arpayasva me" | Evam uktaḥ sarūpāṇi yajūṁshi pradadau guroḥ | rudhirena tathū 'ktāni chharditvā brahma-vittamaḥ | Tataḥ sa dhyānam āsthāya sūryam ārādhayad dvijaḥ | "sūrya brahma yad uchchhinnam kham gatva pratitishthati" | Tato yāni gatany urddham yajūmshy āditya-manḍalam | Tāni tasmai dadau tushṭaḥ sūryo vai Brāhmarātaye | Asva-rūpaś cha mārttaṇḍo Yājnavalkyāya dhīmate | Yajūmshy adhiyate yāni brāhmaṇāḥ yena kenachit (yani kānichit?) | aśva-rūpāni (-rūpena?) dattāni tatas te Vājino 'bhavan 56 | brahma-hatyā tu yaiś chīrnā charanāt charakāḥ smṛitāḥ | Vaiśampāyana-śishyās te charakāḥ samudāḥṛitāḥ |

"The rishis having a certain occasion, met on the summit of Mount Meru, when, after consultation, they resolved and agreed together that any one of their number who should fail to attend there for seven nights should become involved in the guilt of brahmanicide. They all in consequence resorted to the appointed place for seven nights along with their attendants. Vaiśampāyana alone was absent, and he, according to the word of the Brahmans, committed brahmanicide. He then assembled his disciples, and desired them to perform, on his behalf, an expiation for his offence, and to meet and tell him what was salutary for the purpose. Yajnavalkya then said, 'I myself will perform the penance; let all these munis refrain: inspired by my own austerefervour I shall raise up the boy (whom thou hast slain).' Incensed at this speech of Yajnavalkya [Vaiśampayana] said to him, 'Restore all that thou hast learned (from me).' Thus addressed, the sage, deeply versed in sacred lore, vomited forth the identical Yajush texts stained with blood, and delivered them to his teacher. Plunged in meditation, the Brahman (Yajnavalkya) then adored the sun, saying, 'Sun, every sacred text which disappears [from the earth] goes to the sky, and there abides.' The sun, gratified, and [appearing] in the form of a horse, bestowed on Yajnavalkya, son of Brahmarāta, all the Yajush texts which had ascended to the solar region. As all the Yajush texts which these Brahmans study were given by him in the form of a horse, they in consequence became Vajins. And the disciples of Vaiśampāyana, by whom the expiatory rite was accomplished, were called Charakas, from its accomplishment (charana).”

9957

56 I am indebted to Dr. Hall for communicating to me the various readings of this verse in the India Office Library MSS., but some parts of it seem to be corrupt.

57 In a note to p. 461 (4to. ed.) of his Translation of the Vishnu Purāṇa, Prof. Wilson

It is sufficiently evident from the preceding legend that the adherents of the two different divisions of the Yajurveda (the Taittiriya or black, and the Vājasaneyi or white), must in ancient times have regarded each other with feelings of the greatest hostility-feelings akin to those with which the followers of the rival deities, Vishnu and Siva, look upon each other in modern days. On this subject I translate a passage from Professor Weber's History of Indian Literature, p. 84:

"Whilst the theologicans of the Rich are called Bahvṛichas, and those of the Saman Chhandogas, the old name for the divines of the Yajush is Adhvaryu: and these ancient appellations are to be found in the Sanhita of the Black Yajush (the Taittiriya), and in the Brahmana of the White Yajush (the Satapatha Brahmana). The latter work applies the term Adhvaryus to its own adherents, whilst their opponents are denominated Charakādhvaryus, and are the objects of censure. This hostility is also exhibited in a passage of the Sanhita of the White Yajush, where the Charakacharya, as one of the human sacrifices to be offered at the Purushamedha, is devoted to Dushkrita or Sin." 58

