User:Fowler&fowler/Sources on Rg Veda and Hinduism

I've added more sources to the sentence being disputed in this edit. I have not changed the wording, which in my judgment is the best one, balancing both scholarship and readability. The sentence is:

By 1200 BCE, an [[Proto-language|archaic form]] of [[Sanskrit]], an [[Indo-European language]], had [[Trans-cultural diffusion|diffused]] into India from the northwest, [[Oral transmission|unfolding]] as the language of the ''[[Rigveda]]'', and recording the dawning of [[Hinduism]] in India.

The Scholars

The cited authors are among the best around today. They are:

• John J. Lowe, is the Associate Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, and the author of Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit, OUP, 2015
• Michael Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard and the author of many works on archaic Sanskrit
• Wendy Doniger is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago. A translator of many Sanskirt selections, including the Rg Veda, she was the past president of the Association of Asian Studies.
• Gavin Flood is the Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion at Oxford University and the author and editor of many books on Hinduism
• Stephanie W. Jamison is a Distinguished Professor of Asian Religions and Indo-Iranian Literature at UCLA; she is the translator the the Rg Veda, Oxford University Press, 2020
• Joel Brereton, is a Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; he is the co-translater of the Rg Veda along with Stephanie Jamison.
• Axel Michaels is a Professor of Classical Indology and Religious Studies at Heidelberg University;
• Patrick Olivelle is a Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, and the translated of many works in Sanskrit, including the Oxford World Classics, Upanishads
• Tim Dyson is a historical demographer of South Asia, an Emeritus Professor of Population Studies at the London School of Economics, and the author of A Population History of India, Oxford University Press, 2018
• Peter Robb is the Emeritus Professor of South Asian history at the School of Oriental and African Studies, former chair of the department, and author of History of India, Macmillan, 2011
• David Ludden is a Professor of History at New York University, and the author of India and South Asia Oxford: One World 2013, and An Agrarian History of South Asia, Cambridge University Press, 1999. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:05, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
• the late Frits Staal was the department founder and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and South/Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

The citations with generous quotes added are:

Lowe

(a) Lowe, John J. (2015). Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit: The syntax and semantics of adjectival verb forms. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-0-19-100505-3. It consists of 1,028 hymns (suktas), highly crafted poetic compositions originally intended for recital during rituals and for the invocation of and communication with the Indo-Aryan gods. Modern scholarly opinion largely agrees that these hymns were composed between around 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, during the eastward migration of the Indo-Aryan tribes from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across the Punjab into north India.

Witzel I

Witzel, Michael (2008). "Vedas and Upanisads". In Gavin Flood (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 68–70. ISBN 978-0-470-99868-7. It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE); ... The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalized early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is in fact something of a tape-recording of ca. 1500–500 BCE. Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in Japanese) has been preserved up to the present. (pp. 68–69) ... The RV text was composed before the introduction and massive use of iron, that is before ca. 1200–1000 BCE. (p. 70)

Doniger

Doniger, Wendy (3 February 2014), On Hinduism, Oxford University Press, pp. xviii, 10, ISBN 978-0-19-936009-3, A Chronology of Hinduism: ca. 1500-1000 BCE Rig Veda; ca. 1200-900 BCE Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda (p. xviii); Hindu texts began with the Rig Veda ('Knowledge of Verses'), composed in northwest India around 1500 BCE (p. 10)

Jamison

Jamison, Stephanie; Brereton, Joel (2020), The Rigveda: A Guide, Oxford University Press, pp. 1, 2, 4, ISBN 978-0-19-063339-4, The Rgveda is a monumental text with signal significance for both world religion and world literature; yet it is comparatively little known outside a small band of specialists, even among those who study the religious traditions of India. The oldest Sanskrit text, composed probably in the latter half of the second millennium Bce, it stands, at least nominally, as the foundational text of what will later be called Hinduism, and one of its verses, the so-called Gayatri mantra, is part, at least nominally, of the daily practice of those initiated into Vedic learning. (p. 1) ... The RgVeda is one of the four Vedas, which together constitute the oldest texts in Sanskrit and the earliest evidence for what will become Hinduism. (p. 2) Although Vedic religion is very different in many regards from what is known as Classical Hinduism, the seeds are there. Gods like Visnu and Siva (under the name Rudra), who will become so dominant later, are already present in the Rgveda, though in roles both lesser than and different from those they will later play, and the principal Rgvedic gods like Indra remain in later Hinduism, though in diminished capacity (p. 4). (this is a guide, published in 2020; the actual translation was a behemoth three-volume set of 1,726 pages published in 2014 by OUP);

Flood I

Flood, Gavin (20 August 2020), "Introduction", in Gavin Flood (ed.), The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Practice: Hindu Practice, OUP Oxford, pp. 4–, ISBN 978-0-19-105322-1, I take the term 'Hinduism to meaningfully denote a range and history of practice characterized by a number of features, particularly reference to Vedic textual and sacrificial origins, belonging to endogamous social units (jati/varna), participating in practices that involve making an offering to a deity and receiving a blessing (puja), and a first-level cultural polytheism (although many Hindus adhere to a second-level monotheism in which many gods are regarded as emanations or manifestations of the one, supreme being).

