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INTRODUCTION.
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commit them to memory and to master their contents in the twelve terms, consisting of the seven or eight dark fortnights from the month Pausha to Vaisakha1. But when the Kalpa or ritual alone reached dimensions as in the Sutras of the Baudhâyanîyas and Âpastambîyas, while the grammar developed into as artificial a system as that of Panini, it became a matter of sheer impossibility for one man to commit to memory and to fully understand the sacred texts together with the auxiliary sciences, especially as the number of the latter was increased in early times by the addition of the Nyâya or Pûrvâ Mîmâmsâ, the art of interpreting the rules of the Veda'. The members of the Vedic schools were then placed before two alternatives. They might either commit to memory all the Vedic texts of their Sâkhâs together with the Angas, renouncing the attempt at understanding what they learnt, or they had to restrict the number of the treatises which they learnt by heart, while they thoroughly mastered those which they acquired. Those who adhered to the former course became living libraries, but were unable to make any real use of their learning. Those who adopted the second alternative might become great scholars in the science of the sacrifice, grammar, law or astronomy, but they could not rival with the others in the extent of the verbal knowledge of the sacred books. Thus the Vedic schools ceased to be the centres of intellectual, and were supplanted by the special, schools of science.
The present state of learning in India proves beyond doubt that this change actually took place in the manner described, and direct statements in the ancient text-books, as well as their condition, allow us to recognise the various stages which led up to it. The true modern representatives of the ancient Karanas are the so-called Vaidiks, men who, mostly living on charity, devote their energy exclusively to the acquisition of a verbal knowledge of the
'See Manu IV, 98, and the parallel passages quoted in the note. According to some Smritis the Angas might be studied at any time out of term (Vas. XIII, 7). Regarding the early existence of the Pârvâ Mimâmsâ, see Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, p. xxvii; and the verse on the constitution of a Parishad, quoted Baudh. I, 1, 8; Vas. III, 20.
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