The relevance of the topic stated in the article is due to the significant influence of the authority of the Veda and related traditional religious institutions, such as the sacrificial ritual, not only on the religious and cultural, but also on the social life of modern India. Despite numerous attempts to explain the phenomenon of Vedic ritual itself, due to the antiquity of this phenomenon and the obvious change in the worldview and attitude of modern man in comparison with the ancient Aryans, we are still very far from understanding it. Of the many proposed approaches to the study of the Vedic sacrificial sacrament, the one that takes into account the communicative nature of this phenomenon, i.e., considers the situation of communication between the worlds as determining the essence of the whole action, seems to be the most reasonable. The author believes that the potential of this approach is far from exhausted due to the latest achievements in the field of communication theory, the methods of which are quite applicable to the study of the phenomenon under consideration.

Key words: Vedic ritual, communication space, sacrifice, Veda.

The sacrificial ritual, which is still considered the central core and nerve of the Indian spiritual tradition [Albedil, 2005, p. 126], occupied an exceptional place in the life of the ancient Aryans, appearing in the minds of the community of donors as a guarantee of survival. At the same time, they even prefer to talk about the ritual "not as a tool and means of survival, but as a subject of renewed life, coinciding with the object of the action performed by it - with this life itself" (Toporov, 1988, p. 47). Indeed, a person of the Vedic era, as, indeed, a person of other similar types of cultures, "saw the main goal and meaning of his life in ritual, and everyday existence only filled the gaps between rituals" [Baiburin, 1991, p. 33], ensuring the implementation of higher, sacred goals in them. Yajurveda reflects the idea of the Veda as given by the gods instructions about the order of sacrifices and describes it with the word araurusheya " not from man (given)". The sacrificial act itself is also characterized in the same way, "and therefore it is attributed primordialness at the level of divinity" (Guseva, 1977, p. 124). All this determines the significant role of the Veda and the sacrament of sacrifice both in the life of the ancient Aryans and in the modern religious and social life of India.

In the works of V. N. Toporov, the ritual reproduces the structure of creation and the order of the parts of the universe. At the same time, the verbal (linguistic) text of the ritual (as, indeed, the language in general) embodies the structure of the universe. At the same time, attention is drawn to such a typical feature of ritual as the presumption for archaic consciousness of communication in the ritual with another, sacred world, interaction with it: on the one hand, an attempt to influence it, on the other-the awareness of dependence on it;

exchange of gifts, information, and sacred knowledge with him. Thus, the Vedic worldview embodied in the ritual action is based on the man-god model. This feature seems to be crucial not only for the content of the magical action of the ritual, but also for the essence of the ritual word, and its study is promising for understanding the Veda and the nature of the ritual itself. As T. Y. Yelizarenkova rightly points out, considering the psychology of the Vedic person from the point of view of the man-god model is very productive both for religion and for ethnography and other sciences that study his world [Yelizarenkova, 1989, p.428]. Addressing the study of the Vedic sacrament in its communicative aspect is the purpose of the presented work.

When defining a ritual, most often they pay attention to the repetition of certain stereotypical standardized actions prescribed by tradition. At the same time, the modern scientific term "ritual", which is derived from the Latin ritus - "religious rite", "service", "following", "acting properly", along with many other Indo-European words, such as English rite "custom, rite", right "right", art "art", Russian. "row", "rite", "order", is a cognate Skt.  to use the expression of V. N. Toporov, it refers to words of "condensed" semantics, which are included in a special type of sacred and (usually) closed texts " [Toporov, 1981, p. 141]. He calls the very concept he designates "sacredly marked" and explains a lot from the point of view of this "semantic condensation", when etymology can clarify its semantics and vice versa.