Michaels

Michaels, Axel (2017). Patrick Olivelle, Donald R. Davis (ed.). The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 86–97. ISBN 978-0-19-100709-5. Almost all traditional Hindu families observe until today at least three samskaras (initiation, marriage, and death ritual). Most other rituals have lost their popularity, are combined with other rites of passage, or are drastically shortened. Although samskaras vary from region to region, from class (varna) to class, and from caste to caste, their core elements remain the same owing to the common source, the Veda, and a common priestly tradition preserved by the Brahmin priests. (p 86);

Dyson

Dyson, Tim (2018), A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, pp. 14–15, ISBN 978-0-19-882905-8 Quote: "Although the collapse of the Indus valley civilization is no longer believed to have been due to an ‘Aryan invasion’ it is widely thought that, at roughly the same time, or perhaps a few centuries later, new Indo-Aryan-speaking people and influences began to enter the subcontinent from the north-west. Detailed evidence is lacking. Nevertheless, a predecessor of the language that would eventually be called Sanskrit was probably introduced into the north-west sometime between 3,900 and 3,000 years ago. This language was related to one then spoken in eastern Iran; and both of these languages belonged to the Indo-European language family. ... It seems likely that various small-scale migrations were involved in the gradual introduction of the predecessor language and associated cultural characteristics. However, there may not have been a tight relationship between movements of people on the one hand, and changes in language and culture on the other. Moreover, the process whereby a dynamic new force gradually arose—a people with a distinct ideology who eventually seem to have referred to themselves as ‘Arya’—was certainly two-way. That is, it involved a blending of new features which came from outside with other features—probably including some surviving Harappan influences—that were already present. Anyhow, it would be quite a few centuries before Sanskrit was written down. And the hymns and stories of the Arya people—especially the Vedas and the later Mahabharata and Ramayana epics—are poor guides as to historical events. Of course, the emerging Arya were to have a huge impact on the history of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, little is known about their early presence.";

Witzel II

Witzel, Michael (2008). "Vedas and Upanisads". In Gavin Flood (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 86–87, 90. ISBN 978-0-470-99868-7. The Vedic Age concludes with the late Vedic Sūtras ("thread, guideline," or Kalpasūtra "ritual guidelines") which form the true end of the Vedic period. ... The Sutras are descriptive and prescriptive texts that deal systematically, in the proper order of ritual procedure with the solemn ritual (Śrauta Sūtra), with the domestic rituals (Gṛhya Sūtra), and with the rules of proper behavior as a Veda student or as the householder (Dharma Sūtra), (pp 86–87) ... Some late sections of the Gṛhya Sūtra deal with the worship of particular gods such as Rudra/Mahādeva/Iśāna, Visnu/Narayana, Śrī, Durgā (Baudhāyana Gṛhyaśeṣasūtra, Atharveda Pariśiṣṭa etc) They contain pūja)-like rites that cannot be pinpointed in time. Puja, however, is a clear continuation of the Ṛgvedic guest worship offered to the gods. ... True heterodoxy is attested by ca. 400 BCE when several such systems had developed including those of wandering teachers such as the Buddha and Mahāvīra. (p. 90)

Robb

Robb, Peter (2011), A History of India, Macmillan, pp. 46–, ISBN 978-0-230-34549-2, The expansion of Aryan culture is supposed to have begun around 1500 BCE. It should not be thought that this Aryan emergence (though it implies some migration) necessarily meant either a sudden invasion of new peoples, or a complete break with earlier traditions. It comprises a set of cultural ideas and practices, upheld by a Sanskrit-speaking elite, or Aryans. The features of this society are recorded in the Vedas.

Ludden

Ludden, David (2013), India and South Asia: A Short History, Oneworld Publications, p. 19, ISBN 978-1-78074-108-6, In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence 'panch' and 'ab') draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva).

Flood II

Flood, Gavin D. (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-521-43878-0. One striking feature of Hinduism is that practice takes precedence over belief. What a Hindu does is more important than what a Hindu believes. Hinduism is not credal. Adherence to dharma is therefore not an acceptance of certain beliefs, but the practice or performance of certain duties, which are defined in accordance with dharmic social stratification. The boundaries of what a Hindu can and cannot do have been largely determined by his or her particular endogamous social group, or caste, stratified in a hierarchical order, and, of course, by gender. This social hierarchy is governed by the distinction between purity and pollution, with the higher, purer castes at the top of the structure, and the lower, polluted and polluting, castes at the bottom. Behaviour, expressing Hindu values and power structures, takes precedence over belief, orthopraxy over ortho-doxy. As Frits Staal says, a Hindu 'may be a theist, pantheist, atheist, communist and believe whatever he likes, but what makes him into a Hindu are the ritual practices he performs and the rules to which he adheres, in short, what he does'.

Flood III

Flood, Gavin D. (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-521-43878-0. This sociological characterization of Hinduism is very compelling. A Hindu is someone born within an Indian social group, a caste, who adheres to its rules with regard to purity and marriage, and who performs its prescribed rituals which usually focus on one of the many Hindu deities such as Siva or Visnu. One might add that these rituals and social rules are derived from the Hindu primary revelation, the Veda, and from the secondary revelation, the inspired texts of human authorship. The Veda and its ritual reciters, the highest caste or Brahmans, are the closest Hinduism gets to a legitimizing authority, for the Brahman class has been extremely important in the dissemination and maintenance of Hindu culture. It is generally the Brahman class that has attempted to structure coherently the multiple expressions of Hinduism, and whose self-understanding any account of Hinduism needs to take seriously.

Flood IV

Flood, Gavin D. (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-521-43878-0. Hinduism might be regarded as the development over the next 2,000 years of Aryan culture, interacting with non-Aryan or Dravidian and tribal cultures, though it is Aryan culture which has provided the 'master narrative', absorbing and controlling other discourses.

Flood V

Flood, Gavin D. (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-521-43878-0. It is this Sansrit, vedic, tradition which has maintained a continuity into modern times and which has provided the most important resource and inspiration for Hindu traditions and individuals. The Veda is the foundation for most later developments in what is known as Hinduism.

Staal

Staal, Frits (1986), The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science, Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie von Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, NS 49, 8. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company, 40 pages.