https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs <p>This journal is open to all bona fide scholars in Vedic Studies. It is monitored for style and content by the Editor-in-Chief. Our aim is to disseminate our work quickly. We include articles, abstracts, reviews, and news (such as on conferences, meetings, PhD projects of our students, etc.) We may consider a column of answers to comments on articles published in the journal, with final comment by the author.</p> Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing en-US Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 1084-7561 <h3>Copyright Notice</h3> <ol> <li class="show">The Materials in this Journal are copyrighted.</li> <li class="show">One copy of the articles and info may be made for private study only.</li> <li class="show">All copies made for whatever purpose must include this copyright notice.</li> <li class="show">The texts may not be modified in any way nor may they be reproduced in electronic or other format without the written permission of the Editor-in-Chief.</li> </ol> <p>All inquiries are to be sent to the editors, <a href="mailto:ejvs-list@shore.net">witzel@fas.harvard.edu</a></p> https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/article/view/26722 <p>The present study deals with the widely held view that the vájra was conceived by the Rigvedic poets as a club or mace — the translation terminology of the target languages is not uniform. This is largely due to a change of mind on the part of Karl Friedrich Geldner, who revised his earlier view of the vájra as a wedge (“Keil”, 1907-1909) to the translation “club” (“Keule”, 1929) without giving any reasons. The great influence of his authoritative translation, only published in 1951, is demonstrated by the fact that, with very few exceptions, his later view of the vájra as a club was unquestioningly adopted by most later Rigvedic translators and interpreters, even though no dictionary gives such a meaning for vdjra. This continuous practice has strengthened the unwavering belief in its correctness to the extent that it has spread as a firm conviction to all areas of research in Indology and related disciplines. In defence of my thesis that the criteria for a mace are not answered by what the Rigveda says about the vájra, and that a vájra should therefore have been some other kind of weapon, such as a biface-like sling projectile made of stone or lead, the history and rationale of the mace theory is examined and the plausibility of both assumptions (“stone” and “club”) discussed and compared.]</p> Walter Slaje Copyright (c) 2024 Walter Slaje 2024-05-28 2024-05-28 29 2 1 56 10.11588/ejvs.2024.2.26722