The Four Vedas

Regarding 8ankhayana still less is known; but he, too, was doubtless a comparatively modern writer, who, like Agvalayana, founded a new school of ritualists. Hence the Kaushitaki-brah mana, adopted (and perhaps improved) by him, also goes under his name, just as the Aitareya is sometimes called Agvalayana Brahmana. The 8ankhayana 8rauta-sutra consists of eighteen adhydyas. The last two chapters of the work are, however, a later addition, while the two preceding chapters, on the contrary,, present a comparatively archaic, bramana-like appearance. The Grihya-sUtra consists of six chapters, the last two of which are likewise later appendages. The Sambavya Grihya-sutra, of which a single ms. is at present known, seems to be closely connected with the preceding work. Professor Baler also refers to the Rigveda the V asishtha-dharnmfastra, composed of mixed sutras and couplets.

A few works remain to be noticed, bearing chiefly on the textual form and traditionary records of the Rik-samhita. The Prati gakhyas have already been referred to as the chief repositories of giksha or Vedic phonetics. Among these works the Rik-prati sceikhya occupies the first place. The original composition of this important work is ascribed to the same 8akalya from whom the vulgate recension of the (85.kala) Sarnhita takes its name. He is also said to be the author of the existing Pada-patha (i.e., the text-form in which each word is given unconnected with those that precede and follow it).

Samaveda.

The term sciman, of uncertain derivation, denotes a solemn tune or melody to be sung or chanted to a rich or verse. The set chants (stotra) of the Soma sacrifice are as a rule per formed in triplets, either actually consisting of three different verses, or of two verses which, by the repetition of certain parts, are made, as it were, to form three. The three verses are usually chanted to the same tune ; but in certain cases two verses sung to the same tune had a different saman enclosed between them. One and the same seiman or tune may thus be sung to many dif ferent verses; but, as in teaching and practising the tunes the same verse was invariably used for a certain tune, the term saman, as well as the special technical names of seimans, are not infrequently applied to the verses themselves with which they were ordinarily connected.

In accordance with the distinction between rich or text and seiman or tune, the saman-hymnal consists of two parts : the Sdina-veda-santhitel, or collection of texts (rich) used for making up saman-hymns, and the Gana, or tune-books, song-books. The textual matter of the Sarnhita consists of somewhat under 1600 different verses, selected from the Rik-sarnhita, with the excep tion of some seventy-five verses, some of which have been taken from Khila hymns, whilst others which also occur in the Atharvan or Yajurveda, as well as such not otherwise found, may perhaps have formed part of some other recension of the Rik. The Selma

veda-samhitd is divided into two chief parts, the pfirva- (first) and the uttara- (second) archika. The second part contains the texts of the saman-hymns, arranged in the order in which they are actually required for the stotras or chants of the various Soma sacrifices. The first part, on the other hand, contains the body of tune-verses, or verses used for practising the several samans or tunes upon—the tunes themselves being given in the Grama-geya gana (i.e., songs to be sung in the village), the tune-book specially belonging to the Parvarchika.

Sdinaveda-brahmanas.—The title of Brahmana is bestowed by the Chhandogas, or followers of the Samaveda, on a considerable number of treatises. The majority of the Samaveda-brahmanas present, however, none of the characteristic features of other works of that class; but they are rather of the nature of sutras and kindred treatises, with which they probably belong to the same period of literature. Moreover, the contents of these works —as might indeed be expected from the nature of the duties of the priests for whom they were intended—are of an extremely arid and technical character, though they all are doubtless of some importance, either for the textual criticism of the Sarnhita or on account of the legendary and other information they supply.

If the Samaveda has thus its ample share of Brahmana-litera ture, though in part of a somewhat questionable character, it is not less richly supplied with sutra-treatises, or works on exegesis, some of which probably belong to the oldest works of that class.

Yajurveda.

This, the sacrificial Veda of the Adhvaryu priests, divides itself into an older and a younger branch, or, as they are usually called, the Black (krishna) and the White Ciukla) Yajurveda. Tradition ascribes the foundation of the Yajurveda to the sage VaHampayana. Of his disciples three are specially named, viz.: Katha, Kalapin and Yaska Paifigi, the last of whom 'again is stated to have communicated the sacrificial science to Tittiri. We have three old collections of Yajus-texts, viz. the Keithaka, the Keilaixika or Sorthitd, and the Tait tiriya-samhitei. The Keithaka and Kaliipaka are frequently men tioned together; and the author of the "great commentary" on Panini once remarks that these works were taught in every vil lage. From the Kathas and Keilapas proper schools seem early to have branched off, each with their own recensions of the text. As regards the Taittiriya-sarnhita, that collection, too, in course of time gave rise to a number of different schools, the text handed down being that of the Apastambas.