the goat, bull, cow, sheep, and the horse. The last offering must already have been performed with stately ceremony: the hymns devoted to it mention the hewing and ornamenting of the post, the goat slain to precede the steed on the way to its last abode, the golden coverlet put on the horse, the cooking of its flesh, and the division of the pieces to the eager priests.
In the case of the Soma sacrifice, which in the Rigveda is the most important of all, the parallelism to the later offering is marked. There are clearly three pressings of the Soma, morning, noon, and night, the first and
1 From hu, ‘pour’; Macdonell, Vedic Grammar, § 146. As early as Yāska (Nir. iv. 26; vii. 15) it was derived from hve, ’ call,’ as well as from hu (Aurṇa-
vābha’s view). Cf. AB. i. 2.
- Vedi and Uttaravedi, * High Altar.’ * Ved. Myth. ii. 98 ff.
Chap. 17]
The Ritual in the Rigveda
255
last possibly denoted by the later obsolete terminology Prapitva and Abhipitva.1 The metres Gāyatri, Triṣṭubh, and Jagati are divided as later among the three pressings. The Rbhus have as later a place in the evening, Indra and the Maruts in the middle pressing: the morning pressing later seems to have been extended in effect. The Soma was pressed and mixed as later: the terminology here seems to have changed: apparently in the Rigveda it was mixed with water in the Kośa, then placed in two similar bowls, the Camûs, and there mixed with milk and afterwards poured into Kalaśas for its use at the rite; in the ritual texts the Kośa is replaced by the Adhavaniya or mixing vessel, one of the Camûs became assimilated to it in material, clay, and became the Putabhṛt, ‘containing purified Soma,’ the other was called the Droṇakalaśa,’ wooden vessel. Grahas in both early and late ritual were used for the offerings to the gods. Even the Pravargya ceremony of the heating of milk in a pot was known, and such details as the offering of a cake to Agni Sviṣṭakṛt at the end of the rite.
3
Besides Soma, Surā and honey were used in offerings: in the later ritual the former is used in the Sautrāmaṇī and Vājapeya rites, of which the former seems to be known to the Rigveda, while the latter appears only in the Vājapeya.
The giving of gifts to the priest at the end of the rite was evidently fully appreciated and valued, to judge from the repeated references to the practice, and the glorification of the faith which induces the sacrificer to bestow largesse.
Moreover, there is no doubt that in the Rigveda we have sets of hymns intended for use at the sacrifice as well as material less intimately connected with the sacrifice. Proof beyond doubt of this is afforded by the occurrence of series of verses which are used later at the Prauga Śastra of the Agniṣṭoma, and which must have from the beginning had their place there. The Apri hymns for the fore-offerings of the animal sacrifice, preserved in the different books of the Rigveda, are an invaluable proof of the difference of family tradition, which is obscured in the ritual text-books which we have. Other cases are clearly proved: thus we seem to have in one hymn a collection of Anuvākyā and Yajya verses for the offering to Agni and Soma of the goat which is an essential element in the Agniṣṭoma rite: 5 there is further a set of Anuvākyā verses for the cakes offered at each of the three pressings of the Soma sacrifice,a and for the offering of the pot of curd." One hymn clearly was meant for use at the anointing of the sacrificial post, others at the kindling of the fire. Still more interesting is the fact that the later practice of having sets of three verses to open the Vaiśvadeva Śastra is clearly found already in
1 Bloomfield, JAOS. xvi. 24 ff.; Oldenberg,
SBE. xlvi. 188 ff.
• Oldenberg, ZDMG. Ixii. 459–70; Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, ii. 518, 514.
- Garbe, ZDMG. xxxiv. 819 ff.
8
‹ RV. i. 2, 3, 23 &c.; Hillebrandt, Fed.
Myth.i. 250.
’ RV. i. 93. ‘RV. iii. 28, 52.
- RV. x. 179.
• RV. iii. 8.
• RV. v. 28; iii. 27.256
Vedic Ritual
[Part III
2
4
3
force.1 The end verses of the litanies, the Paridhāniyās, seem to be found in the Rigveda, but the further suggestions of Bergaigne 3 as to the tradition of the different schools open up difficulties not yet fully solved, indeed insoluble. The chief point in which the Rigveda gives little parallelism with the later ritual is the household ceremonies of all kinds. There are indeed traces of hymns made for such occasions as the ploughing, the return of the cattle from the pasture, their driving in and driving out, but these are almost isolated. There are, however, hymns for marriage’ and the funeral ritual,® and a few hymns dealing with magic rites, such as the removal of jaundice by the sun," the prevention of miscarriage,10 and the prognostication of misfortune.11
5
6
The imperfection of the record of the Rigveda renders it necessary in any account of the Vedic ritual to deal with the ritual, as it stands in the later Samhitās and the Brāhmaṇas, and as it is set out in full detail in the Sūtras, while using the Rigveda wherever possible to explain in how far the views of that collection agree with the ideas later prevalent. This fact exposes it to certain danger: it is perfectly true that much which is recorded later is clearly old, and is omitted in the Rigveda, mainly because that collection is only concerned with a limited portion of religious practice. On the other hand, religion is in the constant process of change, and things recorded first in the later texts may be new inventions.
1 RV. v. 82. 1–3, and 4–6.
- Hillebrandt, GGA. 1889, p. 421.
3 Recherches sur l’histoire de la liturgie védique (Paris, 1888 and 1889).
He
takes viii. 6, 81, 82, as intended for the Atirātra, i. 92 for the Prātaranuvāka and so on. For other guesses see Hubert and Mauss, Année sociol. ii. 80, n. 2, 98, n. 7.
• RV. iv. 57.
- RV. vi. 28, according to AGS. ii, 10. 7.
• RV. v. 112; x. 169.
’ RV. x. 85.
• RV. x. 14-18.
• RV. i. 50.
1o RV. v. 78. 7–9; KŚS. xxv. 10. 5. 11 RV. ii. 42 and 43.