The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c9.20

v1.c9.20

The later Saṁhitās are doubtless of various date: the Sāmaveda must probably be reckoned as the earliest, and the Atharvaveda is certainly the youngest of all in its redaction, though it is doubtless in part old in material. Of the Yajurveda Saṁhitās the youngest is the Vājasaneyi, and the oldest perhaps the Taittirīya, but between it and the other two texts of the Black Yajurveda there is no clear distinction of time. The Brāhmaṇas are certainly later than the formulae of the Saṁhitās to which they relate, and they are distinguished sharply from them both by their prose form, which is quite different from the prose of the formulae, and by the characteristics of their language, which is much less archaic than the verse or prose formulae. The order in age amongst them, and the prose portions of the Saṁhitās, which are essentially akin to them is doubtful; it is, however, very probable that the Aitareya in its first five books is among the oldest, that the prose parts of the Yajurveda Saṁhitās, and, though later, the Pañcaviṅça are also old, and that the Kauṣītaki, Jaiminīya, and Çatapatha are the latest of the important works.³ For the date of the Brāhmaṇas important evidence is furnished by the development of thought: the latest portions of the texts which are of the older Brāhmaṇa style are styled Āraṇyakas, books intended by reason of the dread holiness of their contents for study in the forests, and of these certain parts which bear a more definitely philosophical aspect are styled Upaniṣads, a word apparently derived from the session of the pupils round the teacher in the process of instruction. Thus there are attached to the Brāhmaṇas of the Rigveda the Aitareya and the Kauṣītaki or Çāṅkhāyana Upaniṣads, to the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, to the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad: the Sāmaveda has the Chāndogya Upaniṣad which is the major portion of a Brāhmaṇa, and the Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa, which is one book of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa, and contains in itself the Kena Upaniṣad. In the main it may be assumed that the doctrines of these Upaniṣads are prior to the rise of Buddhism, which is derived logically from the system which they contain, and, as the date of the death of the Buddha may be placed with fair probability in or about the year 480 B. C., a lower terminus of 500 B. C. for the Upaniṣads is attained. The priority of the Brāhmaṇas proper to the Upaniṣads is quite undoubted, and thus a lower limit of about 600 B. C. for the latest Brāhmaṇas is obtained, from which may be deduced a date of about 800–700 B. C. for the Saṁhitās as a lower limit. The same conclusion is indicated by the facts of language: the grammarian Pāṇini, whose date can scarcely be later than 300 B. C.,¹ deals with a language which is decidedly more modern than that of the Brāhmaṇas to which, however, it is akin: prior to him was Yāska, whose expositions in his Nirukta of Vedic passages indicates clearly that the Rigveda was already far distant in time: earlier again than Yāska was Çākalya, by whom was produced the Pada Pāṭha of the Rigveda, that is the text in which each word is given in its primitive form unaffected by the Sandhi of the Saṁhitā, and earlier again than Çākalya was the making of the Saṁhitā Pāṭha, in which, to the utter detriment of the metre, the hiatuses which were allowed in the Rigvedic poetry are removed under the influence of the usage and grammatical theories of the day. But the Brāhmaṇas as a rule ignore the Saṁhitā text, and evidently knew only the primitive text without the latter rigid Sandhi rules, so that for them again we are forced to accept a date not later than 600 B. C.