R.gvedic ritual evolved further during the middle and late R.gvedic period (Pro-
feres 1999), especially under the influence of the Vis ́va ̄mitra clan, and was
rather artificially elaborated, systematized, and codified; it emerged, by the time
of the early post-R.gvedic/early Mantra period collections (Witzel 1997a,b), as
the famous “classical S ́rauta ritual” that is prominent in all post-RV texts and
still is performed in some traditional areas of India and Nepal.
Collecting and Ordering the Early Vedic Texts
Accordingly, the firstcollection of (most) available RV hymns dealing with ritual
was made under the Bharata dynasty of the early Kuru kings, such as the
famous Pariks.it; he is first attested in the early post-RV Khila collection (5.22)
and later on is a prominent figure in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata. His time, one of great
political, societal, religious, and linguistic change (Witzel 1989a, 1997a) is
praised as a golden age, among other with the telling refrain (RVKh 5.22): “the
people thrive in the realm of King Pariks.it.” The break-up of the old tribal society
of the R.gveda and the rise of the intertribal Kuru realm (Witzel 1997a,b) thus
saw strikingly new developments in ritual and in the development of Brahman-
ical pre-scientific science of correlations (see below).
The other Vedic Sam.hita ̄s dealing with the new S ́rauta ritual (SV, YV, and AV)
were collected during the early Kuru period, too. These are linguistically younger
than the RV, younger even than its late appendix book 10. At this time, the tra-
ditional jobs of the various Vedic priests were divided into four classes, attributed
to the four main S ́rauta priests who were to represent and use the Four Vedas.
They include (each with three helpers) the Hotar who now only recites Mantras
from the RV, the Uga ̄tar who sings the Sa ̄man melodies, the Adhvaryu who is the
main offering priest carrying out the actions of the S ́rauta ritual while mum-
bling Yajurveda Mantras, and the Brahmán priest who supervises the whole of
the ritual, mostly in silence (Renou 1949, Brereton 1988) and remedies it, in
case of mistakes, by reciting a few Mantras from the Atharvaveda (Bodewitz
1983).
When the Sam.hita ̄ texts were collected, they were each ordered in particular
but individual ways: The RV is arranged according to strict, mostly numeri-
cal principles (Oldenberg 1888): Its first level of order is that of author
(family/clan), followed by that of deity and meter, that is, inside each family col-
lection the hymns are arranged according to deities: Agni and Indra come first,
then other deities, depending on the number of hymns addressed to them (in
decreasingorder); inside each deity collection the longer hymns come first and
the shortest last; in case of equal length, a hymn with a longer meter comes first.
This organization is well reflected in the core (“family”) books of the RV. All
hymns that do not follow this order were added after the initial collection, as is
clear by their many late grammatical and other features. The family books of the
RV are arranged in increasingorder, from short books (RV 2) to longer ones (RV
vedas and upanis.ads 75