Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1460

xxviii
VISHNU.
work. If the latter remark were in need of further confirmation, it might be urged that the description of Vishnu as the boar of the sacrifice' (yagñavarâha) in the first chapter is bodily taken from the Harivamsa (2226–2237), while most of the epithets given to Vishnu in I, 49–61 and XCVIII, 7-100 may be found in another section of the Mahâbhârata, the so-called Vishnu-sahasranama. Along with the introductory and final chapters, all those passages generally are distinctly traceable to the activity of the Vishnuitic editor, in which Vishnu (Purusha, Bhagavat, Vasudeva, &c.) is mentioned, or his dialogue with the goddess of the earth carried on, viz. I; V, 193; XIX, 24; XX, 16-21; XXII, 93; XXIII, 46; XXIV, 35; XLVII, 10; XLIX; LXIV, 28, 29; LXV; LXVI; LXVII, 2; XC, 3–5, 17–23; XCVI, 97, 98; XCVII, 7-21; XCVIII-C. The short invocation addressed to Vishnu in LXVII, 12 is proved to be ancient by its recurrence in the corresponding chapter of the Kathaka Grihyasútra, and Chapter LXV contains genuine Kathaka Mantras transferred to a Vishnuitic ceremony. Chapter LXVI, on the other hand, though it does not refer to Vishnu by name, seems to be connected with the same Vishnuitic rite, and becomes further suspected by the recurrence of several of its rules in the genuine Chapter LXXIX. The contents of Chapter XCVII, in which it is attempted to reconcile some of the main tenets of the Sânkhya system, as propounded in the Sânkhya-kârikâ, Sânkhya-pravakanabhâshya, and other works, with the Vaishnava creed and with the Yoga; the fact that the two Slokas in XCVI (97, 98) and part of the Slokas in XCVII (15-21) have their parallel in similar Slokas of the Bhagavad-gîtâ and of the Bhagavata-purâna; the terms Mahatpati, Kapila, and Sankhyâkârya, used as epithets of Vishnu (XCVIII, 26, 85, 86); and some other passages in the Vishnuitic chapters seem to favour the supposition that the editor may have been one of those members of the Vishnuitic sect of the Bhagavatas, who were conspicuous for their leaning towards the Sânkhya and Yoga systems of philosophy. The arrangement of the Vishnu-sutra in a hundred chapters is no doubt due to the same person, as the Commentary points out that the num
The comme
Digitized by Google