Bibliography on Dating Sanskrit literature, Vedas
through Puranas
Compiled by Linda Hess
Here is the collection of responses to my query.Each number represents a different person’s contribution.I have abbreviated Prof. Witzel’s substantial discussion since
you all received it, and am including only his references.Thanks to everyone!
1. Edwin Bryant's The Quest for the Origins of Vedic
Cuture, Oxford. 2001.Ch. 12,
"The date of the Veda," " gives a very good and up to date
overview of the issues."
2. Ludo Rocher's The Puranas and John Brockington's
The Sanskrit Epics both discuss problems and methods of dating.
3. M. Witzel, "Tracing the Vedic Dialects"in Dialectes dans la literatures indo-aryenes.Ed. by C. Caillat - there is a section at the beginning of this
long article ( 100 + pages) that discusses chronologies – both
traditional and linguistic.
4.Olivelle
[in intro to The Upanisads] gives a (relative) chronology of the
Upanishads.See also
Witzel's "Tracing the Vedic Dialects" (1989), "On the
Localisation of Vedic Texts and Schools" (1987), and "The
Development of the Vedic Canon and Schools: The Social and Political
Milieu" (1997).The
latter two are available in .pdf from his homepage. [see below, message
from Witzel, for url]
5.Jamison's
and Witzel's "Vedic Hinduism" (.pdf from homepage), but it is
concerned less with dating than with describing the texts and their
relations.
6.An
excellent discussion of the relations of these texts and possible dates
can be found in Majumdar's The Vedic Age (1951).(See esp. Ghosh's essay on Vedic Literature, pp. 229 ff).
7.From
Michael Witzel As for the Vedas,
*there
is a summary on the INDOLOGY list (Liverpool): http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html
(go to "important position papers".... then scroll down to
bottom for the Veda item)
*A few
more items can be added now; science progresses: EJVS 7-3 (May 2001):§18.[From the
written Mitanni documents(N.Iraq/N.Syria)]:
http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/issues.html
Michael Witzel,Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western
Central Asia.Sino-Platonic
Papers 129, forthc.. (last section)
To sum it all up: earliest Vedic texts after
1600/1350 BCE but before 1000 BCE. The dating may still change a little,
according to future discoveries in archaeology, especially in the
archaeologically little known Bactria-Sistan/Gandhara corridor. http://
/~witzel/mwpage.htm
/~witzel/mwpage.htm