The History of Indian Literature c8.362.4

c8.362.4

Then, having passed through ten more stages and arrived at Áditya, the sun-god, as the original author, we find the following words as the close of the whole Bráhmaṇa: *ádityání ’máni śukláni yajúṅshi Vájasaneyena Yájnavalkyená ’’khyáyante*, ‘these White Yajus-texts originating † from Áditya are transmitted by Vájasaneya Yájnavalkya.’ According to Śaṃkara and Dvivedagaṅga, this Vaṅśa does not refer to the Khila-káṇḍa, but to the entire Pravachana, the entire Veda (*i.e.*, the White Yajus). This view is at all events favoured by the fact that the Vaṅśa at the close of the tenth book (the only one which appears in the whole of the Śatapatha-Bráhmaṇa, besides those of the Madhu-káṇḍa, Yájnavalkíya-káṇḍa, and Khila-káṇḍa) ‡ evidently refers to this Vaṅśa, and presupposes its existence when at its commencement it says: *samánam á Sámjívíputrát*, ‘up to Sámjívíputra the teachers are the same.’ For, ascending from this Sámjívíputra, there are still in this Vaṅśa three steps up to Yájnavalkya, while in the tenth book, as before remarked, the doctrine is not traced up to the latter at all, but from Sámjívíputra through five steps to Śáṇḍilya, and through two more to Tura Kávasheya.§—This latter circumstance suggests to us, moreover, the possibility of yet another division of the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa with reference to the origin of the different *kāṇḍas*.