History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c90.145
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c90.145
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Next to Pargiter and Kirfel, one must mention the name of Prof. R. C. Hazra who has bestowed much labour and thought on the purānas in general and on individual purānas One cannot but feel high admiration for Prof. Hazra's industry, patience and enthusiasm One regrets, however, to find that he has developed a tendency to assign rather more ancient dates to the extant Purānas and Upapurānas than the available evidence would warrant. Besides, he has been so much engrossed in the study of Purānas that he sometimes scents a reference to Purānas where none in fact exists. For example, in 'Puranic records on Hindu rites and customs' (p. 6) Prof Hazra observes that Vijñāneśvara tells us of Hārīta's reference to the opinion of Purānas in prescribing penance in normal circumstances to those who eat the food dedicated to the patriarchs. The words of the Mitāksarā¹⁴⁰¹ of Vijñāneśvara are quoted in the note below and clearly show that there the word ‘*purāṇeṣu*’ means ‘Śrāddhas called purāṇa’ and has nothing to do with Purāṇa works. Another defect noticed in Prof. Hazra’s writings is that he sees too much meaning in simple words and phrases and is not cautious in his conclusions as a scholar of his standing and experience should be. In a recent paper on ‘the Aśvamedha, the common source of origin of the Purāṇa Pañcalakṣaṇa and the Mahābhārata’ in ABORI, vol. 36 (1956) pp. 190-203, he cites the Atharvaveda verse quoted above (p.
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816, n 1325) in which ṛk and sāma verses are mentioned separately and ‘purāṇa’ (*purāṇaṁ yajuṣā saha*) is associated with *yajus*, and says this collocation seemed to him highly significant and that he felt fully convinced that the Purāṇa pañcalakṣaṇa and the Mahābhārata owe their origin to the Aśvamedha sacrifice and especially to its Pāriplava ākhyānas. Reasons of available space preclude a detailed examination of this paper. But a few fundamental objections and matters must be mentioned. The words ‘purāṇaṁ yajuṣā saha’ should ordinarily mean (as in passages like Devadattaḥ saputra āgataḥ) no more than ‘Purāṇa and Yajus’. Yāj 1. 101 provides¹⁴⁰² that after the daily bath, a vedic householder should undertake every day the japa of portions of the (three) Vedas, the Atharvaveda, Purāṇas together with Itihāsa and of ādhyātmikī-vidyā (Upaniṣads). There is no special meaning here in the association ‘purāṇāni setihāsāni’ beyond ‘Purāṇas and Itihāsa’. One, therefore, fails to understand how the words ‘purāṇaṁ yajuṣā saha’ are highly significant for arriving at the conviction that Aśvamedha is the origin of Purāṇa and Mahābhārata. Then on p. 202 of the paper in question Prof. Hazra quotes a passage from ¹⁴⁰³ Śaṅkarācārya's bhāṣya on Chāndogya III. 4.
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1-2 and completely misunderstands the great ācārya when he observes "Śaṅkara's use of the word 'rātri' in the plural (in 'rātriṣu') shows that in his opinion the *Itihāsa and Purāṇa were employed every night* during the Pāriplava and *not merely on the 8th and 9th nights respectively, as the Śatapatha Br. and Śāṅkhāyanaśrautasūtra say*" (Italics author's). The Aśvamedha sacrifice lasted for a year and listening to the Pāriplava went on for a year, each Pāriplava being a cycle of ten days (or rather nights, as the recitation by the hotṛ priest was to take place after the morning, mid-day and evening iṣṭis to Savitṛ were finished). The texts to be recited and the nature of the legends to be narrated on each of the cycle of ten days are fixed and Itihāsa and Purāṇa are to be recited only on the 8th and 9th nights. As each cycle was of ten days, there would be 36 cycles of Pāriplava in a year and Itihāsa would be recited on 36 nights in the year and Purāṇa also would be recited on 36 nights in the year. It is for this reason that Śaṅkarācārya speaks of 'Pāriplavāsu rātriṣu' in the plural, but he does not say that Itihāsa and Purāṇa were to be recited on 'all' nights (*sarvāsu* rātriṣu), while Prof. Hazra represents him as so saying. There is absolutely no warrant in the ancient texts for saying that on each day (or night) of the Pāriplava Itihāsa or Purāṇa was to be recited or that Śaṅkarācārya said anything of the kind.
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The testimony of the Vedāntasūtra ¹⁴⁰⁴ is completely against this view of Prof Hazra. Vedāntasūtra III 4. 23 refers to certain stories mentioned in the Upaniṣads such as 'Yājñavalkya had two wives, Maitreyī and Kātyāyanī' (Br. Up IV. 5. 1), 'Pratardana, son of Divodāsa, went to Indra's abode' (Kauṣītakī Up. III. 1), 'Jānaśruti Pautrāyaṇa was a pious donor giving much wealth to the people and keeping an open house for distributing food' (Chān. Up IV. 1. 1), and remarks that such stories were not to be recited in Pāriplava, since the stories to be recited therein are expressly specified beginning with the story of king Manu Vaivasvata (which was to be recited on the first night of the Pāriplava).