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 813

INTRODUCTION.
xxix
of the Rik-samhita ; and certain orthoepic peculiarities of the Yagus texts of the Kanvas would seem to favour the assumption of a connection of this school with the redaction of the Rik. The name of the Madhyandinas, literally meridional,' on the other hand, does not occur in the older literature. Nor can we draw any definite conclusions, as to the probable date of their recension, from Lassen's identification of this name with the Mavdiadwol, mentioned by Megasthenes (as quoted by Arrian) as a people on the banks of a tributary of the Ganges; or from Professor Weber's conjecture that the Madhyandina school may have taken its origin among that people.
The Mâdhyandina text of the Satapatha is divided into fourteen books (kânda). For several reasons, however, some of these books have to be assigned to a later period than the others. In the first place, the twelfth kända is called madhyama,'the middle one;' a fact which in itself would suggest the idea that, at the time when this nomenclature was adopted, the last five books (or perhaps books 11-13) were regarded as a separate portion of the work! Besides, Patañgali, in a kårikå or memorial couplet to Pån. IV, 2, 60, mentions the words shash tipatha (consisting of sixty paths') and sata patha, with the view of forming derivative nouns from them, in the sense of one who studies such works. Now, as the first nine books of the Satapatha, in the Madhyandina text, consist of sixty adhyâyas, it was suggested by Professor Weber that it was probably this very portion of the work to which Patañgali applied the term 'shashtipatha,' and that consequently the first nine books were at that time considered as, in some sense, a distinct work and were studied as such. This conjecture has been generally accepted. There is indeed a possibility that Patañgali may have been acquainted with some other
The Kanva text is divided into seventeen books. Kandas 13-15 correspond to Madhyandina 10-13; and kända 16, which treats of the Pravargya ceremony, corresponds to the first three adhyâyas of the last kända of the Madhyandinas. Thus, in the Kârva recension the fourteenth kanda, called 'madhyama,' is the middle one of kandas 13-16; the seventeenth kânda. or Brihadaranyaka, being apparently considered as a supplement. Perhaps this division is more original than that of the Madhyandinas.
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