The History of Indian Literature c9.415.2

c9.415.2

The details of the subject are briefly these. The Yakshas, Garuḍas, Kinnaras,³⁵² so often mentioned in these Sútras, are still quite unknown in the Bráhmaṇas: the name Dánava, too, occurs but seldom (once as an epithet of Vṛitra, a second time as an epithet of Śushṇa), and never in the plural to designate the Asuras generally;³⁵³ nor are the gods ever styled Suras there.³⁵⁴ The names of the Nágas and Mahoragas are never mentioned,∗ although serpent-worship itself (*sarpa-vidyá*) is repeatedly referred to;† the Kumbháṇ- das,[*] too, are absent. This lack of allusion in the Bráhmaṇas to any of these *genii* might be explained by supposing them to have been principally the divinities of the inferior classes of the people, to which classes Buddha specially addressed himself, and to whose conceptions and range of ideas he was therefore obliged to have particular regard. In this there may be a great deal of truth, but the remaining cycle of deities, also, which appears in the Buddhistic Sútras, is completely that belonging to the epic poetry. In the Bráhmaṇas, on the contrary, the name of Kuvera, for instance, is only mentioned once [†] (and that in the Bráhmaṇa of the White Yajus); ³⁵⁵ Śiva and Śaṃkara only occur along with other appellative epithets of Rudra, and are never employed alone as proper names to denote him; the name of Náráyaṇa, again, is of extremely rare occurrence, whilst Śakra,³⁵⁶ Vásava,³⁵⁷ Hari, Upendra, Janárdana, Pitámaha, are totally unknown.