Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c32.93

c32.93

Moreover, when we compare the teachers in column 4 with those in columns 5–8, we notice that there is no agreement between the two classes (except perhaps as regards No. 100, ‘Yājñavalkya’)⁴ until we reach Āsuri and Āsurāyaṇa. This want of agreement is entirely what should be expected, because the Vedic schools could not have dominated all the religious teachers forthwith, and had gradually to make good their special province and authority, each as regards its own Veda. That process would have been slow, not only because of religious conservatism and jealousy,⁵ but also because the multiplicity of competing versions would have weakened their prerogative. It would have required a long time; and the table shows that from Vyāsa’s disciples to Āsuri (when the influence began to appear) was more than a century and a half. During that period religious teachers of the old order would have continued to flourish independently alongside the growing Vedic schools, and that is what column 4 shows.⁶ The two streams of teaching would have persisted, with gradually diminishing difference, even longer than that, and may not have blended till the close of the Brāhmaṇa period. Hence that condition may be suggested as another cause why ‘the Saṃhitā text did not come into existence till after the completion of the Brāhmaṇas’.