A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c10.2

c10.2

HAVING ascribed to one period the first establishment of the three-fold ceremonial (trayî vidyâ), the composition, and collection of the Brâhmaṇas, and the ramification of the Brâhmaṇa-charaṇas, we have now to see whether we can extend our view beyond the limits of this period and trace the stream of Vedic literature still further back to its source and its earliest diffusion. According to its general character, the Brâhmaṇa period must be called a secondary period. It exhibits a stratum of thought, perfectly unintelligible without the admission of a preceding age, during which all that is misunderstood, perverted, and absurd in the Brâhmaṇas, had its natural growth, its meaning, and purpose. But can it be supposed that those who established the threefold ceremonial, and those who composed the threefold Brâhmaṇas, followed immediately upon an age which had known poets, but no priests, prayers, but no dogmas, worship, but no ceremonies? Or are there traces to show that, even previous to the composition of the Brâhmaṇas, a spirit was at work in the literature of India, no longer creative, free, and original, but living only on the heritage of a former age, collecting, classifying, and imitating? I believe we must decidedly adopt the latter view. The only document we have, in which we can study the character of the times, previous to the Brâhmaṇa period, is the Rig-veda-sanhitâ. The other two Sanhitâs were more likely the production of the Brâhmaṇa period. These two Vedas, the Yajur-veda and Sâma-veda, were, in truth, what they are called in the Kaushîtaki-brâhmaṇa, the attendants of the Rig-veda.¹ The Brâhmaṇas presuppose the Trayî vidyâ, the threefold knowledge, or the threefold Veda, but that Trayî vidyâ again presupposes one Veda, and that the Rig-veda. We cannot suppose that the hymns which are found in the Rig-veda, and in the Sanhitâs of the two supplementary Vedas, the Sâma and Yajur-veda, were collected three times by three independent collectors. If so, their differences would be much greater than they are. The differences which do exist between the same hymns and verses as given in the three Sanhitâs, are such as we should expect to find in different Śâkhâs, not such as would naturally arise in independent collections or Sanhitâs.