In his Indische Studien (iii. 454) Professor Weber specifies the following passages in the Satapatha Brahmana as those in which the Charakas, or Charakādhvaryus are censured, viz. iii. 8, 2, 24; iv. 1, 2, 19; iv. 2, 3, 15; iv. 2, 4, 1; vi. 2, 2, 1, 10; viii. 1, 3, 7; viii. 7, 1, 14, 24. Of these I quote one specimen (iv. 1, 2, 19):

mentions the following legend illustrative of the effects of this schism. "The Vayu and Matsya relate, rather obscurely, a dispute between Janamejaya and Vais'ampāyana, in consequence of the former's patronage of the Brahmans of the Vajasaneyi branch of the Yajur-veda, in opposition to the latter, who was the author of the Black or original Yajush. Janamejaya twice performed the Asvamedha according to the Vājasaneyi ritual, and established the Trisarvi, or use of certain texts by Asmaka and others, by the Brahmans of Anga, and by those of the middle country. He perished, however, in consequence, being cursed by Vais'ampāyana. Before their disagreement Vais'ampāyana related the Mahābhārata to Janamejaya.”

59 Vājasaneyi Sanhitā, xxx. 18 (p. 846 of Weber's ed.): Dushkṛitāya charakācharyyam | (charakāṇām gurum-Scholiast). Prof. Müller also says (Anc. Sansk. Lit. p. 350), "This name Charaka is used in one of the Khilas (the passage just quoted) of the Vājasaneyi Sanhitā as a term of reproach. In the 30th Adhyāya a list of people is given who are to be sacrificed at the Purushamedha, and among them we find the Charakacharya as the proper victim to be offered to Dushkrita or Sin. This passage, together with similar hostile expressions in the S'atapatha Brahmana, were evidently dictated by a feeling of animosity against the ancient schools of the Adhvaryus, whose sacred texts we possess in the Taittiriya-veda, and from whom Yajnavalkya seceded in order to become himself the founder of the new Charanas of the Vajasaneyins."

Taḥ u ha Charakāḥ nānā eva mantrābhyām juhvati “prānodānau vai asya etau | nānā-vīryau prānodānau kurmaḥ" iti vadantaḥ | Tad u tatha na kuryāt | mohayanti ha te yajamānasya prānodānau | api id vai enam tushnim juhuyāt |

"These the Charakas offer respectively with two mantras, saying thus: These are his two breathings,' and 'we thus make these two breathings endowed with their respective powers.' But let no one adopt this procedure, for they confound the breathings of the worshipper. Wherefore let this libation be offered in silence."

But these sectarian jealousies were not confined to the different schools of the Yajur-veda; the adherents of the Atharva-veda seem to have evinced a similar spirit of hostility towards the followers of the other Vedas. On this subject Professor Weber remarks as follows in his Indische Studien, i. 296: "A good deal of animosity is generally displayed in most of the writings connected with the Atharvan towards the other three Vedas; but the strongest expression is given to this feeling in the first of the Atharva Parisishtas (Chambers Coll. No. 112).”

He then proceeds to quote the following passage from that work: Bahvricho hanti vai rāshṭram adhvaryur nāśayet sutan | Chhandogo dhanam nāśayet tasmād Atharvano guruḥ | Ajnānād vā pramādād vā yasya syad bahvṛicho guruḥ ¦ deśa-rāshṭra-purāmātya-nāśas tasya na samsayaḥ | yadi vā 'dhvaryavam rājā niyunakti purohitam | sastrena badhyate kshipram parikshīṇārtha-vāhanaḥ | yathaiva pangur adhvānam apakshi chānḍa-bhojanam (chānḍa-jo nabhaḥ?) 5o | evam chhandoga-gurund rājā vṛiddhim na gachhati | purodhā jalado yasya maudo vā syāt kathanchana | abdād daśabhyo māsebhyo rāshṭra-bhram̃śam sa gachhati |

59

"A Bahvṛicha (Rig-veda priest) will destroy a kingdom; an Adhvaryu (Yajur-veda priest) will destroy offspring; and a Chhandoga (Sama-veda priest) will destroy wealth;-hence an Atharvana priest is the [proper] spiritual adviser. (The king) who, through ignorance or mistake, takes a Bahvṛicha priest for his guide will, without doubt, lose his country, kingdom, cities, and ministers. Or if a king appoints an Adhvaryu priest to be his domestic chaplain, he forfeits his wealth and his chariots, and is speedily slain by the sword. As a lame man makes no progress on a road, and an egg-born creature which is without wings 59 For the ingenious conjectural emendation in brackets, I am indebted to Professor Aufrecht. I adopt it in my translation.

cannot soar into the sky, so no king prospers who has à Chhandoga for his teacher. He who has a Jalada or a Mauda for his priest, loses his kingdom after a year or ten months."

