India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c10.s3.t1.31

c10.s3.t1.31

SĀMAVEDA—The Saṁhitā of this Veda existed in two forms, *viz.* the *ārchika* (the *ṛich*-text marked with *sāman*-accents) and the *geya* or songs. The *ārchika* is referred to in *sūtra* IV.3.72, and the *geya* in *sūtra* III.4.68 which the *Kāśikā* interprets with reference to the *sāman* songs. Pāṇini mentions *Chhāndogya* in the specific sense of the text belonging to the Chhandoga School of the Sāmaveda (IV.3.129). In *sūtra* VI.2.37, Pāṇini refers to *Kārta* students named after their teacher Kṛita, who according to the *Vishṇu Purāṇa* (IV.19.50-52) was a Paurava prince, and disciple of the Sāmaveda teacher Hiraṇyanābha, king of Kosala. Kṛita is credited with the promulgation through his disciples of twenty-four Saṁhitās which were in circulation in eastern parts of India (*yaś-chaturviṁśatiṁ Prāchya-Sāmagānāṁ Saṁhitāś-chakāra*). He did for the Sāmaveda what Vaiśampāyana had done for the Yajurveda. The *Kārta-Kaujapādi-gaṇa* mentions the names of about thirty Vedic Schools and the compound words indicate some kind of literary collaboration which made these pair names current in the language. Examples of such collaboration are preserved in the compound words *Kaṭha-Kālāpam*, *Kaṭha-Kauthumam* (mentioned as examples of II.4.3, *Anuvāde Charaṇānām*); and *Mauda-Paippalāda* (Schools of the Atharvaveda, as examples of *sūtra* I.3.49 *Aṇorakarmakāt*); *Kauthuma-Laugākshāḥ* (both Schools of Sāmaveda; its *Kauthumī Saṁhitā* being now extant); and *Bābhrava-Śālaṅkāyanāḥ* (the latter a School of the *Sāmaveda* in the Vāhīka country or Panjab, Weber, *H.I.L.*, p. 77 and p. 219 f. n.)². The compound name *Bābhrava-Śālaṅkāyana* representing a Ṛigvedic School of Pañchāla and a Sāmaveda School of Vāhīka, is also known to Patañjali who observes: 'Why should you come between the Bābhravas and the Śālaṅkāyanas?' (*Kim te Bābhrava-Śālaṅkāyanānām antareṇa gateneti*, *Bhāshya*, II.3.4; I.444).³ The Śālaṅkāyanas also became known as *Trikāḥ*, probably because of their being divided into three sub-schools (*Bhāshya*, V.¹.57-58).