Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s3.148

c9.s3.148

Goldstücker points out⁵ that Pāṇini used the word *Āraṇyaka* only in the sense of 'a man living in the forest'. It is Kātyāyana (*c.* fourth century B.C.) who vouchsafes in a *Vārttika* the information that the same expression is also used in the sense of treatises ‘read in the forest’. The silence of Pāṇini in regard to this additional meaning of the term, when contrasted with the clear statement of the later grammarian, leaves little room for doubt that *Āraṇyaka* in the sense of a forest-treatise was well known to writers traditionally assigned to the fourth century B.C., but not to Pāṇini. It may be recalled in this connection that, unlike Kātyāyana again, Pāṇini does not include the works of Yājñavalkya, a contemporary of Kahola, the teacher of Guṇākhya, among the older (*Purāṇa-prokta*) *Brāhmaṇas*.¹ Śvetaketu, another contemporary of Kahola, teacher of Guṇākhya, is mentioned in the *Dharmasūtra* of Āpastamba² as an *avara* or modern authority. The reference to *Yavanānī* in the *sūtras*³ of Pāṇini and the tradition recorded in the *Kāvya-Mīmāṁsā*⁴ that he made his mark in the city of Pāṭaliputra (founded, as we know, after the death of the Buddha, *c.* 486 B.C., in the reign of Udāyin), clearly suggest that he could not have flourished before the sage of the Śākyas. Profound as his knowledge is in regard to Vedic literature, Pāṇini is unaware of the existence of Āraṇyakas as a class of forest-treatises. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to conclude that he could not have been considerably posterior to the great masters of the *Āraṇyakas* among whom Guṇākhya Śāṅkhāyana holds an honoured place. In other words, the upper limit of the date of this teacher almost coincides with the lower. With a date for him in the sixth century B.C. all the evidence accommodates itself.