________________
358
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1894.
likely. Yaska is clearly anterior to the Mahabharata, where he is mentioned. He is also anterior to Patañjali, the author of the Mahábhúshya, who used his Nirukta, and who is himself older than the Mahabhárata. This Patañjali, the author of the Mahabháshya, quite distinct from his namesake, the very much older author of the Yogasátras, must be placed between the invasion of Alexander and the foundation of Påtaliputra, and as, according to him, this city was still in his time situated on the Sona, while in the time of Chandragupta, according to contemporary evidence, ai the Ganges alone flowed past it, his probable date is about 450 B.C. All the arguments for a later date (and the author discusses nearly every one of them) are to be rejected. Before Patañjali there comes our present Code of Manu, which he quotes without naming it. This Manusarhitá is a recast of much older stras, such as those of the Manavas, and would more correctly be called the Bhrigusamkita, from the name of its real author, a Bhrigo, who must not be confounded with the rishis who bear the same name. It is anterior to the preaching of Buddhism and the rise of the doctrine of ahinsa (respect for everything endowed with life) by not less than two cectaries, since it comes before the Ramayana, which is itself pre-Buddhistic and quotes Manu. Since, further, it ignores the "Saiva worship, which we know by the positive testimony of the Rájatarangin (!) to have flourished from the eighth century B. C., we cannot go far wrong in putting it in the ninth or tenth century. Now Yaska is older than this Janusanhitd, for he agrees with it, without mentioning or quoting it; the Manu, the author of a smriti, whom he does know, is quite different and much older. Yâska is older also than Kâtyâyana, the author of várttikas, who may be the same as the author of the Prátisákhya of the White Yajurveda, but who must at all events be kept separate from the more ancient author of the Srautasútra of the same Veda, and whom we may admit to have lived about 1300 B. C. But Yåska is later than Panini, the author of the famous grammar and father of all grammar (before him there was no vyákarana), who must be placed about a thousand years earlier, about 2300 B. C.22 Between Yaska and Paņini there comes again Vyadi, the author of the Saragraha and the Vikritavalli, and his teacher Saunaka, the author of the pikprátisákhya, quite distinct from the other Saunakas, who are rishis: (all the Prátiśákhyas are later than Pånini). Yaska himself must have been preceded by Påņini by three or four centuries, and perhaps may be placed approximatively about 1900 B. C. Before Påņini there lived the heroes celebrated in the Mahábhírata, and the authors of the original sútras of the six schools of philosophy and of the ritual sútras. Beyond these, there are only the inspired prophets of the Veda. 8. What is the Niruleta ? - The interpretation of the Veda. 9. What is the Veda ? - The Veda is the revealed "science"; it is composed of two parts: mantra and brahmana. As the word veda is met with in all the collections of Mantras, and as these are anterior to the Brahmaņas, it is clear that this word, like most of its synonyms, originally meant only the Mantras, and that it was only at a later time extended to the explanatory portions. The author then discusses the synonyms of the word veda: śruti, ámndya, tray, names which are later, and the second of which, amnaya, has been extended by usage to books, which, strictly speaking, do not form part of the Veda. The third trayi, properly trayi vidya, "the triple science," is applied to the three kinds of Mantras, which are either sich "verse, or yajus "prose," or sdman "melody," and it is a mistake to see in this expression the proof that for ages there were only three Vedas, to which was added, in much later times, a fourth, the Atharvaveda. The two phrases the four Vedas" and trayi vidya denote absolutely the same thing the Vedas in their entirety; the one phrase referring to the arrangement, the other to the form. For the Veda is in reality one, whether in the form of sich, yajus or sáman, and originally formed one whole. It was the rishi Atharvan, the first originator of the
21 Among these our author seems to rockon the Mudrarakshasa! It is well known that Megasthenos places the city at the meeting of the two rivers.
12 To justify this thousand years betweeu Panini and Katyayana, the author appeals, among other arguments, to the differences between the lauguage of the two, and discusses in this connexion the phrase devinimpriya, as M. Sylvain Levi has done more recently (Jour. Asiat. Nov.- Dec. 1891, p. 519), but who arrives, as we see, at quite different results.
