Orality vs. written text: mediaeval developments in Vedic ritual literature

Abstract

In this article my intention is to discuss in a general way the somewhat obscure period of Indian literary and religious history falling between the last phase of the creation of commonly recognised Vedic literature (the Smrti part of it) and the beginnings of the modern scholarship dealing with it. In short ‐ the mediaeval period. However, there is an inherent danger in using schematic terms of periodisation, especially when originally brought from a different geographic context. Therefore I must first try to define somewhat more exactly what I here understand under the notion of mediaevalism. A concept like the Middle Ages is not very precise, even in European circumstances, and when applied to India it has a different meaning. In history, the concept of Indian Middle Ages is mostly used as roughly corresponding the early (pre-Mughal) Islamic period, sometimes also including the period immediately preceding the Islamic conquest. In literature and religion, such a distinction as mediaeval, if used at all, must be stated differently. A text written in Sanskrit is often styled as ancient or classical, even when it is probably composed well into the second millennium A.D. In addition, there are fairly modern Sanskrit texts, and it is difficult to say where the borderline should be drawn. 1 At the same time, a book in some NIA language is clearly mediaeval, even if it actually precedes many well known Sanskrit texts. 2 We may further note that a tradition, like the Veda, does not necessarily follow the changes of political history. The orthodox Hindu society still went on in its usual way, at least in South India, although the rulers were Muslims. 3 In this respect, the change was not so significant. It seems to me that the best way to periodise the long history of the Vedas lies in the way of transmission. At present, we are not so