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xxii
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
used) might be required and selected from the hymns of other mandalas. In its original connected form, the material of these chants would naturally remain all along an essential part of the Rik-samhitâ, for the use of the Hotri and Brahman priests; and thus each of these two collections would henceforth have a history of its own, and discrepancies in the texts common to both would gradually become more and more numerous.
The sacrificial texts used by the Adhvaryu priest are contained in the Yagur-veda, of which several recensions have come down to us. These texts consist, in about equal parts, of verses (rik) and prose formulas (yagus). The majority of the former are likewise found in the Riksamhità, though not unfrequently with considerable variations, which may be explained partly from a difference of recension, and partly as the result of the adaptation of these verses to their special sacrificial purpose. With the prose formulas, on the other hand, save a few isolated sacrificial calls alluded to in the Rik2 we meet for the first time in this collection. In the older recensions of the Yagur-veda the texts are, as a rule, followed immediately by their dogmatic explanation. Now, these theological treatises, composed chiefly with the view of elucidating the sacrificial texts and explaining the origin and hidden meaning of the various rites, form one of the most important departments of the literature of the period which succeeded the systematic arrangement of the sacrificial ceremonial, and in which we must place the gradual consolidation of the Brâhmanical hierarchy. Such as they lie before us, they contain the accumulated wisdom and speculations of generations of Indian divines. They are essentially digests of a floating mass of single discourses or dicta on various points of the ceremonial of worship, ascribed to individual teachers, and handed down orally in the theological schools. Single discourses of this kind were called brâhmana, probably either because they were intended for the instruction and guidance of priests
See A. Weber, History of Indian Literature, pp. 9, 115. ? See M. Haug, Ait. Br. I, p. 34.
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| SR No. | 007674 |
| Book Title | Dhammapada |
| 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 |