It is first found in the Rig Veda-sacred hymns sung in Vedic rituals. This is one of the cornerstones of ancient Indian culture: "a universal cosmic law that determines the transformation of an unordered (chaotic) state into an ordered one (cosmic organization) and ensures the preservation of the basic conditions for the existence of the universe and man, the world of things and the world of spiritual values" [Toporov, 1981, p.142]. Among the meanings of this word as a noun are "law", "order", "truth", "sacred rite", "sacrifice"; as an adjective - "true", "correct", "appropriate", "revered", "sanctified", but at the same time "subjected to something".or", as participles from the verb ar - - "to set in motion, to move". The Rig Veda says: "He who holds  and receives" (RV IV, 23, 10) (cit. according to: [Rig Veda: mandalas I-IV, 1989]), i.e. the person performing the sacrifice in the ritual eats from its fruits. In connection with the cosmogonic aspect of the ritual, this statement of the Rig Veda should be understood not only as an exchange of gifts, but also as co-creation in the annual restoration of the universe of God and the person performing the ritual. Thus, the Vedic ritual (kalpa) appears as actions for affirmation and actualization in the world, which annually decaying and decaying, needs to be renewed and recreated in the course of a sacrifice that reproduces the act of primordial creation (for more details, compare: [Eliade, 1994, p. 53-55]), because thanks to the ritual, it is "this law that leads to the cosmic and vital laws of the universe." forces, the cosmic and social order is maintained" [Erman, 1999, p. 42].

* * *

The key role in creating the cosmos out of chaos through ritual belongs, in the Vedic worldview, to the Word as the highest creative force. The role of sacred speech, personified in the Vedic ritual by the goddess Vach, is also crucial in connection with the idea of materializing the divine Word embodied in the world: "Parallels were pointed out between the ancient Indian theories of the word and some features of Vach, on the one hand, and the doctrine of Logos in the ancient Greek phi-

losofii - on the other side" [Toporov, 1987, p. 220]. In general, ideas about the act of creation by the power of the word are widespread in the history of culture: in ancient Greek poetry, among the Germans, Celts, and other Indo-European peoples. Compare also the idea of creating peace in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, peacemaking by the ancient Egyptian Ptah, and much more. In this regard, one of the provisions of the Brahman texts explaining the meaning of certain actions of the Vedic ritual is noteworthy:"The victim moves with speech and mind." As V. N. Toporov rightly noted, quoting the words of M. Heidegger, "language becomes a ' house of being', and each element of language ceases to be equal to itself and gains the ability to model the world, while simultaneously creating it anew (an instrument that changes its functions as it acts). Cultures of the corresponding type are fundamentally "word-centered" and place the Word at the beginning as the highest reality of this mode of existence, since it is clothed in flesh and is embodied in the world" played out "by it" [Toporov, 1985, p. 5].

One of the characteristics of universal law is also its embodiment in the word. It is believed that there are also reasons to understand it "as a designation of a cult sacred song" (Toporov, 1981, p. 155). The connection with the sacred oath is interesting [ibid.]. The space of the Vedic ritual is sacred precisely because it is based on this true world, as opposed to the untrue profane world of lies: "There are two worlds: the divine and the human, the true and the false. All truth, all reality, belongs only to the former, while the latter is something untrue and therefore insignificant, devoid of firm laws and norms, as if accidental. The only way to find reality, support, etc. is to move from the world of people to the world of gods, from the world of the profane to the world of the sacred, which is possible only through ritual. However, a person cannot stay in the sphere of ritual all the time: after performing the ritual, he leaves the divine world, becoming an accidental, baseless, "pragmatic" being, which is characterized primarily by lying " (Sementsov, 1981, p. 66).

So, one of the most remarkable features of the ritual space (the space within the ritual circle that recreates the space of the divine "world of the immortals") is the truth as the most important condition for its sacredness. Any word of falsehood leads to immediate desacralization and failure in ritual activities with the most serious consequences for the donor up to his death. Recall that one of the main values is "true, true".

Its opposite is "disorderliness as deprivation, inauthenticity, and untruth" (Toporov, 1981, p. 143). Thus, the divine word of truth appears as a fundamental characteristic of the world being recreated in the ritual.

* * *

The key point of Vedic ritual is the sacrificial act. Its most important part is the identification of individual parts of the victim with elements of the world order and the verbalization of these identities. As a result of establishing the described correspondence, the properties of the prototype victim are transferred to the universe identified with it, as a result of which the latter is spiritualized, purified and updated. Compare the most complete version of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (I, 1), which is found in a somewhat reduced form in the Yajurveda texts dealing with the horse sacrifice ritual ašvamedha: Om! Verily the dawn is the head of the sacrificial horse, the sun is its eye, the wind is its breath, its open mouth is the fire of Vaisvanara; the year is the body of the sacrificial horse, the sky is its back, the air is its belly, the earth is its groin, the regions of light are its sides, the intervening sides are its sides. ribs, seasons - its members, months and halves of the month - its

joints, days and nights are his legs, stars are his bones, clouds are his flesh; the food in his stomach is sand, rivers are his veins, liver and lungs are mountains, grasses and trees are his hair, the rising sun its front half, the setting sun is its back half. When it grins its mouth, lightning flashes; when it shudders, thunder thunders; when it urinates, rain falls; the voice is its voice (cit. according to: [Upanishads, 2000, p. 70]).

