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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 aroseâa people with a distinct ideology who eventually seem to have referred to themselves as âAryaââwas certainly two-way. That is, it involved a blending of new features which came from outside with other featuresâprobably including some surviving Harappan influencesâthat were already present. Anyhow, it would be quite a few centuries before Sanskrit was written down. And the hymns and stories of the Arya peopleâespecially the Vedas and the later Mahabharata and Ramayana epicsâare 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.";
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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).
562:
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'.
592:
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.
224:
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
527:
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.
297:
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
591:
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
531:
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,
496:
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
561:
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
331:
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
223:
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
409:
Quote: "Although the collapse of the Indus valley civilization is no longer believed to have been due to an âAryan invasionâ 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
526:
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
190:
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
448:
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 (Årauta SÅ«tra), with the domestic rituals (Gá¹hya SÅ«tra), and with the rules of proper behavior as a Veda student or as the
228:
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.
651:
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
621:
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
449:
householder (Dharma SÅ«tra), (pp 86–87) ... Some late sections of the Gá¹hya SÅ«tra deal with the worship of particular gods such as Rudra/MahÄdeva/IÅÄna, Visnu/Narayana, ÅrÄ«, DurgÄ (BaudhÄyana Gá¹hyaÅeá¹£asÅ«tra, Atharveda PariÅiá¹£á¹a etc) They contain
66:
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
332:
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).
459:, however, is a clear continuation of the á¹gvedic 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
98:
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,
368:(initiation, marriage, and death ritual). Most other rituals have lost their popularity, are combined with other rites of passage, or are drastically shortened. Although
191:
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.
376:) 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
86:
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.
670:, Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie von Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, NS 49, 8. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company, 40 pages
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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
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was the department founder and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and South/Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
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is a historical demographer of South Asia, an Emeritus Professor of Population Studies at the London School of Economics, and the author of
34:
By 1200 BCE, an ] of ], an ], had ] into India from the northwest, ] as the language of the '']'', and recording the dawning of ] in India.
301:(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);
30:. I have not changed the wording, which in my judgment is the best one, balancing both scholarship and readability. The sentence is:
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is the Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion at Oxford University and the author and editor of many books on Hinduism
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and practices, upheld by a Sanskrit-speaking elite, or Aryans. The features of this society are recorded in the Vedas.
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is a Professor of Classical Indology and Religious Studies at Heidelberg University;
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Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit: The syntax and semantics of adjectival verb forms
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is a Distinguished Professor of Asian Religions and Indo-Iranian Literature at
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A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day
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The Vedic Age concludes with the late Vedic SÅ«tras ("thread, guideline," or
265:('Knowledge of Verses'), composed in northwest India around 1500 BCE (p. 10)
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Almost all traditional Hindu families observe until today at least three
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The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Law: A New History of DharmaÅÄstra
83:; she is the translator the the Rg Veda, Oxford University Press, 2020
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is a Professor of History at New York University, and the author of
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The cited authors are among the best around today. They are:
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The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Practice: Hindu Practice
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I've added more sources to the sentence being disputed in
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The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science
313:(20 August 2020), "Introduction", in Gavin Flood (ed.),
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is the Emeritus Professor of South Asian history at the
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422:(2008). "Vedas and Upanisads". In Gavin Flood (ed.).
205:(2008). "Vedas and Upanisads". In Gavin Flood (ed.).
352:. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 86â97.
346:(2017). Patrick Olivelle, Donald R. Davis (ed.).
455:-like rites that cannot be pinpointed in time.
122:, former chair of the department, and author of
249:, Oxford University Press, pp. xviii, 10,
162:The citations with generous quotes added are:
428:. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 86â87, 90.
285:, Oxford University Press, pp. 1, 2, 4,
8:
398:, Oxford University Press, pp. 14â15,
639:. Cambridge University Press. p. 35.
609:. Cambridge University Press. p. 23.
579:. Cambridge University Press. p. 12.
549:. Cambridge University Press. p. 12.
211:. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 68â70.
178:. Oxford University Press. pp. 1â2.
372:vary from region to region, from class (
120:School of Oriental and African Studies
514:, Oneworld Publications, p. 19,
511:India and South Asia: A Short History
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444:"ritual guidelines") which form the
140:, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
425:The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism
208:The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism
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138:An Agrarian History of South Asia
52:Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit
112:, Oxford University Press, 2018
1:
110:A Population History of India
229:1200–1000 BCE. (p. 70)
136:Oxford: One World 2013, and
636:An Introduction to Hinduism
606:An Introduction to Hinduism
576:An Introduction to Hinduism
546:An Introduction to Hinduism
484:, Macmillan, pp. 46â,
319:, OUP Oxford, pp. 4â,
686:
279:; Brereton, Joel (2020),
151:00:05, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
633:Flood, Gavin D. (1996).
603:Flood, Gavin D. (1996).
573:Flood, Gavin D. (1996).
543:Flood, Gavin D. (1996).
508:Ludden, David (2013),
172:Lowe, John J. (2015).
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18:User:Fowler&fowler
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478:Robb, Peter (2011),
282:The Rigveda: A Guide
134:India and South Asia
77:Stephanie W. Jamison
392:Dyson, Tim (2018),
243:(3 February 2014),
481:A History of India
277:Jamison, Stephanie
646:978-0-521-43878-0
616:978-0-521-43878-0
586:978-0-521-43878-0
556:978-0-521-43878-0
521:978-1-78074-108-6
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435:978-0-470-99868-7
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292:978-0-19-063339-4
256:978-0-19-936009-3
218:978-0-470-99868-7
185:978-0-19-100505-3
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442:Kalpasūtra
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101:Upanishads
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568:Flood III
467:. (p. 90)
414:Witzel II
370:samskaras
366:samskaras
154:the late
106:Tim Dyson
28:this edit
666:(1986),
598:Flood IV
538:Flood II
465:MahÄvÄ«ra
338:Michaels
263:Rig Veda
197:Witzel I
67:Studies.
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378:Brahmin
305:Flood I
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452:pūja)
387:Dyson
374:varna
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641:ISBN
611:ISBN
581:ISBN
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516:ISBN
486:ISBN
473:Robb
463:and
457:Puja
446:true
430:ISBN
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180:ISBN
170:(a)
166:Lowe
81:UCLA
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