The History of Indian Literature c8.300.4

c8.300.4

As to those *mantras*, on the contrary, which are not mentioned at all, the idea suggests itself that they may not yet have been incorporated into the Saṃhitá text extant when the Bráhmaṇa was composed. They are, roughly speaking, of two kinds. First, there are strophes borrowed from the Ṛik, and to be recited by the Hotar, which therefore, strictly speaking, ought not to be contained in the Yajus at all, and of which it is possible that the Bráhmaṇa may have taken no notice, for the reason that it has nothing to do with the special duties of the Hotar; *e.g.*, in the twentieth, thirty-third, and thirty-fourth *adhyáyas* especially. Secondly, there are passages of a Bráhmaṇa type, which are not, however, intended, as in the Black Yajus, to serve as an explanation of *mantras* preceding them, but stand independently by themselves; *e.g.*, in particular, several passages in the nineteenth *adhyáya*, and the enumeration, in the form of a list, of the animals to be dedicated at the horse sacrifice, in the twenty-fourth *adhyáya*. In the first eighteen *adhyáyas* also, there occur a few sacrificial formulas which the Bráhmaṇa either fails to mention (and which, therefore, at the time when it was composed, did not form part of the Saṃhitá), or else cites only by their initial words, or even merely by the initial words of the *anuvákas*.