New issue of EJVS: Mahadevan on Southern Mbh, Vedic Brahmins & paleography

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We are happy to announce a new issue of the Electronic Journal of

Vedic Studies, Vol. 15, issue 2 (July):

The Southern Recension of the Mahabaharata,

Brahman Migrations,

and Brahmi Paleography

 

by

 

Tennilapuram P. Mahadevan

 

 

Summary:

 

The paper is important in several respects. It provides evidence

for the

early (Sangam period) movement of Northern (Madhyadesha) Vedic

Brahmins into the peninsula and of that of their later successors in

Pallava

and Cola time. The first group includes among others, the rare

schools of

the Vadhula Taittiriyas, the Kaushitaki Rgvedins and the Jaiminiya

Samavedins.

 

The first group wears the traditional tuft—shikha in Sanskrit and

kutumi in

Tamil—toward the front of the head and is known thus as the Purvashikha

Brahmans; the second group wears it to the back of the head, and thus

are

called Aparashikha Brahmans.

 

The Purvashikha group brought the archetype of the Mahabharata or its

proto-Sharada version to the peninsula, where it evolved into the

Southern

Recension (SR), written in Southern Brahmi script by the beginning

of the

Common Era. It was taken, in Kalabhra times, to Malabar by the

historical

Nambudiris.

 

The SR text initially also remained behind in the Tamil country with

the

historical Sholiya Purvashikhas. The Aparashikha Brahmans arriving

during

the Pallava period brought along a Northern Recension (NR) text giving

rise to the much inflated Grantha-Telugu versions of the SR text.

 

This scenario explains the anomalous situation that the Malayalam

version

of the SR is the shortest of the SR texts and that it is closely

aligned to the

Sharada text of Kashmir. It also explains the influence of another

NR text

on the Grantha-Telugu versions of the SR text.

 

Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS)

2008, Vol.15, Issue 2, p. 43 sqq

© ISSN 1084-7561

 

-------------------------

 

Michael Witzel

witzel

www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

 

Dept. of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University

1 Bow Street

Cambridge MA 02138, USA

 

phone: 1- 617 - 495 3295 (voice & messages), 496 8570, fax 617 - 496

8571;

my direct line (also for messages) : 617- 496 2990