Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s3.142

c9.s3.142

The passage quoted above makes it clear that Guṇākhya Śāṅkhāyana was separated by two generations from the time of Uddālaka who was separated by five or six generations from the time of Janamejaya. Guṇākhya, therefore, lived seven or eight generations after Parikshit. He could not have flourished much later than Āśvalāyana because the latter, or preferably his pupil, honours his *guru* Kahola.³ It is to be noted that we have no personal name prefixed to Āśvalāyana as we have in the case of Śāṅkhāyana. This probably suggests that Vedic tradition knew only of one great teacher named Āśvalāyana. It is significant that both in Vedic and Buddhist literature this famous scholar is associated with one and the same locality, viz., Kosala, modern Oudh. The *Praśna Upanishad* tells us that Āśvalāyana was a *Kausalya*, i.e., an inhabitant of Kosala, and a contemporary of Kabandhī Kātyāyana. These facts enable us to identify him with Assalāyana of Sāvatthi (a city in Kosala) mentioned in the *Majjhima Nikāya* as a famous Vedic scholar,¹ and a contemporary of Gotama Buddha and, hence, of Kakuda² or Pakudha Kachchāyana. The reference to Gotama's contemporary as a master of *keṭubha*, *i.e.*, *kalpa* or ritual, makes it exceedingly probable that he is to be identified with the famous Āśvalāyana of the *Gṛihya Sūtras*. Consequently the latter must have lived in the sixth century B.C. Guṇākhya Śāṅkhāyana, whose teacher Kahola is honoured by the famous *Gṛihyasūtrā-kāra*, cannot be placed later than that century. That the upper limit of Guṇākhya's date is not far removed from the lower one is suggested in the first place by the reference in his *Āraṇyaka* to Paushkarasādi, Lauhitya and a teacher who is styled Magadhavāsī. The first two figure, in the *Ambaṭṭha* and *Lohichcha suttas*, among the contemporaries of the Buddha. The attitude of respect towards a Magadhan teacher in the *Āraṇyaka* points to an age later than that reflected in the *Śrauta Sūtras* which mention Brāhmaṇas hailing from the locality in question in a depreciatory tone as *Brahmabandhu Māgadha-deśīya*.⁴