"Thus," continues Professor Weber, "the author of the Parisishţa attacks the adherents of certain Sākhās of the Atharva-veda itself, for such are the Jaladas and the Maudas, and admits only a Bhargava, a Paippalāda, or a Saunaka to be a properly qualified teacher. He further declares that the Atharva-veda is intended only for the highest order of priest, the brahman, not for the three other inferior sorts."

The following passage is then quoted:

Atharva srijate ghoram adbhutam śamayet tathā | atharvā rakshate yajnam yajnasya patir Angirāḥ | Divyāntariksha-bhaumānām utpātānām anekadhā | śamayitā brahma-veda-jnas tāsmād dakshinato Bhriguḥ | Brahmā samayed nādhvaryur na chhandogo na bahvṛichaḥ | rakshāmsi rakshati brahmā brahmā tasmād atharva-vit |

"The Atharva priest creates horrors, and he also allays alarming occurrences; he protects the sacrifice, of which Angiras is the lord. He who is skilled in the Brahma-veda (the Atharva) can allay manifold portents, celestial, aërial, and terrestial; wherefore the Bhrigu [is to be placed] on the right hand. It is the brahman, and not the adhvaryu, the chhandoga, or the bahvṛicha, who can allay [portents]; the brahman wards off Rakshases, wherefore the brahman is he who knows the Atharvan."

60

I subjoin another extract from Professor Weber's Indische Studien, i. 63 ff., which illustrates the relation of the Sama-veda to the Rigveda, as well as the mutual hostility of the different schools: "To understand the relation of the Sama-veda to the Rig-veda, we have only to form to ourselves a clear and distinct idea of the manner in which these hymns in general arose, how they were then carried to a distance by those tribes which emigrated onward, and how they were by them regarded as sacred, whilst in their original home, they werė either-as living in the immediate consciousness of the people-subjected to modifications corresponding to the lapse of time, or made way for new hymns by which they were pushed aside, and so became forgotten. It is a foreign country which first surrounds familiar things with a sacred charm; emigrants continue to occupy their ancient men60 See the Second Volume of this work, pp. 202 f.

tal position, preserving what is old with painful exactness, while at home life opens out for itself new paths. New emigrants follow those who had first left their home, and unite with those who are already settlers in a new country. And now the old and the new hymns and usages are fused into one mass, and are faithfully, but uncritically, learned and imbibed by travelling pupils from different masters;several stories in the Brihad Aranyaka are especially instructive on this point, see Ind. Stud. p. 83;-so that a varied intermixture arises. Others again, more learned, then strive to introduce arrangement, to bring together what is homogeneous, to separate what is distinct; and in this way theological intolerance springs up; without which the rigid formation of a text or a canon is impossible. The influence of courts on this process is not to be overlooked; as, for example, in the case of Janaka, King of Videha, who in Yajnavalkya had found his Homer. Anything approaching to a clear insight into the reciprocal relations of the different schools will in vain be sought either from the Purānas or the Charanavyuha, and can only be attained by comparing the teachers named in the different Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras, partly with each other and partly with the text of Pāṇini and the ganapaṭha and commentary connected therewith (for the correction of which a thorough examination of Patanjali would offer the only sufficient guarantee). For the rest, the relation between the S.V. and the R.V. is in a certain degree analogous to that between the White and the Black Yajush; and, as in the Brāhmaṇa of the former (the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa), we often find those teachers who are the representatives of the latter, mentioned with contempt, it cannot surprise us, if in the Brahmana of the Sama-veda, the Paingins and Kaushītakins are similarly treated."

It is sufficiently manifest from the preceding passages of the Purāṇas concerning the division and different Sakhas of the Vedas, that the traditions which they embody contain no information in regard to the composition of the hymns, and nothing tangible or authentic regarding the manner in which they were preserved, collected, or arranged. In fact, I have not adduced these passages for the purpose of elucidating those points, but to show the legendary character of the narratives, and their discrepancies in matters of detail. For an account of the Sakhas of the Vedas, the ancient schools of the Brahmans, and other matters of a similar nature, I must refer to the excellent work of Professor Müller,