The History of Indian Literature c8.132.4

c8.132.4

and in my opinion it would be preferable to do so. We may divest the four proper names of any special relation to the names of the four works, and regard the two groups as independent,⁴⁸ as we must evidently assume them to be in the Śáṅkháyana-Gṛihya.* If this be done, then what most readily suggests itself in connection with the passage is the manner in which the Puráṇas apportion the revelation of the several Vedas; inasmuch as they assign the Atharvaveda to Sumantu, the Sámaveda to Jaimini, the Yajurveda to Vaiśampáyana, and the Ṛigveda to Paila. But in either case we must assume with Roth, who first pointed out the passage in Áśvaláyana (*op. c.*, p. 27), that this passage, as well as the one in Śáṅkháyana, has been touched up by later interpolation;⁴⁹ otherwise the dates of these two Gṛihya-Sútras would be brought down too far! For although, from the whole tenor of both passages, that in the Áśvaláyana-Gṛihya, as well as that in the Śáṅkháyana-Gṛihya—which for the rest present other material discrepancies of detail—it is sufficiently clear that they presuppose the literature of the Ṛigveda as entirely closed, still the general attitude of both works shows their comparatively ancient origin.—The question whether any connection exists between the Smṛiti-Śástra of Śaṅkha and the Gṛihya-Sútra of Śáṅkháyana, remains still unanswered.