A History of Sanskrit Literature c11.17

c11.17

To the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* belongs the *Aitareya Āraṇyaka*. It consists of eighteen chapters, distributed unequally among five books. The last two books are composed in the Sūtra style, and are really to be regarded as belonging to the Sūtra literature. Four parts can be clearly distinguished in the first three books. Book I. deals with various liturgies of the Soma sacrifice from a purely ritual point of view. The first three chapters of Book II., on the other hand, are theosophical in character, containing speculations about the world-soul under the names of Prāṇa and Purusha. It is allied in matter to the Upanishads, some of its more valuable thoughts recurring, occasionally even word for word, in the *Kaushītaki Upanishad*. The third part consists of the remaining four sections of Book II., which form the regular *Aitareya Upanishad*. Finally, Book III. deals with the mystic and allegorical meaning of the three principal modes in which the Veda is recited in the *Saṃhitā*, *Pada* and *Krama Pāṭhas*, and of the various letters of the alphabet.