The Vedic Ceremony of Distribution (vidátha) and the Kuru Sovereignty: A Strategy for Ecumenicity and Harmony?

The Old Indo-Aryan term vidátha denotes a ceremony of wealth distribution and represents an ancient institution related to proto-Vedic chieftainship, likely rooted in the vrātya culture. The process of the textual canonization of the Rigvedic collection and the elaboration of an Atharvavedic recension have established it as one of the fundamental institutions supporting the legitimization of the ecumenical Kuru sovereignty. In fact, formulaic expressions such as br ̥ hád vadema vidáthe (‘may we speak loftily’) are very common in both textual collections. Moreover, such an ‘ecumenical’ occasion is frequently highlighted by a specific lexicon that connotes a sort of ‘common intent’ of the collectivity, i.e., of the clan assembly. Furthermore, common phraseology and lexicon, such as the adjective samāná (‘common’), the key term of the last hymn of the Rigvedic collection (10.191), and the term vratá- (‘observance’), belonging to the Atharvavedic magic spells for harmony (sāmmanasyāni), are tokens of proto-Vedic practices of sodality that recall the vrātya culture. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that the later institution of the multiclan confederation, established by the Kuru lineage around the last centuries of the second millennium bc (1350–1000 bc), results from a form of cosmicizing of those practices.