Etymology, Genealogy and History in Early South Asia

This paper explores the relationship between etymology, genealogy and the literary exploration of the past in early South Asia. By means of a close reading of a range of materials drawn from the Atharvaveda, Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads, as well as the Nirukta, the Bṛhaddevatā and the Mahābhārata, I will dem-onstrate that there is a progression from etymology, to expanded etymology, by which I refer to narratives spun from the details of etymologies, to full accounts of birth and descent, that is to say, genealogy, and, from there, to larger-scale his-torical accounts. I will thus show that etymology played an important part in the formation of consensus understandings of the past in early South Asia.