A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s8.1

v1.c8.s8.1

When R. Garbe³ calls the sacrificial science of the Brāhmaṇas "the only literary production of these barren centuries preceding the awakening of philosophical speculation," he gives expression to a universal, but in my opinion erroneous, view. It would be too terrible to think that, with such a gifted people as the Indians must have been, even on the evidence of the Ṛgvedic hymns, the futile hair-splittings on the purpose and meaning of sacrificial ceremonies should have occupied the entire thought even of the priests, to say nothing of the warriors and the remaining classes of the people. As a matter of fact we do find in the Brāhmaṇas themselves, as Sāyaṇa has already emphasized, and as we have partly seen above, beside ritual-precepts (Kalpa) and the discussions on the same, also myths and legends (itihāsa), cosmogonic myths (purāṇa), epic song verses (gāthā) and songs in praise of heroes (nārāśaṁsī.¹ In other words: the beginnings of epic poetry reach back into the period of the Brāhmaṇas. It is a matter of course that the great and costly sacrifices, with which the Brāhmaṇas deal, were only possible on the supposition of an active and industrious people; and it is unthinkable that the warriors and merchants, the farmers and herd owners, the craftsmen and labourers of that time should have sung no songs, related no stories. A little of what was sung and narrated in India at that early period, is preserved in the Vedic texts themselves (as, for example, the legend of Śunaḥśepa), but much is preserved in the later epics and Purāṇas. Moreover, the Brāhmaṇas presuppose the beginnings of grammar, phonetics, astronomy, *i.e.*, of those sciences which were later on pursued more independently as Vedāṅgas²); (neither does the "awakening of philosophical speculation" come *after* the period of the Brāhmaṇas: It comes *before* this period. We have seen how in some hymns of the Ṛgveda doubts and scruples already arose concerning the popular belief in gods and the priestly cult.