Item Details

Comparative Philology and the Ṛg-Veda: 1.32.1, 3.33.6-7

Issue: Vol 6 No. 2 (2012) Special Issue: “Tradition and the Reuse of Indic Texts”

Journal: Religions of South Asia

Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies

DOI: 10.1558/rosa.v6i2.257

Abstract:

The following article attempts to bring together two complementary methods of reading the Ṛg-Veda, that of close textual analysis and that of historical, comparative linguistics. I will offer first a brief survey of the background from which the hymns derive, in terms of reconstructed linguistic ancestors, and then look into the early collection of the hymns. Thereafter a commentary is offered, making special reference to points of interest in historical and comparative linguistics. It will be argued that the study of Indo-European linguistics can illuminate otherwise obscure forms in the oldest texts of the daughter languages, as well as show contexts from which the traditions derive.

Author: Jesse Lundquist

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