________________
xiv
VISHNU.
references might be explained, in the case of the Vishnusútra, by the activity of those who brought it into its present shape, and who seem to have carefully removed all such references to other works as the original Dharmasútra may have contained. Whatever the precise nature of the relations between this work and the other Satra works of the Kârâyanîya-kathaka school may have been, there is no reason for assigning to it a later date than to the Kathaka Srauta and Grihya-sûtras, with the latter of which it has so much in common, and it may therefore claim a considerable antiquity, especially if it is assumed, with Dr. Bühler, that the beginning of the Satra period differed for each Veda. The Veda of the Kathas, the Kathaka, is not separated from the Sutra literature of this school by an intermediate Brâhmana stage; yet its high antiquity is testified by several of the most eminent grammarians of India from Yâska down to Kaiyata ?. Thus the Kâtlaka is the only existing work of its kind, which is quoted by the former grammarian (Nirukta X, 5; another clear quotation from the Kâthaka, XXVII, 9, though not by name, may be found, Nirukta III, 4), and the latter places the Kathas at the head of all Vedic schools, while Patañgali, the author of the Mahâbhâshya, assigns to the ancient sage Katha, the reputed founder of the Katha or Kathaka school of the Black Yagur-veda, the dignified position of an immediate pupil of Vaisampâyana, the fountain-head of all schools of the older or Black Yagur-veda, and mentions, in accordance with a similar statement preserved in the Râmâyana (II, 32, 18, 19 ed. Schlegel), that in his own time the Kâlâpaka and the Kathaka' were proclaimed in every village 2.' The priority of the Kathas before all other existing schools of the Yagur-veda may be deduced from the statements of the Karanavyuha?, which work assigns to them one of the first places among the divers branches of
See Weber, Indische Studien XIII, p. 437 seq. Mahâbhâshya, Benares edition, IV, fols. 82 b, 75 b. 3 See Weber, Ind. Stud. III, p. 256 seq.; Max Müller, Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 369. I have consulted, besides, two Munich MSS. of the Karanavyûha (cod. Haug 45).
Digitized by Google
