Questions of King Milinda Part 01

SR No.: 007681
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1890
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 47 MB

Page 2264

xviii
SATAPATHA-BRAHMANA.
one of vital importance ; whilst in the Agnikayana, on the contrary, it is of the very essence of the whole performance. Indeed, it seems to me by no means unlikely that the Purusha-Pragâpati dogma was first practically developed in connection with the ceremony of the Fire-altar", and that, along with the admission of the latter into the regular sacrificial ceremonial, it was worked into the sacrificial theory generally. In the Agnikayana section (Kândas VI-X), as has already been stated ", Sandilya is referred to as the chief authority in doctrinal matters, whilst in the remaining portions of the Brâhmana, that place of honour is assigned to Yågñavalkya. Now, it may be worthy of notice, in connection with this question of the Pragapati dogma, that in the list of successive teachers 3 appended to the Agnikayana section, the transmission of the sacrificial science or rather of the science of the Fire-altar, for the list can only refer to that section is traced from Sandilya upwards to Tura Kåvasheya, who is stated to have received it from Pragâpati; the Lord of Creatures, on his part, having received it from the (impersonal) Brahman. Does not this look almost like a distinct avowal of Sândilya and his spiritual predecessors being answerable for having introduced the doctrine of the identity of Pragâpati and the sacrifice into the sacrificial philosophy? If such be the case, the adaptation of this theory to the dogmatic explanation of the other parts of the ceremonial, as far as the Satapatha-Brahmana is concerned, might be supposed to have been carried out about the time of Samgîvî-putra, when the union of the two lines of teachers seems to have taken place. But seeing that the tenth Kânda, called the Mystery, or secret doctrine, of the Fire-altar, was apparently not at first included in the sacrificial canon of the Vaga
VI, 2, 2, 21, .This performance (of the Agnikayana) assuredly belongs to Pragâpati, for it is Pragâpati he undertakes (to construct) by this performance.'
* Part i, introduction, p. xxxi.
• For this Vamsa, as well as that appended to the last book of the Brâhmana, see ibid. p. xxxiii, note I.
* Ibid. p. xxxiv; Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, P. 437.
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