Indian Antiquary Vol 57

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 194

110
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
SEPTEMBER, 1928
Kauşîtaki, leave little room for doubting that whatever else he may have taught, Brahmavidyâ was not his strong point.
Again, if Aruni was the centre of important circles of Brahmanical culture, as Oldenberg points out (Buddha, p. 396n.) and if he was the typical Kuru-Pañcâla Brahman, then we may easily conclude that, however well-known they may have been for their position and prestige in orthodox Vedic circles, the Kuru-Pañcâla Brahmans were not the real fathers of Brahma-vidya.
Yajñavalkya was of course a great teacher and a teacher of Brahma-vidyå too. But, as we have just seen, it is doubtful if he was a Kuru-Pañcala at all 3 ; even if he was, tho scene of his activity is laid almost exclusively in Videha. He was perhaps not permanently residing there : no Brahman of any importance could really be pinned to any place for all times; he had to visit places and persons on spiritual ministration. A sacrifice of any kind would mean invitation for a large number of Brahmans from different parts of the country. The Brahman population of the country, therefore, was more mobile than others. So, Yajñavalkya, too, was frequently on the move from place to place. We are often told that he came to the court of Janaka (Br. vi), implying thereby that he was not there. He must have moved from place to place, and that, too, perhaps more frequently than many others, because he was so well-known and certainly was very much in request. But nowhere except in Videha do we find him discoursing on Brahma-vidya. So far as Brahma-vidyâ was concerned, therefore, the field of bis activity was Videha; and so far as his teachings are concerned, the home of Upanisadio culture lay in that country.
That the land of Kuru-Pancala was the land of good customs, one cannot deny, of course so far as good customs meant customs according to the Vedic ideal of life (cf. Manu, i. 17-20). And that a considerable portion of the Vedic and Brahmanical literature was developed in that country and its neighbourhood, may also be taken as proved. But that in itself cannot be regarded as disproving the possibility of other and later branches of the same literature, being developed in other places.
Eggeling, in his Introduction to the Sata patha Brahmana (p. xxxi) says: “This dig. agreement in respect of doctrinal authorities, coupled with unmistakeable differences, stylistic as well as geographical and mythological, can scarcely be accounted for otherwise than by assumption of a difference of authorship or original redaction..... We may infer from this that the fire-ritual adopted by the Vâjasaneyins at the time of the first redaction of their texts,... had been settled in the north-west of India.” It has been conjectured, therefore, that a distance of time separates the different parts of the Satapatha ; and it is equally open to conjecture that a distance of space also intervenes between the different parts. And if that be so, may we not also suggest that the latter i.e., the Upanişadic portion of the book, was composed by hands other than those that composed the earlier portions and that it was composed in other lands too?
The story of Videgha-Mathava (S.B., i. 4. 1), has been cited as an evidence of the way in which Vedic culture migrated from the Kuru-Pancala country to the eastern districts of Videha-Magadha. That Vedic culture came from the west to the east, is now an established fact; but that the Upanişads also were produced in the same land as the Vedas and the Brahmanas, does not necessarily follow. They came after the Bråhmaņas and may easily be conceived as having originated after Brahmanical culture had spread castwards to the limits of Videha-Magadba. The story of Videgha-Mathava may be taken to indicate this transference of the centre of speculation from the west to the east.
Šata patha Brahmana, v. 5. 5. 14, mentions both Aruni and Yajšavalkya, but one is not mentioned as the teacher of the other. In Brhadaranyaka, vi. 3, Aruni is said to have taught Yajna valkya certain mantras of magic power.
8 In Byhadaranyaka, iii. 9. 19, Sakalya accuses Yajñavalkya of having insulted the Kuru-Paucala Brah mana, there by perhaps suggesting that Yadavalkya himself was not one of them.