A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c8.s3.190

c8.s3.190

In the Sûtras which we still possess, it is most important to observe the gradual change of style. Śaunaka’s style, when compared with that of his successors, is natural, both in prose and verse. His prose more particularly runs sometimes so easily and is so free from the artificial contrivances of the later Sûtras, that it seems a mistake to apply to it the name of Sûtra. It is not unlikely that this title was assigned to his works at a time when its meaning had not yet been restricted either to the long "yarns" of the Buddhists or to the compendious paragraphs of the Brahmans, and we may well believe the statement that Śaunaka's works on the ceremonial resembled more the Brâhmaṇas than the later Sûtras. Âśvalâyana's style is still intelligible, and less cramped by far than the style of the Nirukta, a work commonly ascribed to Yâska, the collector of the Nighaṇṭus. Pâṇini is more artificial. He is no longer writing and composing, but he squeezes and distils his thoughts, and puts them before us in a form which hardly deserves the name of style. Kâtyâyana is still more algebraic; but it is in Pingala that the absurdity of the Sûtras becomes complete. If any writers succeeded him, they could hardly have excelled him in enigmatic obscurity, and we may well believe that he was one of the last writers of Sûtras. The authors of the Pariśiṣṭas, unwilling to wear the strait-jacket of the Sûtrakâras, and unable to invent a more appropriate dress, adopted the slovenly metre of epic poetry, well adapted for legendary narration, but unfit for scientific discussion.