The History of Indian Literature c8.338

c8.338

Now these last five *káṇḍas* appear to stand in the same order in which they actually and successively originated; so that each succeeding one is to be regarded as less ancient than the one that precedes it. This conjecture is based on internal evidence drawn from the data therein contained,—evidence which at the same time decides the question of their being posterior to the first nine *káṇḍas*. In the first place, the tenth *káṇḍa* still connects itself pretty closely with the preceding books, especially in its great veneration for Śáṇḍilya, the principal authority upon the building of altars for the sacred fires. The following are the data which seem to me to favour the view that it belongs to a different period from the first nine books. In i. 5. 1, ff., all the sacrifices already discussed in the preceding books are enumerated in their proper order, and identified with the several ceremonies of the Agni-chayana, or preparation of the sacred fireplace.—Of the names of teachers here mentioned, several end in *-áyana*, a termination of which we find only one example in the seventh, eighth, and ninth *káṇḍas* respectively: thus we meet here with a Rauhiṇáyana, Sáyakáyana, Vámakaksháyana (also in vii.), Rájastambáyana, Śáṇḍilyáyana (also in ix.), Śátyáyani (also in viii.), and the Śákáyanins.—The Vaṅśa appended at the close (*i.e.*, the list of the teachers of this book) differs from the general Vaṅśa of the entire Bráhmaṇa (at the close of the fourteenth book) in not referring the work to Yájnavalkya, but to Śáṇḍilya, and also to Tura Kávasheya (whose ancestor Kavasha we find on the banks of the Sarasvatí in the Aitareya-Bráhmaṇa). The only tribes mentioned are the Salvas and Kekayas (especially their king, Aśvapati Kaikeya),—two western tribes not elsewhere alluded to in the Bráhmaṇas.—The legends here as well as in the four succeeding *káṇḍas* are mostly of an historical character, and are besides chiefly connected with individual teachers who cannot have lived at a time very distant from that of the legends themselves. In the earlier *káṇḍas*, on the contrary, the legends are mostly of a mythological character, or, if historical, refer principally to occurrences belonging to remote antiquity; so that here a distinct difference is evident.—The *trayí vidyá* (the three Vedas) is repeatedly discussed in a very special manner, and the number of the *ṛichas* is stated to be 12,000, that of the *yajus*-verses 8000, and that of the *sámans* 4000. Here also for the first time appear the names Adhvaryus, Bahvṛichas, and Chhandogas side by side;[^asterisk] here, too, we have the first occurrence of the words *upanishad* (as *sára* of the Veda), *upanishadám ádeśáḥ*, *mímáṅsá* (mentioned once before, it is true, in the first *káṇḍa*), *adhidevatam*, *adhiyajnam*, *adhyátmam*;¹³⁶ and lastly, here for the first time we have the form of address *bhaván* (instead of the earlier *bhagaván*). Now and then also a *śloka* is quoted in confirmation, a thing which occurs extremely seldom in the preceding books. Further, many of the technical names of the *sámans* and *śastras* are mentioned (this, however, has occurred before, and also in the tenth book of the Saṃhitá); and generally, frequent reference is made to the connection subsisting with the *ṛichas* and *sámans*, which harmonises with the peculiarly mystical and systematising character of the whole *káṇḍa*.