The History of Indian Literature c8.62

c8.62

The Śákalas appear in tradition as intimately connected with the Śunakas, and to Śaunaka in particular a number of writings are attributed,‡ which he is said to have composed with a view to secure the preservation of the text (*rigvedaguptaye*), as, for instance, an Anukramaṇí of the Ṛishis, of the metres, of the deities, of the *anuvákas*, of the hymns, an arrangement (? Vidhána) of the verses and their constituent parts,²⁴ the above-mentioned Bṛihaddevatá, the Prátiśákhya of the Ṛik, a Smárta-Sútra,\* and also a Kalpa-Sútra referring specially to the Aitareyaka, which, however, he destroyed after one had been composed by his pupil, Áśvaláyana. It is not perhaps, on the face of it, impossible that all these writings might be the work of one individual Śaunaka; still they probably, nay, in part certainly, belong only to the school which bears his name. But, in addition to this, we find that the second maṇḍala of the Saṃhitá itself is attributed to him; and that, on the other hand, he is identified with the Śaunaka at whose sacrificial feast Sauti, the son of Vaiśampáyana, is said to have repeated the Mahá-Bhárata, recited by the latter on an earlier occasion to Janamejaya (the second), together with the Harivaṅśa. The former of these assertions must, of course, only be understood in the sense that the family of the Śunakas both belonged to the old Ṛishi families of the Ṛik, and continued still later to hold one of the foremost places in the learned world of the Brahmans. Against the second statement, on the contrary, no direct objection can be urged; and it is at least not impossible that the teacher of Áśvaláyana and the sacrificer in the Naimisha† forest are identical.—In the Bráhmaṇa of the White Yajus we have, further, two distinct Śaunakas mentioned; the one, Indrota, as sacrificial priest of the prince who, in the Mahá-Bhárata, appears as the first Janamejaya (Párikshita, so also in M.-Bh. xii. 5595, ff.), the other, Svaidáyana, as Audíchya, dwelling in the north.