If the texts of the Upanishads (works of Vedic literature that interpret the hidden meaning of the Veda) represent a certain reflection on the ritual experience, then the Yajurveda (Veda of sacrificial formulas of the Yajus) contains these sacrificial formulas themselves. The 2nd person form used here is noteworthy, in contrast to the corresponding fragment of the Upanishads. The mentioned verb form seems to indicate that the function of the addressee is attributed to the sacrificial object in this speech act. At the same time, this (especially taking into account the form of the desired mood characteristic of Yajurveda incantations, as well as their numerous appeals in their actual function and, undoubtedly, their suggestive style) gives some grounds to judge the illocution of this speech act - to exert influence, influence, possibly produce some suggestion to the sacrificial object. Compare: Your back is the sky, your seat is the earth, your breath is the air, your source of birth is the sea, your eye is the sun, your ear is the moon, your joints are the months and halves of the months, and so on.D. (TS 5, 7, 25). The result of this speech action accompanying the sacrificial act is supposed to be the synthesis of the Cosmos, the restoration of the destroyed universe from separate parts.

* * *

So, the mantra of the Vedic ritual is designed to restore the structure of the world recreated in it. At the same time, the main pragmatics that determine the content of sacred activity is the interaction between worlds. The Mauss-Benveniste theory that the Aryan religious cult is based on a situation of exchange between the deity and his adept is generally accepted. This situation determines the circle of participants in the communicative act: the addressee-a priest acting on behalf of the entire community of donors, and the addressee-a deity. The most controversial conclusion seems to be that "the addressee of the message is passive, that is, no verbal response is expected from God" [Elizarenkova, 1989, p. 483].

The Vedic tradition is characterized by the idea of the invisible presence at the sacrificial process of the deity, to whom the sacrifice is dedicated, and his participation in the ritual. The gods are invited to the sacrament of sacrifice: they are asked to descend from the sky, to take a special place (vedi) on a special bed of sacrificial straw (barhis), - hymns are addressed to them and the sacrifice they accept is intended for them.

In the first person singular, many of the most important hymns of the Rig Veda are sung in the name of the deity, and in ritual, probably for the deity. Compare, for example, the hymn of the goddess of speech Vach:

 
 
 I am with Rudra, Vasu, 
 Along with Aditi and Vishwadeva. 
 I carry Mitra and Varuna, 
 Indra and Agni, both Ashwins..."(RV X, 125, 1) 
 
 

(cit. by: [Ancient Indian Philosophy, 1963, p. 34]).

In the Rig Veda there are also more than two dozen hymns, traditionally called "conversation", which have preserved the features of dialogue. This genre includes, for example, the conversation of the priest Devapi with the god Brihaspati (RV, X, 98) or King Pururavas and the nymph Urvashi (RV, X, 95).

Attention has also been repeatedly drawn to the genre of the so - called riddle-the verbal part of the horse sacrifice ritual (ašvamedha)¹, called brahmodya, or brahmavadya, "brahmanogovorenie", which is an exchange of questions and answers. The content of dialogues is related to the structure of the universe, cosmogony, and is interpreted "as the conceptual core of the main ritual" [Elizarenkova and Toporov, 1984, p. 22]. The" active "addressee of questions" about the highest (or at least sacredly marked) values of the Vedic cosmos "[ibid., p. 29], which in their totality exhaust the" semantic structure of the mythopoetic model of the world " [ibid., p. 15], the tradition explicates Brihaspati, speaking through the mouth of a Brahmin priest. Compare the reference in the Black Yajur Veda to brahmodya in the solemn horse-offering ritual: "A Brahmana is the incarnation of Brihaspati "(TV III, 9, 5). The brahmán priest is thus regarded by the Vedic community not as a communicant, but only as a channel of communication between God and the collective of donors. ² In a parallel passage in the White Yajurveda, a Brahman is named instead of Brihaspati: étad brahmann úpa valhāmasi tvā ("This, O Brahmana, is what we wish for you") (SUN XXIII, 51). Brahman is first mentioned in the Rig Veda as the epithet Brihaspati.

