Satapatha Bramhana Part 02

SR No.: 007678
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1885
Total Pages: 2521
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 44 MB

Page 2110

xiv
GRIHYA-SOTRAS.
context of the first line is different, but the metre is the same:
- - - - 11-vu
medham te Miträvarunau. Or the saying with which the pupil (brahmakärin) has to lay a log of wood on the fire of the teacher1 :
- u-uullu - - u Agnaye samidham ahârsham
U- - |- - - u
taya tvam Agne vardhasva. There would be no object in multiplying the number of examples; those here given are sufficient to prove our proposition, that the development of the Grihya rites in the form in which they are described to us in the Satras, that especially their being accompanied with verses, which were to be recited by their performance, is later than the time of the oldest Vedic poetry, and coincides rather with the transition period in the development of the Anushtubh metre, a period which lies between the old Vedic and the later Buddhistic and epic form.
Besides the formulae intended to be recited during the performance of the various sacred acts, the Grihya-sQtras contain a second kind of verses, which differ essentially from the first kind in regard to metre; viz. verses of ritualistic character, which are inserted here and there between the prose Satras, and of which the subject-matter is similar to that of the surrounding prose. We shall have to consider these yagñagathâs, as they are occasionally called, later; at present let us go on looking for traces of the Grihya ritual and for the origin of Grihya literature in the literature which precedes the Satras.
The Brahmana texts, which, as a whole, have for their subject-matter the Vaitànika ceremonies celebrated with the three holyfires, furnish evidence that the Grihya fire, together with the holy acts accomplished in connection with it, were also already known. The Aitareya-Brâhmanagives this
1 Åsvalâyana-Grihya I, 21, 1. In Paraskara and in the Mantra-Brahmana only the first hemistich has the Anushtubh form.
* Aitareya-Brahmana VIII, 10, 9: etya grihân paskåd grihyasyâgner apa
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