Aitareya Brahmana Explained

The Aitareya Brahmana (Sanskrit: ऐतरेय ब्राह्मण) is the Brahmana of the Shakala Shakha of the Rigveda, an ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns. This work, according to the tradition, is ascribed to Mahidasa Aitareya.[1] [2]

Authorship

Sayana of Vijayanagara, a 14th century commentator, attributes the entire Aitareya Brahmana to a single man: Mahidasa Aitareya.[3] In his introduction to the text, Sayana suggests that "Aitareya" is a matronymic name. Mahidasa's mother was "Itarā" (इतरा), whose name is derived from the Sanskrit word "itara". She was one of the wives of a great rishi (sage). The rishi preferred sons from his other wives over Mahidasa. Once he placed all his other sons on his lap, but ignored Mahidasa. On seeing tears in the eyes of her son, Itara prayed to the earth goddess Bhūmi, her kuladevi (tutelary deity). Bhūmi then appeared and gifted Mahidasa the knowledge contained in the Aitareya Brahmana.

Mahidasa is mentioned in other works before Sayana, such as the Chandogya Upanishad (3.16.7) and the Aitareya Aranyaka (2.1.7, 3.8). But none of these works mention Sayana's legend.[4] The Aitareya Aranyaka is undoubtedly a composite work, and it is possible that the Aitareya Brahmana also had multiple authors. According to AB Keith, the present redaction of the work may be ascribed to Mahidasa, but even that cannot be said conclusively.[3]

Identification with Asvalayana Brahmana

The Asvalayana Srautasutra and Asvalayana Grhyasutra, attributed to the sage Asvalayana, are the srautasutra and grhyasutra associated with the Aitareya Brahmana.[5] Some Sanskrit texts also mention a text called Asvalayana Brahmana. For example, Raghunandana (c. 16th century CE), in his Malamasatattva, quotes a verse from what he calls the Asvalayana Brahmana. The verse is a slight variation of an Aitareya Brahmana verse.[6]

The common view is that the Asvalayana Brahmana is simply another name for the Aitareya Brahmana. However, according to another theory, it might be a now-lost, similar but distinct Brahmana text.[7] [8]

Date of composition

The Aitareya Brahmana with some certainty dates to the 1st millennium BCE, likely to its first half.[9] Published estimates include the following:

Contents

Forty adhyayas (chapters) of this work are grouped under eight pañcikās (group of five). The following is an overview of its contents:

Cosmography

Section 2.7Astronomy played a significant role in Vedic rituals, which were conducted at different periods of a year. The Aitareya Brahmana (4.18) states the sun stays still for a period of 21 days, and reaches its highest point on vishuvant, the middle day of this period.[16] The gods feared that at this point, the sun would lose its balance, so they tied it with five ropes (the five "ropes" being five prayer verses). The vishuvant is mentioned as an important day for rituals.[17] [18] The text also mentions that the sun burns with the greatest force after passing the meridian.[17]

The Aitareya Brahmana (2.7) states:[19]

According to Subhash Kak, this implies that according to the author of the verse, the sun does not move and it is the earth that moves, suggesting heliocentrism and rotation of a spherical Earth.[19] According to Jyoti Bhusan Das Gupta, this verse implies that the author "clearly understood that days and nights were local rather than a global phenomenon". Das Gupta adds that the text's interest in the sun's position appears to be "purely ritualistic", and the verse cannot be conclusively taken as an evidence of the author's recognition of the earth as a sphere.[20] According to K. C. Chattopadhyaya, the verse simply implies that the sun has two sides: one bright and the other dark.[21]

Section 3.44In section 3.44, among other things, the Aitareya Brahmana states (translation by Haug):[22] [23] Aitareya Brahmana being a Vedic corpus text and scripture in Hinduism, and the lack of any Mount Meru theories in that text, the medieval era commentators such as Sayana had significant difficulty in reconciling the Vedic era and medieval era cosmographic theories.[22] The medieval era Indian scholars kept the spherical and disc shape cosmography in the Puranas, while the astronomy (Siddhanta) texts for time keeping assumed the spherical assumptions.[24] [25]

In linguistics

The king and the god is a text based on the "king Harishcandra" episode (7.14 … 33.2) of Aitareya Brahmana. It has been used to compare different reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European language.

