Two lectures on Vedic language and culture

15.15– 15.45
Roland Pooth (Cologne), The supine-with-raised-knees burial posture: Early Vedic textual traces

Abstract: It is well-known among archeologists and anthropologists that the supine-with-raised-knees position and the strewing of reddish ochre on the grave floor are distinctive features of Ponto-Caspian steppe burials beginning with the Khvalynsk culture (Late Khvalynsk is dated to around 3950-3800 BC, cf. Anthony 2007: 275). This burial rite was practiced in an extant area for a very long period (cf. Anthony 2007: 274, 408f.) and is also typical of burials of the Yamnaya horizon (datable to around 3300-2500 BC, cf. Anthony 2007: 304) and later cultures of that area.

Dr Pooth's will discuss text passages of the R̥gveda and Atharvaveda that seem to point to steppe burial rites in times of the pitáras ‘forefathers’.

[Anthony, David (2007): The horse, the wheel and language. How bronze-age riders from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the modern world. Princeton and Oxford.]

15.45– 17.00
Karl Praust (Vienna), Br̥haspati, the “Great Lord” of the R̥gveda

Abstract: Among the "minor" Vedic deities, Br̥haspati holds an important, if ambivalent position: In the oldest Indian text corpus, the R̥gveda (RV), seven entire hymns and several larger text portions are addressed exclusively to him. His name occurs no less than 122 times there (and if one adds his "pseudonym" Brahmaṇaspati, the number of hymns increases to twelve, the number of individual attestations to well over 170). The Atharva- and Yajurveda add dozens of further attestations, as do the Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras. But by the time of these latter texts, the picture seems to have changed quite dramatically, for neither does Br̥haspati play a significant role in the all-pervading ritual (with the exception of the vājapeya-, the ritualized horse-race), nor is he even reckoned among the canonical gods. In the Brāhmaṇas, he is sometimes even expressly contrasted with them, in that he acts as the officiating priest for the 33 (= all the) gods. Moreover, there are clear indications that he was conceived of as a human being, as a seer of the remote past (for example, he figures as an ancient forefather within the family trees of certain Vedic clans in the pravara- (“pedigree”) lists of the Śrautasūtras).

It will be the objective of Dr Praust's talk to reinvestigate – and in the end, to thoroughly rewrite – the story of this alleged god and his oldest foundations within the Veda. First and foremost, this means showing that Br̥haspati was no name and, accordingly, there was no deity that went by the name Br̥haspati, neither in the R̥gveda nor in later times. Surprising as it may sound: The most prominent feature of the character Br̥haspati in the R̥gveda is his NON-EXISTENCE.