this work is manifestly of a supplementary nature, a portion of it
may perhaps be old, and may once have formed part of the Saṃhitā,
considering that the latter consists of seven ashṭakas, instead of
eight, as this term requires, and that certain essential parts of the
ceremonial handled in the Brāhmaṇa are entirely wanting in the
Saṃhitā. Attached to this work is the Taittirīya-āraṇyaka,[1] in ten
books, the first six of which are of a ritualistic nature, while of the
remaining books the first three (7-9) form the Taittirīyopanishad[2]
(consisting of three parts, viz. the Sikshāvallī or Saṃhitopanishad, and
the Ānandavallī and Bhṛiguvallī, also called together the
Vāruṇiupanishad), and the last book forms the Nārāyaṇīya- (or Yājñikī-)
upanishad.
The Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā, the identity of which with the original Kālāpaka has been proved pretty conclusively by Dr L. v. Schröder, who attributes the change of name of the Kālāpa-Maitrāyaṇīyas to Buddhist influences, consists of four books, attached to which is the Maitri- (or Maitrāyaṇī) upanishad.[3] The Kāṭhaka, on the other hand, consists of five parts, the last two of which, however, are perhaps later additions, containing merely the prayers of the hotar priest, and those used at the horse-sacrifice. There is, moreover, the beautiful Kaṭha- or Kāṭhaka-upanishad,[4] which is also, and more usually, ascribed to the Atharvaveda, and which seems to show a decided leaning towards Sānkhya-Yoga notions.
The defective arrangement of the Yajus texts was at last remedied by a different school of Adhvaryus, the Vājasaneyins. The reputed Saṃhitā of White Yajurveda. originator of this school and its text-recension is Yājñavalkya Vājasaneya (son of Vājasani). The result of the rearrangement of the texts was a collection of sacrificial mantras, the Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā, and a Brāhmaṇa, the Śatapatha. On account of the greater lucidity of this arrangement, the Vājasaneyins called their texts the White (or clear) Yajurveda—the name of Black (or obscure) Yajus being for opposite reasons applied to the Charaka texts. Both the Saṃhitā and Brāhmaṇa of the Vājasaneyins have come down to us in two different recensions, viz. those of the Mādhyandina and Kāṇva schools; and we find besides a considerable number of quotations from a Vājasaneyaka, from which we cannot doubt that there must have been at least one other recension of the Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa. The difference between the two extant recensions is, on the whole, but slight as regards the subject-matter; but in point of diction it is quite sufficient to make a comparison especially interesting from a philological point of view. Which of the two versions may be the more original cannot as yet be determined; but the phonetic and grammatical differences will probably have to be accounted for by a geographical separation of the two schools rather than by a difference of age. In several points of difference the Kāṇva recension agrees with the practice of the Ṛik-saṃhitā, and there probably was some connexion between the Yajus school of Kāṇvas and the famous family of ṛishis of that name to which the eighth maṇḍala of the Ṛik is attributed.
The Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā,[5] consists of forty adhyāyas, the first eighteen of which contain the formulas of the ordinary sacrifices. The last fifteen adhyāyas are doubtless a later addition—as may also be the case as regards the preceding seven chapters. The last adhyāya is commonly known under the title of Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā (or Iśāvāsya-) upanishad.[6] Its object seems to be to point out the fruitlessness of mere works, and to insist on the necessity of man's acquiring a knowledge of the supreme spirit. The sacrificial texts of the Adhvaryus consist, in about equal parts, of verses (rich) and prose formulas (yajus). The majority of the former occur likewise in the Ṛik-saṃhitā, from which they were doubtless extracted. Not infrequently, however, they show considerable discrepancies of reading, which may be explained partly from a difference of recension and partly as the result of the adaptation of these verses to their special sacrificial purpose. As regards the prose formulas, though only a few of them are actually referred to in the Ṛik, it is quite possible that many of them may be of high antiquity.
The Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa,[7] or Brāhmaṇa of a hundred paths, derives its name from the fact of its consisting of 100 lectures (adhyāya), Brāhmaṇa of White Yajurveda. which are divided by the Mādhyandinas into fourteen, by the Kāṇvas into seventeen books (kāṇḍa). The first nine books of the former, corresponding to the first eleven of the Kāṇvas, and consisting of sixty adhyāyas, form a kind of running commentary on the first eighteen books of the Vāj.-Saṃhitā; and it has been plausibly suggested by Professor Weber that this portion of the Brāhmaṇa may be referred to in the Mahābhāshya on Pāṇ. iv. 2, 60, where a Śatapatha and a Shashṭi-patha (i.e. “consisting of 60 paths”) are mentioned together as objects of study, and that consequently it may at one time have formed an independent work. This view is also supported by the circumstance that of the remaining five books (10-14) of the Mādhyandinas the third is called the middle one (madhyama); while the Kāṇvas apply the same epithet to the middlemost of the five books (12-16) preceding their last one. This last book would thus seem to be treated by them as a second supplement, and not without reason, as it is of the Upanishad order, and bears the special title of Bṛihad- (great) āraṇyaka;[8] the last six chapters of which are the Bṛihadāraṇyaka-upanishad,[9] the most important of all Upanishads. Except in books 6-10 (M.), which treat of the construction of fire-altars, and recognize the sage Sāṇḍilya as their chief authority, Yājñavalkya's opinion is frequently referred to in the Śatapatha as authoritative. This is especially the case in the later books, part of the Bṛihad-āraṇyaka being even called Yājñavalkiya-kāṇḍa. As regards the age of the Śatapatha, the probability is that the main body of the work is considerably older than the time of Pāṇini, but that some of its latter parts were considered by Pāṇini's critic Kātyāyana to be of about the same age as, or not much older than, Pāṇini. Even those portions had probably been long in existence before they obtained recognition as part of the canon of the White Yajus.
