Kalpasutra

Author(s): J Stevenson
Publisher: Oriental Translation Fund London

Page 60

28
KALPA SÚTRA.
proportioned in height, weight, and thickness", with every limb fully developed, and perfect in beauty, with a form resembling the moon, graceful and pleasing to the eye; to such an entirely lovely child will you give birth. On leaving the state of childhoodt, he will be perfect in all the inferior branches of knowledge, and after entering on the state of youth, he will soon become able to repeat, defend, and uphold the four Vedas, the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sáma Veda, and the Atharvana Veda, and the Itihása (Legendary History), which is considered a fifth Veda, and the Nighantu (Lexicon), which may be termed a sixth; the body of divinity with all its members, and know also their hidden meaning. He will be acquainted with the six subsidiary members of the Veda, and the sixth philosophical system (the Sánkhya), with the Mathematics, the Institute which directs in rites and ceremonies, Grammar, Prosody, Analysis of words, Astronomy, and other Brahmanical Scriptures, especially that relating to the state of an ascetic; in all of these he will become a proficient. Thou, O
* So Mána, Unmána, and Pramána, are interpreted by the commentator.
+ That is, till the age of eight.
In this curious passage, giving an account of Brahmanical sacred literature in the fifth century of our era, it is remarkable that the agreement with the present state of that literature is perfect, with the striking discrepancy of omitting all notice of the