Sacred Laws of Aryas

Author(s): Gorge Buhler
Publisher: Oxford

Page 17

xvi
ÂPASTAMBA.
ture, their relative priority or posteriority as compared with other Vedic schools and works, to show with some amount of probability in which part of India they had their origin, and to venture, at least, a not altogether unsupported conjecture as to their probable antiquity.
As regards the first point, the Karanavyuha, a supplement of the White Yagur-veda which gives the lists of the Vedic schools, informs us that the Åpastambîya school formed one of the five branches of the Khândikîya school, which in its turn was a subdivision of the Taittirîyas, one of the ancient sections of Brâhmanas who study the Black Yagur-veda. Owing to the very unsatisfactory condition of the text of the Karanavyûha it is unfortunately not possible to ascertain what place that work really assigns to the  pastambîyas among the five branches of the Khândikîyas. Some MSS. name them first, and others last. They give either the following list, 1. Kâleyas (Kâletas), 2. Sâtyâyanins, 3. Hiranyakesins, 4. Bharadvågins, and 5. Âpastambins, or, 1. Âpastambins, 2. Baudhấyanins or Bodhầyanins, 3. Satyashadhins, 4. Hiranyakesins, 5. Aukheyas?. But this defect is remedied to a certain extent by the now generally current, and probably ancient tradition that the Åpastambîyas are younger than the school of Baudhayana, and older than that of Satyashâdha Hiranyakesin. Baudhayana, it is alleged, composed the first set of Sätras connected with the Black Yagurveda, which bore the special title 'pravakana,' and he was succeeded by Bhâradväga, Âpastamba, and Satyashâdha Hiranyakesin, who all founded schools which bear their names 2
Max Müller, Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 371. A MS. of the Karanavydha with an anonymous commentary, in my possession, has the following passage : कांडिकेयानां पंच भेदा भवंति । आपस्तंबी बोधायनी सत्याषाढी हिरण्यकेशी aterat afn.
* Max Müller, Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 194. These statements occur in the introduction of Mahadeva's commentary on the Srauta-sůtra of Hiranyakesin (Weber, Hist. Sansk. Lit., p. 110, 2nd ed.) and in an interpolated passage of Bharadvága's Grihya-sūtra (Winternitz, op. cit., p. 8, note 1), as well as, with the omission of Bhâradväga's name, ia interpolated passages of
Digitized by Google