In this case, judging by the grammatical form of the word "Brahman "(the masculine vocative brahman, differs in form from the neuter brahma, according to the rule of declination of bases to consonants with three steps of alternation (cf.: [Kochergina, 2001, pp. 154-156]), we are not talking about an abstract concept of the world soul (neuter gender), and about the god Brahma (male gender) (cf.: [Kochergina, 1996, pp. 470-471]). It is noteworthy that the semantic field of the name of the class of rituals, which also includes ašvamedha, šrauta, includes the following meanings: "related to hearing, auditory; related to the Vedas; based on religious communication" [Kochergina 1996, p. 659], which indicates revelation as one of the functions of this type of rituals and indirectly to the functions of its most important part is brahmodya. So, directives addressed to God presuppose answers containing "the deepest and most sacred meanings related to the highest values of the world, first of all to its origin, composition and order of its parts, to their connection with man, in other words, to what is checked and verified in the main annual ritual of this tradition" [Elizarenkova Toporov, 1984, p. 15].

Finally, it is noteworthy that in the cosmogonic myth it is God who acts as the subject of the creation of the world. This suggests that the deity actively contributed to the creation of the world not only in myth, but also in ritual. Thus, the priesthood is assigned a technical, auxiliary role in it. This circumstance makes it possible not to reduce the purpose of ritual communication exclusively to the act of exchange (gifts and information), but to define it as a joint activity (including speech) of god and man, aimed at the annual renewal and reconstruction of the universe, and also gives grounds to assume a more significant verbal contribution to this act of the deity.

Thus, the application of the activity-based approach to the study of Vedic ritual communication, based on the understanding of the latter as a joint activity of communicants, during which a common view of things and actions with them is developed, is more appropriate than the mechanistic approach, which proceeds from the attitude to communication as a unidirectional process of encoding and transmitting information.

^Ašvamedha is the oldest (dating back to the time of Indo-European unity) and most important Vedic solemn (šrauta) ritual, called in the Brahmanas "the king of all rites".

² The idea of the priest as a divine hierophany is expressed in the well - known Yajur Veda saying: "The Brahmanas are truly incarnate gods" (TS I, 7, 3, 1).

* * *

The grammatical form of the Vedic mantra is an interesting material that allows us to clarify the role of the deity in the ritual as the addressee of the creator of the world by means of a magic word. Above, attention was drawn to the form of the optative (desirable mood), in which, as a rule, Vedic mantras are presented. Compare, for example, Gayatri's "mantra of mantras "(RV III, 62, 10), which was considered the "mother of the Vedas":

("The sky, the earth, the middle world-all this pleases Savitar. We want to contain the greatness of God , the one who sets our minds and thoughts in motion.")

Mantras were also used in more ancient forms: subjunctiva, conjunctiva (to express prohibition), precative (optative formed from the aorist base), etc., whose functions also correspond to the desired mood. At the same time, it is well known that "the precative expresses a wish, the prayer "let it be")" [Zaliznyak]. Compare also the  conjunctiva trāyas "O medicinal herb, save" (MS 3, 10, 1), and the conjunctiva  "Do not harm the breath" (MS 3, 10, 1). It is important to note that " the desired mood (optativus) was widely used in Sanskrit, clearly delineating its meaning." functions of imperative mood functions (my italics - M. V.)" [Kochergina, 2001, p. 63]. As for these functions themselves, for the optative, the main ones are "the expression of a wish or advice ("please..."); prescriptions or wishes ("should...")" [ibid.], in contrast to the functions of the imperative mood (imperativus), expressing a categorical order, law, incentive to action or a ban. The imperative usually belongs to the Creator. Compare the life-giving word Kun ("be!"), by which Allah creates the world. Thus, the very form of Vedic mantras indicates the illocution of this type of speech acts: they represent only a request implicitly addressed to the deity, and not a direct impact on the object. This suggests that the final word, which directly transforms reality, belongs to the deity who approves or rejects the wishes of his adepts.

The divine word that transforms the world (perhaps due to its exceptional degree of sacredness) is not explicated in the texts of the Veda, so we are left to make assumptions about it.

