Editorial gestures in the Vedic texts.

In his translation of the Vedic Hymns, Max Mueller took the liberty to re-arrange the hymns as he thought was needful; the rationale that he cites for doing so is very interesting; the original Vedic writers themselves had done so – and therefore, it made sense for him to do so presently in the 19^th century. This process of editing is seen as normative textual behaviour; whereby the translator-editor has the freedom and intellectual judgement to decide how to arrange the hymns.

There is nothing absolute or divine to what we construe as “revealed knowledge” and we would be deluding ourselves if we forgot the human editorial element.

VEDIC HYMNS

PART I

HYMNS TO THE MARUTS, RUDRA, VÂYU, AND VÂTA

Translated by

F. MAX MÜLLER

Clarendon: Oxford University Press

[1891]

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

After these preliminary remarks I have to say a few words on the general plan of my translation.

I do not attempt as yet a translation of the whole of the Rig-veda, and I therefore considered myself at liberty to group the hymns according to the deities to which they are addressed. By this process, I believe, a great advantage is gained. We see at one glance all that has been said of a certain god, and we gain a more complete insight into his nature and character. Something of the same kind had been attempted by the original collectors of the ten books, for it can hardly be by accident that each of them begins with hymns addressed to Agni, and that these are followed by hymns addressed to Indra. The only exception to this rule is the eighth Mandala, for the ninth being devoted to one deity, to Soma, can hardly be accounted an exception. But if we take the Rig-veda as a whole, we find hymns, addressed to the same deities, not only scattered about in different books, but not even grouped together when they occur in one and the same book. Here, as we lose nothing by giving up the old arrangement, we are surely at liberty, for our own purposes, to put together such hymns as have a common object, and to place before the reader as much material as possible for an exhaustive study of each individual deity.

The fluid textuality in the Vedic hymns: can we re-write them?

Empire making was made possible through the realm of print culture. Not only was the technology transferred, but so were the socially ascribed characteristics of print. The East India Company Orientalists were operating within the ideology of eighteenth century print culture that associated print with truth, assumed that the technology of print had the power to transform a pre-modern, Indian scribal culture into western modernity.

The following extracts from Max Mueller’s translations of the Vedic texts make that clear; he refers to the numerous manuscripts that he had to collate in order to arrive at the final, perfect text. His desire is to do away with all spurious elements and subsequently write the edited, corrected text.

VEDIC HYMNS

PART I

HYMNS TO THE MARUTS, RUDRA, VÂYU, AND VÂTA

Translated by

F. MAX MÜLLER

Clarendon: Oxford University Press

[1891]

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

With the MSS. then accessible in the principal libraries of Europe, a tolerably correct text of the Samhitâ might have been published, and these ancient relics of a primitive religion might have been at least partially deciphered and translated in the same way in which ancient inscriptions are deciphered and translated, viz. by a careful collection of all grammatical forms, and by a complete intercomparison of all passages in which the same words and the same phrases occur. When I resolved to devote my leisure to a critical edition of the text and commentary of the Rig-veda rather than to an independent study of that text, it was chiefly from a conviction that the traditional interpretation of the Rig-veda, as embodied in the commentary of Sâyana and other works of a similar character, could not be neglected with impunity, and that sooner or later a complete edition of these works would be recognised as a necessity.

…

The Veda, I feel convinced, will occupy scholars for centuries to come, and will take and maintain for ever its position as the most ancient of books in the library of mankind. Such a book, and the commentary of such a book, should be edited once for all; and unless some unexpected discovery is made of more ancient MSS., I do not anticipate that any future Bekker or Dindorf will find much to glean for a new edition of Sâyana, or that the text, as restored by me from a collation of the best MSS. accessible in Europe, will ever be materially shaken.

What have we lost by erasing our manuscript culture?

Social structures in the Indian context were always in a state of transit; laws were written but these dictums were constantly reinterpreted. How can we say that?

A manuscript culture meant that religious texts were always spurious and quite unstable; different manuscripts had different versions of the same text. These religious texts also had commentaries which the scribe would have made. There is ample documentation on how these manuscripts were written; the East India Company scholars (in the 18th C.) who were involved in translating these religious texts have examined the variants that existed and how the manuscripts differed from each other. They keep on referring to how they had to "collate" different manuscripts and how these hand written texts had errors and side notes; the job of these Orientalist scholars was to come up with a perfect version of the text and have it printed - without errors. This, in turn, refers to the process of how manuscripts were written; the implication is that the Brahmin pandits would have considered it a legitimate act to alter them and reinterpret them.
 

The Koran and Hindu theology.

It is indeed a conundrum as to how an infallible text like the Koran can be open to interpretation? If religious purists are keen to argue that all religions are indeed the same and talk about God – then there has to be efforts taken to disseminate such a message. One way to do that would be to rewrite the Koran and incorporate Hindu Upanishadic theology. And it goes without saying that Allah/ God has to be referred to as being gender neutral.

An example from Chapter 3 of The Koran (the Family of Imran).

 

S/he/ It has sent down upon you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming what was before it. And S/he/ It revealed the Vedas and the Upanishads and the Torah and the Gospel.

 

Before, as guidance for the people. And It/S/he revealed the Qur'an. Indeed, those who disbelieve in the verses of Allah will be forever deluded from the truth that God/ Allah is exalted in Might, the Creator of Reality.

Indeed, from God/Allah nothing is hidden in the earth nor in the heaven.