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INTRODUCTION.
the attention of Vedic scholars to some facts which seem to me to render the second more probable.
A great part of the Mantras which have to be recited, according to Gobhila, at the performance of the Grihya ceremonies, are not given in the Mantra-Brâhmana, but they are either found in the Sama-veda-Samhita and then their Pratîkas are quoted by Gobhila, or they are cited by Gobhila in extenso. Thus for the ceremonies described in the first Prapathaka of Gobhila, such as the morning and evening offerings and the sacrifices of the full and new moon, the Mantra-Brahmana gives, with one single exception, no Mantras at all ? ; but those Mantras, most of which consist only of a few words, are given by Gobhila only. It is scarcely to be believed that in a Samhitå which had to contain the Mantras required for the performance of the Grihya sacrifices, the Mantras belonging to the two daily and the two fortnightly sacrifices, which occupy one of the first places among all Grihya ceremonies and are treated of accordingly in all Grihya-sútras, should have been omitted, unless that Samhità was intended to stand in relation to another text by which that deficiency was supplied : and the Gobhilîya-sútra exactly supplies it. Prof. Knauer thinks that those Mantras were omitted because they had already found their place in the Srauta ritual; but we must not forget that in the Srauta ritual of the Sama-vedins neither the Agnihotra nor the Darsapurnamasa sacrifices, which are performed without the assistance of priests of the Udgatri class, are treated of. Moreover the one Mantra.to which we have already alluded ?, the single one which corresponds in the Mantra-Brahmana to the first book of Gobhila, seems to me quite sufficient to show that it was not the intention of the compiler of that text to disregard that group of sacrifices ; he gave that Mantra only, because the other Mantras, consisting of but a few words, were given in extenso in the Gobhila text. The Mantra of which we speak, belongs to the description
· Cf. Knauer's translation, Introduction, p. 25. * Mantra-Brahmana I, I, I,
Digitized by Google
| SR No. | 007685 |
| Book Title | Grihya Sutras |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Hermann Oldenberg |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1886 |
| Total Pages | 2642 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 49 MB |