Dhammapada

SR No.: 007674
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2540
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 1753

• INTRODUCTION.
xxxix
belong to the same vidyavamsa, or spiritual family, this difference may be used as an argument for his posteriority to Baudhayana. In connexion with this rule of Baudhayana's it ought to be mentioned that even in the present day certain subdivisions of the modern Sutars or carpenters actually wear the Brâhmanical thread, and, in spite of the adverse teaching of the Såstras, find Brâhmans willing to perform the ceremony of investiture for them.
While it thus appears not incredible that Baudhayana really was the first Sûtrakâra of the Taittirîyas, the numerous quotations which his works contain, permit us to form an idea of the extent of the Vedic and profane literature known to him. Among the Vedic works which he adduces as authorities, or otherwise refers to, the three sections of the Taittirîya-veda, the Samhitâ, the Brâhmana, and the Aranyaka, naturally take the first place. For the Aranyaka he seems to have used the Andhra version, as Dh. S. II, 10, 18, 7, 11 references to the seventy-first Anuvâka of the tenth Prapathaka occur. Two long passages, Dh. S. I, 2, 4, 3-8; II, 6, 11, 1-8, which apparently have been taken from the Satapatha-brâhmana, testify to his acquaintance with the White Yagur-veda. Baudhayana does not say expressly that he quotes from the Brâhmana of the Vagasaneyins, but Govinda has no hesitation in pointing to the Satapatha as their source. It is remarkable that the fact noticeable in Åpastamba's quotation from the Satapatha reappears here, and that the wording of the two quotations does not fully agree with the printed text of the Brâhmana. The differences in the first passage are, no doubt, partly owing to corruptions and interpolations in Baudhayana's text; but that cannot be said of the second? References to the Sâma-veda and the Sâmans occur repeatedly, and the passage from the Nidana of Bhållavins regarding the geographical extent of true Brâh
1 Professor Eggeling has lately discussed the question of the discrepancies between Åpastamba's quotations from the Brahmana of the Vagasaneyins and the existing text. I can only agree with him that we must wait for a comparison of all those quoted, with both the recensions of the Satapatha, before we draw further inferences from the fact. See Sacred Books of the East, vol, xii, p. xl.
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