The History of Indian Literature c8.206

c8.206

In a far more important degree than he differs from Dráhyáyaṇa does Láṭyáyana differ, on the one hand, from Kátyáyana, who in his Śrauta-Sútra, belonging to the White Yajus, treats in books 22–24 of the *ekáhas*, *ahínas*, and *sattras*; and on the other, from the Ṛik-Sútras of Áśvaláyana and Śáṅkháyana, which likewise deal with these subjects in their proper place. In these there is no longer any question of differences of opinion; the stricter view represented by Śáṇḍilya in the Láṭyáyana-Sútra has everywhere triumphed. The ceremonies on the Sarasvatí and the Vrátyastomas have also become, in a local sense too, further removed from actual life, as appears both from the slight consideration with which they are treated, and from modifications of names, &c., which show a forgetting of the original form. Many of the ceremonies discussed in the Sáma-Sútras are, moreover, entirely wanting in the Sútras of the other Vedas; and those which are found in the latter are enumerated in tabular fashion rather than fully discussed—a difference which naturally originated in the diversity of purpose, the subject of the Sútra of the Yajus being the duties of the Adhvaryu, and that of the Sútras of the Ṛik the duties of the Hotar.