31st
Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Wisc., 10-13 October 2002, in the panel, "The Aryas in South Asian
History"
"Arya Status and the Propagation of
Brahmanical Authority in Classical India"
Timothy Lubin, Washington and Lee
University
This
paper analyzes the doctrinal and ritual changes, visible especially in the codes
of domestic ritual (grhya-sutras), that the Vedic tradition underwent
during the middle of the last millennium BCE, noting the ways in which a common
liturgical format and the study and recitation of Vedic mantra were promoted as
a basis for Arya identity in an increasingly cosmopolitan world.
The analysis will show how the domestic codes were designed to provide a
framework for institutionalizing brahmins’ expertise as teachers and as ritual
authorities in a variety of contexts beyond the multi-fire high shrauta
cult. This process may be seen as a
policy of Sanskritization, in which a streamlined canon of Vedic mantras and a
simplified ritual system integrating regional and popular elements are made the
criterion of “Arya” (i.e., civilized) status among those who adopt them.
Besides establishing transregional standards of piety, it provides the
ideological and ritual basis for the later Dharma literature.