Notes and References

  1. Book: Keith, Arthur Berriedale . Rigveda Brahmanas: the Aitareya and Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇas of the Rigveda . Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi. 1920. 1998. 28. 81-208-1359-6.
  2. http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etcs/ind/aind/ved/rv/ab/ab.htm Roman alphabet transliteration
  3. Book: Arthur Berriedale Keith . Rigveda Brahmanas: The Aitareya and Kausitaki Brahmanas of the Rigveda . 1920 . Motilal Banarsidass . 978-81-208-1359-5 . 28–29.
  4. Book: Friedrich Max Müller . A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature . 1860 . Williams and Norgate . 336–337 .
  5. Book: Matthew R. Sayers . Feeding the Dead: Ancestor Worship in Ancient India . 12 September 2013 . OUP USA . 978-0-19-989643-1 . 14 .
  6. Book: Indian Studies . 1962 . Ramakrishna Maitra . 252 .
  7. Book: Summaries of Papers . 1981 . Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan . 16 . The existence of an Asvalayana Brahmana is, though less certain, also very probable, because none of the available Rgvedic Brahmanas can satisfactorily serve as the basis of the Asvalayana Srautasutra. .
  8. Book: Proceedings of the ... World Sanskrit Conference. 1985. Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan . 117–119 . That the Asvalayana School had its own Samhita, makes it more probable that it had also its own Brahmana. [...] The Asvalayana Brahmana was therefore very similar to the AB on one hand and to the Taittiriya texts on the other. .
  9. Book: The Andhra Pradesh Journal of Archaeology . N.R.V. Prasad . 1995 . Director of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Andhra Pradesh . 3 .
  10. Book: Keith, Arthur Berriedale. Rigveda Brahmanas: the Aitareya and Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇas of the Rigveda. Harvard University Press. 1920. Cambridge, Mass.. 44. en. 611413511.
  11. cited after Book: Monier Monier-Williams . Indian Wisdom . 1875. W.H. Allen . 28 .
  12. Book: John G. R. Forlong . Encyclopedia of Religions . 1906 . 978-1-60520-489-5 . 76–. Cosimo .
  13. Book: E.J. Rapson . Ancient India: From the Earliest Times to the First Century A.D. . 1995 . Asian Educational Services . 978-81-206-1107-8 . 159 .
  14. Book: Franklin Southworth . Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia . 2 August 2004 . Routledge . 978-1-134-31776-9 . 97 .
  15. Book: Jan N. Bremmer . The Strange World of Human Sacrifice . 2007 . Peeters Publishers . 978-90-429-1843-6 . 158 ., referencing Michael Witzel (1989).
  16. Book: Edwin Francis Bryant . Laurie L. Patton . The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History . 2005 . Psychology Press . 978-0-7007-1463-6 . 321 .
  17. Book: Charlotte Manning . Ancient and Mediaeval India . 1869 . Wm. H. Allen . 360–. Charlotte Manning .
  18. Book: Martin Haug . The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda: Translation, with notes . 1863 . Government Central Book Depot . 290–291 . Martin Haug .
  19. Book: Subhash Kak . Helaine Selin . Helaine Selin . Astronomy Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy . https://books.google.com/books?id=vRHvCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA328 . 2012 . Springer . 978-94-011-4179-6 . Birth and Early Development of Indian Astronomy . 324–328 . Subhash Kak .
  20. Book: Jyoti Bhusan Das Gupta . Science, Technology, Imperialism, and War . 2007 . Pearson . 978-81-317-0851-4 . 32 .
  21. Book: Kshetresh Chandra Chattopadhyay . Studies in Vedic and Indo-Iranian Religion and Literature . 1978 . Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan . 90 .
  22. Speyer . J. S. . A remarkable Vedic Theory about Sunrise and Sunset . Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland . Cambridge University Press (CUP) . 38 . 3 . 1906 . 723–727 . 10.1017/s0035869x00035000.
  23. Book: Martin Haug. Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda. 2016. Hanse . 978-3-7411-4401-1.
    The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda: Archive, pages 163-164
  24. Book: Kurt A. Raaflaub. Richard J. A. Talbert. Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies. 2009. John Wiley & Sons. 978-1-4443-1566-0. 36–37.
  25. Book: Jonathan Edelmann. Ravi M. Gupta and Kenneth R. Valpey. The Bhagavata Purana: Sacred Text and Living Tradition . 2013. Columbia University Press. 978-0-231-53147-4. 58., Quote: "[...] the Siddhantas (a group of astronomical texts from the fifth century that argued for a spherical earth)..."

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