The lexicon of the “act of accepting (pratigraha)”: An approach to the multilayered Vedic culture

ABSTRACT: This joint work has its ground (and scope) in a variation-oriented reading of the Vedic sources, here applied to those which mention the act of the so-called “[gift-]acceptance” (pratigraha) within mechanisms for attain¬ing and dis¬tributing the “goods of life” among all the members of a community. The most an¬cient oc¬currences are read and contrasted against the subsequent socio-ritual context where the well-known homonymous privilege and peculiar means of livelihood for Brahmans is de¬pic¬ted. The tentative interpretation of the relevant passages and the consequent reconstruction of the several layers of the Vedic lexicon revolving around the verbal base prati-grah- might contribute to better assessing the presence of a specific Indo-Aryan cul¬tural matrix that might have pre-existed (and co-existed with) the mainstream Vedic world, and to better understanding how later knowledge systems succeeded in creating a new all-encompassing balance.