A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c9.s2.71
A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, so far as it illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans c9.s2.71
- Language
- English
c9.s2.71
What became of these numerous Brâhmaṇa-charaṇas which are quoted both in the Brâhmaṇas and in the Sûtras, is not quite clear. Most likely they were absorbed or replaced by a more modern class of Charaṇas, the Sûtra-charaṇas. When the Sûtras once came to be regarded as part of the sacred canon, they gave rise to a large number of new Charaṇas.² Their members would preserve the text of the Sanhitâ and Brâhmaṇa of an earlier Charaṇa from which they originally branched off.³ The ground of division being in the Sûtras, the minor differences between the texts of the Sanhitâs and Brâhmaṇas might be waived in these modern Charaṇas, and this would gradually lead to the loss of many of the old Śâkhâs. We saw before, in the case of the Śâkalas and Bâshkalas, that at the time when Sûtras began to be composed there was a tendency to reunite different Śâkhâs into one. That the introduction of Sûtras encroached on the study of the Brâhmaṇas and Sanhitâs in the schools of the Brahmans, becomes evident from passages in which the custom of performing sacrifices after the prescriptions of Sûtras only is declared to be without merit and without effect. Kumârila in one passage simply states the fact that priests perform sacrifices by means of the Kalpa-sûtras only, and without the Veda, but that they could not do the same by means of the Mantras and Brâhmaṇas, and without the Kalpas.¹ In another place² he declares that the reason why the Smritis or law-books, which he considers to be founded on the Veda, had not been made up of literal extracts, was because this would have endangered the sacred study of the whole Veda. The Veda would thus have been read in a different order, or small extracts only would have been studied instead of the whole Veda. Now this is what seems to have happened to a certain extent by the introduction of the Sūtras, and it would account for the loss of many of the old Śākhās, Saṃhitās as well as Brāhmaṇas.