The History of Indian Literature c8.32

c8.32

The advance made by linguistic research during this epoch was very considerable. It was then that the text of the prayers was fixed, that the redaction of the various Saṃhitás took place. By degrees, very extensive precautions were taken for this purpose. For their study (Páṭha), as well as for the different methods of preserving them—whether by writing or by memory, for either is possible¹³—such special injunctions are given, that it seems all but impossible that any alteration in the text, except in the form of interpolation, can have taken place since. These directions, as well as those relating to the pronunciation and recitation of the words, are laid down in the Prátiśákhya-Sútras, writings with which we have but recently been made acquainted.∗ Such a Prátiśákhya-Sútra uniformly attaches itself to the Saṃhitá of a single Veda only, but it embraces all the schools belonging to it; it gives the general regulations as to the nature of the sounds employed, the euphonic rules observed, the accent and its modifications, the modulation of the voice, &c. Further, all the individual cases in which peculiar phonetic or other changes are observed are specially pointed out;¹⁴ and we are in this way supplied with an excellent critical means of arriving at the form of the text of each Saṃhitá at the time when its Prátiśákhya was composed. If we find in any part of the Saṃhitá phonetic peculiarities which we are unable to trace in its Prátiśákhya, we may rest assured that at that period this part did not yet belong to the Saṃhitá. The directions as to the recital of the Veda, *i.e.*, of its Saṃhitá,† in the schools—each individual word being repeated in a variety of connections—present a very lively picture of the care with which these studies were pursued.