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INTRODUCTION.
ti
precisely, all such Mantras as are frequently quoted in Vedic works of divers Sakhâs; 2. the purificatory texts enumerated under the title of Sarva-veda-pavitrâni in LVI. The latter can afford us no help in determining the particular Sâkhâ to which this work belongs, because they are actually taken, as they profess to be, from all the Vedas indiscriminately, and because nearly the whole of Chapter LVI is found in the Vâsishtha-smriti as well (see further on), which probably does not belong to the same Veda as this work. Among the former class of Mantras may be included, particularly, the Gâyatrî, the Purushasůkta, the Aghamarshana, the Kashmândîs, the Vyâhritis, the Gyeshtha Samans, the Rudras, the Trinakiketa, the Trisuparna, the Vaishnava, Sâkra, and Bârhaspatya Mantras mentioned in XC, 3, and the Mantra quoted in XXVIII, 51 (= Gautama's 'Retasya'). Among the twenty-two Mantras quoted in Chapters XLVIII, LXIV, LXV (including repetitions, but excluding the Purushasûkta, Gâyatri, Aghamarshana) there are also some which may be referred to this class, and the great majority of them occur in more than one Veda at the same time. But it is worthy of note that no less than twelve, besides occurring in at least one other Sakha, are either actually found in the Samhita of the Kârâyanîya-kathas, the Kathaka? (or Karaka-sâkhâ?), or stated to belong to it in the Commentary, while one is found in the Kathaka alone, a second in the Atharva-veda alone, a third in the Taittirîya Brâhmana alone, and a fourth does not occur in any Vedic work hitherto known. A far greater number of Mantras occurs in Chapters XXI, LXVII, LXXIII, LXXIV, LXXXVI, which treat of daily oblations, Srâddhas, and the ceremony of setting a bull at liberty. Of all these Mantras, which,-including the Purushasûkta and other such well-known Mantras as well as the short invocations addressed to Soma, Agni, and other deities, but excluding the invocations addressed to Vishnu in the spurious Sätra, LXVII, 2,—are more than a hundred in number, no more than forty or so are found in Vedic
In speaking of this work I always refer to the Berlin MS. ' XLVIII, 10. Cf., however, Vågas. Samh. IV, 12.
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