Brahmanical Culture in Ancient India

Objectives

This project seeks to reconstruct the transformations of the Brahmin priesthood during the millennium and a half following the urbanization of the Ganges Valley (roughly, 6th c. BCE - 10th c. CE), focussing on the codification of domestic ceremonies and deity cults, the mechanisms for the transmission of Brahmanical knowledge, and the role of patronage in facilitating the spread of the tradition. Among the religious networks that played a major role were the Brahmin teachers who redefined the Vedic tradition for a broader clientele and helped to propagate the use of Sanskrit as a definitive mark of Ârya social status, as well as sectarian movements like the Pâsupatas, ascetics who carried Brahmanical knowledge abroad. The aim is to provide a thorough description and analysis of the process by examining previously neglected normative and liturgical texts, and by integrating the results of such studies with data drawn from inscriptions.

Materials and Methods

Two sets of materials will be examined: Brahmanical textual sources and epigraphy. The textual sources fall into two broad, sometimes overlapping, categories of works that represent key contexts for innovations in priestly norms: (1) the codes of domestic ritual (Grhya-Sutras = GSs) and the earliest Dharma law codes; and (2) early texts associated with the cults of Rudra-Siva and Vishnu. Selected works will be taken as case studies within the larger program.

The major textual study being undertaken here concerns the Baudhâyana-Grhya-Sûtra, one of the longest and most important of its genre, which will be edited critically and translated for the first time (with the help of several IFP manuscripts). This study aims to identify the strategies of the redactors of this composite text in adapting Vedic ritual formats to accommodate a wider range of situations and settings, and to highlight the features that both foreshadow and complement the emerging Dharma literature.

Two articles are being prepared on elements in the Dharma literature that illuminate the efforts to institutionalize Brahmanical status markers and ritual mechanisms as high-status standards in society generally and in secular legal contexts in particular. The first of these articles compares the scope of applicability of ritual expiations (prâyascitta) in comparison with legally imposed punishments; the second examines the special status of the graduate of Vedic study (snâtaka), and its eventual eclipse in the Dharma literature.

With regard to sectarian developments within the Brahmanical tradition, the Nîlarudra-Upanisad and the Atharvasiras, short works connected with early forms of Rudra cult, including the Pâsupata, have be edited and studied, with analysis of their function of grounding new sectarian trends in Vedic tradition and Brahmin authority. Studies of other such sectarian works are planned.

At the same time, the results of the textual studies are being read against the early inscriptional record, to track (1) the distribution of benefaction among various Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical groups by region, period, and type of donor; (2) the languages used in the inscriptions (Sanskrit, a regional vernacular, or both), as well as the formulaic elements used in them; and (3) the markers of social or sectarian status among donors and recipients. Aside from an initial set of reflections on this topic that has been completed (in the Squarcini volume, below), this part of the project is still in the stage of data-collection and analysis.

Partners

Washington and Lee University

Funding

French Institute of Pondicherry Research in India was funded by a Fulbright-Hays faculty research fellowship from the CIES (U.S. Department of Education) (July 2003-June 2004) and a U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship (July 2004-June 2005). A start-up grant was provided in 2002 by the American Academy of Religion. On-going work is supported by Washington and Lee University.

Team

Dr. Timothy LUBIN, Associate Professor, Department of Religion, and Director of the East Asian Studies Program, Washington and Lee University (USA).

Main Outputs

Chapters in books

• LUBIN T., 2007. The Nīlarudropaniùad and the Paippalādasaühitā: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Upaniùad and Nārāyaõa’s Dīpikā, In The Atharvaveda and its Paippalāda Śākhā: Historical and Philological Papers on a Vedic Tradition (ed. Griffiths A., Schmiedchen A.), Indologica Halensis = Geisteskultur Indiens. Texte und Studien 11 : 81-139.

• LUBIN.T., 2005. The Transmission, Patronage, and Prestige of Brahmanical Piety from the Mauryas to the Guptas, In Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia, edited by Federico Squarcini (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2005), pp. 77-103.

Articles

• LUBIN T., 2007. Punishment and Expiation: Overlapping Domains in Brahmanical Law, Indologica Taurinensia, 33 : 91–120.