The History of Indian Literature c8.188

c8.188

These are the extant Bráhmaṇas of the Sámaveda. Sáyaṇa, indeed, in his commentary on the Sámavidhána enumerates eight (see Müller, Ṛik i. Pref. p. xxvii): the *Prauḍha-* or *Mahá-Bráhmaṇa* (*i.e.*, the *Pañchaviṅśa*), the *Shaḍviṅśa*, the *Sámavidhi*, the *Ársheya*, the *Devatádhyáya*, the *Upanishad*, the *Saṃhitopanishad*, and the *Vaṅśa*. The claims, however, of four of these works to the name of Bráhmaṇa, have no solid foundation. The Ársheya is, as already stated, merely an Anukramaṇí, and the Devatádhyáya can hardly be said to be anything else; the Vaṅśa elsewhere always constitutes a part of the Bráhmaṇas themselves: the two latter works, moreover, can scarcely be supposed to be still in existence, which, as far as the Vaṅśa is concerned, is certainly very much to be regretted. The Sámavidhána also, which probably treats, like the portion of the Láṭyáyana-Sútra bearing the same name, of the conversion of the *ṛichas* into *sámans*, can hardly pass for a Bráhmaṇa.⁷¹ As to the Saṃhitopanishad, it appears to me doubtful whether Sāyaṇa meant by it the Kenopanishad; for though the *saṃhitá* (universality) of the Supreme Being certainly is discussed in the latter, the subject is not handled under this name, as would seem to be demanded by the analogy of the title of the Saṃhitopanishad of the Aitareya-Áraṇyaka as well as of the Taittiríya-Áraṇyaka. My conjecture would be that he is far more likely to have intended a work⁷² of the same title, of which there is a MS. in the British Museum (see *I. St.*, i. 42); and if so, all mention of the Kenopanishad has been omitted by him; possibly for the reason that it appears at the same time in an Atharvan-recension (differing but little, it is true), and may have been regarded by him as belonging to the Atharvan?