The ancient Aryan verbal contest

Abstract

1. There is a considerable difference of opinion nowadays about the social and cultural background of the Rigvedie poetry. In Geldner's Rigveda-translation and in Renou's recent studies which are based on it 1 there is a tendency to overemphasize the importance of literary contests, for which the poems are thought to be designed. Thieme, in a fundamental discussion of this trend in modern Vedic studies, not only noted an unmistakable tendency to secularize the RV, but also stated to hear in some renderings of Geldner's overtones of their own that call to mind unfortunate associations with the Nuremberg master-singers and the minnesingers' tournament of song on the Wartburg. ~ The following studies, devoted to a social as well as religious phenomenon, may contribute to correcting the perspective and to eliminating some views about the Vedic society that are still materially based on the theories of the Vedische Studien. The influence of these theories is indeed still perceptible in Geldner's latest interpretation of the Rigveda. In point of fact, the duels between poets may rather be regarded as a special instance of a more general type of contest, which included unpoetical verbal contests as well as chariot races, combats, etc. Here however a serious methodological difficulty faces us. The question naturally arises on which occasions these contests may have taken place. Thieme, who is disinclined to accept the theory of such contests at all, stresses the necessity of looking for a serious, genuinely religious content in the Rigvedic hymns? I quite agree with him but, while the contests