In this connection, observations on the etymology of one of the most sacred Vedic syllables, om (skt.  "For a long time, it was generally accepted that it was of Indo - European origin, the proof of which - first and foremost-was the word" amen "or" amen" (atep), used in all Christian services " (Guseva, 1977, p.170). The final word of Christian prayers atep (from Gr. is used in the sense of "truly", "truly so", "so be it". However, some doubts are raised by the Semitic roots of the Greek word that goes back to the Hebrew "faithful", "reliable", "true" (and "truly", "so be it"), which is present in the prayers of Judaism. Compare also the Arabic one [Chernykh, 1999, p.41]. All this indicates a rather late appearance of this word in Church Greek.

Another version of the Vedic "divine word" appears much more plausible. And this word is also very remarkable here for the observations on the connection with the oath as an expression of fidelity (correspondence) to the elements being connected and, consequently, as an image of both the Cosmos itself and the Cosmos controlled by it " [Toporov,

1981, p. 155]. In this case, at least the Indo-Iranian origins of this tradition are obvious [ibid.].

Even in its basic meaning - "truth, truth, law" - it seems quite appropriate in meaning for God's approval of the wishes of donors, especially taking into account the concept of a God-given law. Thus, the answer of the deity to the request should be understood as "from now on, the requested thing is reality, the law."

At the same time, it seems that the utterance of God ("truth, truth") in response to any requests from donors means confirmation of the truth of the existence of this "during it", i.e., not in profane time, which does not ensure the stability of existence, but in some cosmic time corresponding to the moment of the first creation, which means that it is possible to create a new it is a guarantee of the successful realization of what you ask for in the material world. How does M. explain this? According to Eliade, "every creation is imagined as something appearing at the beginning of Time, in principio" [Eliade, 1994, p.53].

The Divine as an affirmative response to the requests of donors (often for the bestowal of material prosperity) explains the phrase of the Rig Veda: "The rush  swift and brings cows" (RV X, 23, 10). The plural here seems to indicate the mutual nature of the exchange between the upper and middle worlds (cows are received not only by the donors, but also by the deity). This idea is further developed in the same place when heaven and earth are compared to two cows. The purpose of the exchange of gifts between the worlds is to establish the law in the universe in the ritual, while the act of exchange is given the character of co-creation of God and man: "For the earth (and the sky) are spacious and deep. For they are milked like two excellent milk cows" (RV IV, 23, 10). Thus, in this case, the given declarative indicates the understanding of the ritual exchange of gifts as a joint activity aimed at achieving a common goal for both worlds - establishment in the universe.

These observations are quite consistent with the logic of the ritual itself. According to the accepted interpretation of F. B. Y. Kuiper, the cosmogonic act is repeated in the ritual annually due to the fact that in the Aryan view of the cyclical nature of time, the world from the state of organized space comes to a state of chaos and needs to be updated. The sacrificial animal, which is related to the universe, is dismembered on the altar, its parts are related to the parts of the world, which corresponds to the disintegration of the world in chaos. Then his body parts are put together. However, the parts put together are not yet a synthesis of the renewed world. True synthesis requires a sacred word belonging to God, which recreates and renews the world. From the point of view of semantics, join-splits are indicative of ved-related ones.  parallels from other languages cited by V. N. Toporov (cf.: [Toporov, 1981, pp. 150-153]).

Thus, the cosmos in the Vedic ritual is recreated from chaos, provided that a person consistently observes in the ritual the instructions of the gods of this Veda about the correspondence of the parts of the destroyed universe and the parts of the sacrifice symbolically personifying it, as well as the utterance of the sacred word by the deity.This act of communication also has the character of co-creation of worlds.

This assumption about the "synthesizing" function of the supposed response of the deity is also contained in the logic of the very opposition of the human-profane and divine-sacred world. Indeed, if the annual increase in entropic tendencies, destruction, and finally disintegration into separate elements are characteristic of the former, then the latter should have mirror features, i.e. be characterized by eternity, indestructibility, and integrity. If the main operation characteristic of human activity (both subject and speech) in ritual is dismemberment, dissection, analysis, then the divine transformation of the world through the word should be characterized by synthesis.

So, the communicative, dialogical nature of the Vedic sacrificial action suggests that the "analyzing" verbal part verbalized by the sacrificers, which accompanies the objective actions to recreate the disintegrated universe in the ritual, is not limited to establishing a correspondence between its parts and the members of the victim's body. It is implicitly assumed that there is a final word of God that "synthesizes" the sacrifice (and with it the destroyed universe) and at the same time confirms the requests addressed to it. Such an explanation of the order of the ritual can explain the Vedic concept of the exclusive role of the materialized divine word in the ritual and in the world.

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