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 819

INTRODUCTION.
XXXV
valkya by four intermediate teachers, the first of whom (Åsuri)' is repeatedly quoted in the second (and once each in the first, fourth, and fourteenth) kândas. Although these indications do not, of course, supply more than a terminus a quo for the final settlement of this part of the work, they would nevertheless seem to favour the supposition that the combination of the fire-ritual with the sacrificial system cannot have taken place at a time far removed from that of Samgivi-putra. The custom of forming metronymics by ineans of putra' is of some interest. It first shows itself in the predecessor of Samgivî-putra's teacher in the Yagñavalkya line, and continues from thence down to the very end of the vamsa. Unfortunately, however, we have no means of ascertaining whether this custom had already been commonly practised, in certain localities, before that time, or whether, as seems to me more probable, it was a fashion of recent date. If the latter alternative could be proved, it might help to settle the chronological relations between Yagñavalkya and Panini, since it would appear from Pân. IV, 1, 1592 (and VI, 1, 13), that the great grammarian was well acquainted, not only with the practice of forming metronymics of this kind, but also with that of forming patronymics from such metronymics.
The relative date of Panini and Yagñavalkya has been discussed more than once by Sanskrit scholars8 ; but no agreement has as yet been come to on what Goldstücker justly called 'one of the most important problems of Sanskrit literature. The chief difficulty of this problem lies in the ambiguity of Katyayana's well-known vårttika to Pân. IV, 3, 105. According to Pânini's rule the names
1 He is also the Rishi of Våg. S. III, 37.
* This rule, which applies to the people of the north, is not explained in the Mahâbhashya. The Kasika Vritti gives the patronymics of Gârgfputra and Vâtsiputra, both of whom occur in our vamsa. It is worthy of remark that Kavasha Ailasba, who is mentioned in Ait. Br. II, 19, and to whom the hymns Rig-veda X, 30-34 are ascribed, is called Kavasha Aildshiputra in the Kathaka 25. 7. Cf. Weber, Ind. Stud. III, pp. 459, 157, 485.
See especially Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 360 seq.; Goldstücker, Panini, p. 132 seq.; Weber, Ind. Stud. V, 65 seq.; XIII, 443; Bühler, Sacred Laws of the Aryas, 1, p. xxxix note.
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