The Bṛhaddevatā (), is a metrical
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
work, traditionally ascribed to
Shaunaka
Shaunaka (, ) is the name applied to teachers, and to a Shakha of the Atharvaveda. It is especially the name of a celebrated Sanskrit grammarian, author of the , the , the , six Anukramaṇīs (indices) to the Rigveda, and the Vidhāna of the Rig ...
. It is an enlarged catalogue of the
Rigvedic deities
Rigvedic deities are deities mentioned in the sacred texts of Rigveda, the principal text of the historical Vedic religion of the Vedic period (1500–500 BCE).
There are 1,028 hymns (sūkta) in the Rigveda. Most of these hymns are dedicated to ...
worshipped in the individual ''
sukta
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from ऋच्, "praise" and वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the ...
s'' (hymns) of the
Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
. It also contains the myths and legends related to the composition of these ''sukta''s.
Recensions
The extant manuscripts of this text are found in two recensions, the shorter and the longer. The shorter recension contains 1091 verses, of which 18 verses are not found in the longer one. Similarly, the longer recension has 1206 verses, of which 133 verses are not found in the shorter recension. A modern British scholar,
A. A. Macdonell concluded that the original size of the work was retained in the longer recension and that the shorter version was an abridgement of it.
[Macdonnell, Arthur Anthony (1904). ''The Bṛhad-Devatā of Śaunaka: A Summary of the Deities and Myths of the Rig-Veda'', Part I, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, pp.ix-xxxv] Macdonnell placed the text before 400 BCE. But, in 1979, a Japanese scholar,
Muneo Tokunaga questioned all conclusions of Macdonnell. He assumed the existence of a series of three scribes, who successively interpolated material onto the "core" text. According to him, this "core" text was Shaunaka's ''Devatanukramani'', which is no longer extant. The first expanded version of the Brihaddevata was its shorter recension, which was composed between 1st-5th centuries CE and the second expanded version of the Brihaddevata was its longer recension, which was composed between 7th-11th centuries CE. This also explains its name, which could originally have been ''Brihaddevatanukramani'' (an expanded index of the deities).
Editions
The first printed edition of this text was edited by
Rajendralala Mitra. It was published by the
Asiatic Society
The Asiatic Society is an organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of " Oriental research" (in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions). It was founded by the philologist Will ...
,
Calcutta
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...
as a part of their ''Bibliotheca Indica'' series in 1892. According to A. A. Macdonell, this edition had a large number of misprints. It also consisted many impossible readings taken from incorrect manuscripts, omissions of lines, repetitions of lines and insertions of undoubtedly spurious lines. It was based on seven manuscripts. A. A. Macdonell produced a critical edition with an exhaustive introduction in English, seven appendices and a translation into English in two parts, published in 1904. This edition is based on nine manuscripts, as well as Rajendralala Mitra's edition.
A new critical edition, by Muneo Tokunaga, of the text was published in 1997.
Contents
The work consists eight ''adhyaya''s (chapters), mostly written in ''
Anuṣṭubh
(, ) is a metre and a metrical unit, found in both Vedic and Classical Sanskrit poetry, but with significant differences.
By origin, an anuṣṭubh stanza is a quatrain of four lines. Each line, called a ''pāda'' (lit. "foot"), has eight syll ...
''
meter
The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...
, though a number of verses are in ''
Triṣṭubh'' meter also. Each ''adhyaya'' comprises about 30 ''varga''s, each consisting of five verses. The text begins with a long introduction embracing the complete first ''adhyaya'', and twenty-five ''varga''s of the second. The main body of the text beginning from the twenty-sixth ''varga'' of the second ''adhyaya'', for the most part, is concerned with stating the deities, in their successive order, for the hymns and stanzas of the Rigveda. It also comprises nearly forty legends, described to explain the circumstances under which the hymns they are concerned with were composed. These legends cover almost a quarter of the whole text. A number of these legends are historically connected to the
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kuru ...
.
Notes
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brhaddevata
Sanskrit texts
Rigveda