ATTITUDES TO THE VEDA:—
SOME ANCIENT VIEWS (Author — unknown)
Paraskara in his grhya-sutras informs us that in his time those who planned to become priests just learnt the mantras by heart, while Adityasena, a commentator on Laugakshi grhya-sutra mentions that many celebrants at rituals knew only how to recite the mantras without knowing their meaning and that they even insisted it was useless to know it.
Venkata Madhava thought that even the authors of some kalpa-sūtras did not fully understand the mantras. Some Smrtis like Daksa, Ausanasa and Yajnavalkya had to exhort that one should not limit oneself to learn how to recite the Veda but also learn its meaning.
All this means from very ancient times usually most learnt the Veda by rote without caring to know what it meant. Naturally, such reciters known as 'chandasas' or srotriyas were looked upon somewhat contemptuously, as is evident from literature.
They were dubbed as "ignorant of the Veda" and as its "sellers". For instance, the Bhojacaritra narrates that when some srotriyas came to seek an audience with king Bhoja, himself a scholar-poet and a great patron of poetry, literature and scholarship, his chamberlains "laughing in fun at them" (kautukat hasanto) went to the king and reported that "at the gate were standing chandasas, enemies of poetry, with ugly discoloured teeth and their hands placed on their hips"4. This image of mere Vedapathakas as lacking in commonsense, refinement, scholarship and proficiency in anything useful or productive, still by and large continues.
SOME ANCIENT VIEWS (Author — unknown)
Paraskara in his grhya-sutras informs us that in his time those who planned to become priests just learnt the mantras by heart, while Adityasena, a commentator on Laugakshi grhya-sutra mentions that many celebrants at rituals knew only how to recite the mantras without knowing their meaning and that they even insisted it was useless to know it.
Venkata Madhava thought that even the authors of some kalpa-sūtras did not fully understand the mantras. Some Smrtis like Daksa, Ausanasa and Yajnavalkya had to exhort that one should not limit oneself to learn how to recite the Veda but also learn its meaning.
All this means from very ancient times usually most learnt the Veda by rote without caring to know what it meant. Naturally, such reciters known as 'chandasas' or srotriyas were looked upon somewhat contemptuously, as is evident from literature.
They were dubbed as "ignorant of the Veda" and as its "sellers". For instance, the Bhojacaritra narrates that when some srotriyas came to seek an audience with king Bhoja, himself a scholar-poet and a great patron of poetry, literature and scholarship, his chamberlains "laughing in fun at them" (kautukat hasanto) went to the king and reported that "at the gate were standing chandasas, enemies of poetry, with ugly discoloured teeth and their hands placed on their hips"4. This image of mere Vedapathakas as lacking in commonsense, refinement, scholarship and proficiency in anything useful or productive, still by and large continues.