No translator has ever opened a five-volume work more discouragingly. "The translator of the Satapatha-brâhmana can be under no illusion as to the reception his production is likely to meet with at the hand of the general reader. In the whole range of literature few works are probably less calculated to excite the interest of any outside the very limited" circle of specialists. He wrote that in 1882 and finished the fifth volume in 1900.
The Satapatha-Brâhmana, Part I — SBE Vol. 12 (trans. Julius Eggeling, 1882)
Open to all
page 1
The translator’s English as printed (Julius Eggeling). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets adopted for the
Translations of the Sacred Books of the East .
PAGE
208
216
230
236
256
262
274
276
282
289
291
294
302
313
322
338
361
369
374
383
384
391
408
417
420
437
444
p. 452
p. 453
/ QX t ThE ‘Y UNIVERSITY
“é Lrpop we /
INTRODUCTION.
THE translator of the Satapatha-brahmama can be under no illusion as to the reception his production is likely to meet with at the hand of the general reader. In the whole range of literature few works are probably less calculated to excite the interest of any outside the very limited number of specialists, than the ancient theological writings of the Hindus, known by the name of Brahmazas. For wearisome prolixity of exposition, characterised by dogmatic assertion and a flimsy symbolism rather than by serious reasoning, these works are perhaps not equalled anywhere; unless, indeed, it be by the speculative vapourings of the Gnostics, than which, in the opinion of the learned translators of Irenzus, ‘nothing more absurd has probably ever been imagined by rational beings*.’ If I have, nevertheless, undertaken, at the request of the Editor of the present Series, what would seem to be a rather thankless task, the reason will be readily understood by those who have taken even the most cursory view of the history of the Hindu mind and institutions.
The Brahmazas, it is well known, form our chief, if not our only, source of information regarding one of the most important periods in the social and mental development of India. They represent the intellectual activity of a sacerdotal caste which, by turning to account the religious instincts of a gifted and naturally devout race, had succeeded in transforming a primitive worship of the powers of nature into a highly artificial system of sacrificial ceremonies, and was ever intent on deepening and extending its hold on the minds of the people, by surrounding its own vocation with the halo of sanctity and divine inspiration. A complicated ceremonial, requiring for its proper observance and
1 A. Roberts and W. A. Rambaut, The Writings of Irenzeus, vol. i. p. xv.
x SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA, _
page 1
Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets adopted for the
Translations of the Sacred Books of the East .
PAGE
208
216
230
236
256
262
274
276
282
289
291
294
302
313
322
338
361
369
374
383
384
391
408
417
420
437
444
p. 452
p. 453
/ QX t ThE ‘Y UNIVERSITY
“é Lrpop we /
INTRODUCTION.
THE translator of the Satapatha-brahmama can be under no illusion as to the reception his production is likely to meet with at the hand of the general reader. In the whole range of literature few works are probably less calculated to excite the interest of any outside the very limited number of specialists, than the ancient theological writings of the Hindus, known by the name of Brahmazas. For wearisome prolixity of exposition, characterised by dogmatic assertion and a flimsy symbolism rather than by serious reasoning, these works are perhaps not equalled anywhere; unless, indeed, it be by the speculative vapourings of the Gnostics, than which, in the opinion of the learned translators of Irenzus, ‘nothing more absurd has probably ever been imagined by rational beings*.’ If I have, nevertheless, undertaken, at the request of the Editor of the present Series, what would seem to be a rather thankless task, the reason will be readily understood by those who have taken even the most cursory view of the history of the Hindu mind and institutions.
The Brahmazas, it is well known, form our chief, if not our only, source of information regarding one of the most important periods in the social and mental development of India. They represent the intellectual activity of a sacerdotal caste which, by turning to account the religious instincts of a gifted and naturally devout race, had succeeded in transforming a primitive worship of the powers of nature into a highly artificial system of sacrificial ceremonies, and was ever intent on deepening and extending its hold on the minds of the people, by surrounding its own vocation with the halo of sanctity and divine inspiration. A complicated ceremonial, requiring for its proper observance and
1 A. Roberts and W. A. Rambaut, The Writings of Irenzeus, vol. i. p. xv.
x SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA, _
His introduction is not an account of what the Brâhmana teaches. It is an argument about how a priesthood came to hold power, and it is built from the hymns rather than asserted. A distribution of sacrificial duties among distinct classes of priests "must have taken place before the close of the period of the hymns," by which time the priesthood was "a regular profession, and even, to some extent, a hereditary one." The evidence is internal: the Rig-veda already presumes the division of labour that the later ritual requires.
The lever he identifies is an office, not a doctrine. The Purohita — literally praepositus, "placed in front" — rose "from the comparatively modest position of a private chaplain" to become "a minister of public worship and confidential adviser of the king," and Eggeling does not soften what he thinks that was worth: the post "was singularly favourable to the designs of a crafty and ambitious priest." He then lets the sources make the case for him. Aitareya-brâhmana VIII, 24–25: "Verily, the gods do not eat the food offered by the king who is without a Purohita." Atharva-veda III, 19, in the priest's own voice: "may perfect, unceasing, and victorious power accrue to those whose Purohita I am ... With this oblation I cut off the arms of their enemies."
THE ARGUMENT ABOUT COMPLEXITY IS THE SHARPEST THING IN THE VOLUME, and it explains why the text a reader is holding is as intricate as it is. "The more complicated the ceremonial, the greater the dependence of the lay worshipper on the professional skill of the priests; and the greater the number of priests required for the proper performance of these ceremonies, the larger the gains derived by the priesthood generally from this kind of occupation. What more natural, therefore, than that the highest importance should have been ascribed to these performances, and an ever-increasing attention bestowed on the elaboration of the ceremonial." Ritual difficulty is read as an interest, not as a mystery.
His comparanda are European throughout, and he does not hide them: Mommsen on Rome, quoted through Dickson's translation — "Even practical Rome did not entirely succeed in steering clear of the rock of priestly ascendancy attained by such-like means" — and, in a footnote to a Vedic text, Roberts and Rambaut's Irenaeus. He is reading India through the history of European priestcraft.
Which is the point worth holding onto, and it is not that he is wrong. Eggeling is unusually careful with evidence and his conclusion about a professionalised hereditary priesthood rests on Indian sources. But the QUESTION he arrives with — did the priests do well out of this? — is a nineteenth-century European question about clerical interest, and unlike Rhys Davids and Oldenberg in the Vinaya volume of this same series, he never stops to say so. They name the frame they would otherwise import and set it aside; he uses one without naming it. Palmer, in the Qur'ân volumes, neither names his nor examines it. Three volumes, one series, three positions on the same question about method — and a reader can only lay them side by side because this shelf holds all three.
contrasts in method with Vinaya Texts, Part I: The Pâtimokkha and the Mahâvagga I–IV — SBE Vol. 13 (trans. Rhys Davids & Oldenberg, 1881)