The History of Indian Literature c8.300.2

c8.300.2

This statement the commentary on the Code of Yájnavalkya (called Mitákshará) modifies to this effect, that the *Śukriya* begins at xxx. 3, and that xxxvi. 1 forms the beginning of an Áraṇyaka.∗ The first four of these later added *adhyáyas* (xxvi.–xxix.) contain sacrificial formulas which belong to the ceremonies treated of in the earlier *adhyáyas*, and must be supplied thereto in the proper place. The ten following *adhyáyas* (xxx.–xxxix.) contain the formulas for entirely new sacrificial ceremonies, viz., the *purusha-medha* (human sacrifice),¹²³ the *sarva-medha* (universal sacrifice), the *pitṛi-medha* (oblation to the Manes), and the *pravargya* (purificatory sacrifice).¹²⁴ The last *adhyáya*, finally, has no sort of direct reference to the sacrificial ceremonial. It is also regarded as an Upanishad,∗ and is professedly designed to fix the proper mean between those exclusively engaged in sacrificial acts and those entirely neglecting them. It belongs, at all events, to a very advanced stage of speculation, as it assumes a Lord (*íś*) of the universe.†—Independently of the above-mentioned external testimony to the later origin of these fifteen *adhyáyas*, their posteriority is sufficiently proved by the relation in which they stand both to the Black Yajus and to their own Bráhmaṇa, as well as by the data they themselves contain.