The contemptuous manner in which the doctrines of the Charaka-adhvaryus are repeatedly animadverted upon in the Śatapatha betrays not a little of the odium theologicum on the part of the divines of the Vājasaneyins towards their brethren of the older schools. Nor was their animosity confined to mere literary warfare, but they seem to have striven by every means to gain ascendancy over their rivals. The consolidation of the Brāhmanical hierarch and the institution of a common system of ritual worship, which called forth the liturgical Vedic collections, were doubtless consummated in the so-called Madhya-deśa, or “midland,” lying between the Sarasvatī and the confluence of the Yamunā and Gangā; and more especially in its western part, the Kuru-kshetra, or land of the Kurus, with the adjoining territory of the Panchālas, between the Yamunā and Gangā. From thence the original schools of Vaidik ritualism gradually extended their sphere over the adjacent parts. The Charakas seem for a long time to have held sway in the western and north-western regions; while the Taittirīyas in course of time spread over the whole of the peninsula south of the Narmadā (Nerbudda), where their ritual has remained pre-eminently the object of study till comparatively recent times. The Vājasaneyins, on the other hand, having first gained a footing in the lands on the lower Ganges, chiefly, it would seem, through the patronage of King Janaka of Videha, thence gradually worked their way westwards, and eventually succeeded in superseding the older schools north of the Vindhya, with the exception of some isolated places where even now families of Brahmans are met with which profess to follow the old Saṃhitās.
In Kalpa-sūtras the Black Yajurveda is particularly rich; but, owing to the circumstances just indicated, they are almost entirely Sūtras of Yajurveda. confined to the Taittirīya school. The only Śrauta-sūtra of a Charaka school which has hitherto been recovered is that of the Mānavas, a subdivision of the Maitrāyaṇīyas. The Mānava-śrauta-sūtra[10] seems to consist of eleven books, the first nine of which treat of the sacrificial ritual, while the tenth contains the Śulva-sūtra; and the eleventh is made up of a number of supplements (pari-śishṭa). The Mānava-gṛihya-sūtra[11] is likewise in existence; but so far nothing is known, save one or two quotations, of a Mānava-dharma-sūtra, the discovery of which might be expected to solve some important questions regarding the development of Indian law. Of sūtra-works belonging to the Kaṭhas, a single treatise, the (Chārāyaṇīya-) Kāṭhaka-gṛihya-sūtra, is known; while Dr Jolly considers the Vishṇu-smṛiti,[12] a compendium of law, composed in mixed sūtras and ślokas, to be nothing but a Vaishṇava recast of the Kaṭhaka-dharma-sūtra, which, in its original form, seems no longer to exist. As regards the Taittirīyas, the Kalpa-sūtra most widely accepted among them was that of Āpastamba, to whose school, as we have seen, was also due our existing recension of the Taittirīya-saṃhitā. The Āpastamba-kalpa-sūtra consists of thirty praśna (questions); the first twenty-five of these constitute the Śrauta-sūtra;[13] 26 and 27 the Gṛihya-sūtra;[14] 28 and 29 the Dharma-sūtra;[15] and the last the Śulva-sūtra. Professor Bühler has tried to fix the date of this work somewhere between the 5th and 3rd centuries B.C.; but it can hardly yet be considered as definitely settled. Considerably more ancient than this work are the
- ↑ Ed. R. Mitra, Bibl. Ind.; H. N. Apte. Anand. Ser. (1898).
- ↑ Trans. by F. M. Müller, S.B.E. vol. xv.
- ↑ Text and translation published by E. B. Cowell, Bibl. Ind. Also trans. by F. M. Müller, S.B.E. vol. xv.
- ↑ Text, commentary and translation published by E. Röer, Bibl. Ind.; also translation by F. M. Müller, S.B.E. vol. xv., and others.
- ↑ Edited in the Mādhyandina recension, with the commentary of Mahidhara, and the vv. ll. or the Kāṇva text, by A. Weber (1849); trans. by R. H. T. Griffith (Benares, 1899).
- ↑ Translation by E. Röer, Bibl. Ind.; by F. M. Müller, S.B.E. vol. i.
- ↑ Edited by A. Weber, who also translated the first chapter into German. English translation (5 vols.) by J. Eggeling, in S. B. E.
- ↑ The text, with Śankara's commentary, and an English translation, published by E. Röer, Bibl. Ind.
- ↑ Trans. by F. M. Müller, S.B.E. vol. xv., and others.
- ↑ See P. v. Bradke, Z.D.M.G. vol. xxxvi. A MS. of a portion of the Śrauta-sūtra, with the commentary of the famous Mīmāmsist Kumārila, has been photo-lithographed by the India Office, under Goldstücker's supervision.
- ↑ Edited by F. Knauer (Leipzig, 1897).
- ↑ Edited and translated by J. Jolly.
- ↑ Edited by R. Garbe, in Bibl. Ind.
- ↑ Ed. M. Winternitz (Vienna, 1887); trans. H. Oldenberg, S.B.E. vol. xxx.
- ↑ G. Bühler has published the text with extracts from Haradatta's commentary, Bombay Sansk. Ser.; also a trans. in S.B.E.
