A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s1.1

c19.s1.1

The Vedic religion of sacrifice had spread all over the country by the beginning of the Christian era, if not earlier, and Vedic literature and exegesis therefore naturally claim our first attention in the domain of Sanskrit. Āpastamba, the author of a complete set of śrauta, grihya and dharma sūtras that has luckily been preserved in its entirety, must have flourished somewhere about 300 B.C. in the Godāvari valley. His language seems to be of an age preceding that of Pāṇini, and the followers of his school abound in the land south of the Narmada. The school of Satyāshāḍha Hiranyakeśins, whose Dharmasūtra shows clear traces of Āpastamba's influence, came into prominence in the Sahya region (Malabar and S. Kanara?) between the first century B.C. and the first century A.D. A third school which can also be definitely assigned to South India is that of the Vaikhānasas whose Grihya sūtra shows many influences of the idiom of the Dravidian languages. The manuals of these two schools also are complete.