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INTRODUCTION.
XV
the Karakas, whom it places at the head of all schools of the Yagur-veda. Another argument in favour of the high antiquity of the Kathas may be derived from their geographical position. Though the statements of the Mahabhâshya and Râmâyana regarding the wide-spread and influential position of the Kathas in ancient times are borne out by the fact that the Karanavyûha mentions three subdivisions of the Kathas, viz. the Kathas proper, the Prâkya Kathas, and the Kapishthala Kathas, to which the Karayanîyas may be added as a fourth, and by the seeming identity of their name with the name of the Kabalou in the Pañgåb on the one hand, and with the first part of the name of the peninsula of Kattivar on the other hand, it seems very likely nevertheless that the original home of the Kathas was situated in the north-west, i. e. in those regions where the earliest parts of the Vedas were composed. Not only the Kαθαίοι, but the Kαμβίσθολοι as well, who have been identified with the Kapishthala Kathas?, are mentioned by Greek writers as a nation living in the Pañgâb; and while the Prakya Kathas are shown by their name ('Eastern Kathas ') to have lived to the east of the two other branches of the Kathas, it is a significant fact that adherents of the Kârâyanîya-kathaka school survive nowhere but in Kasmîr, where all Brâhmanas perform their domestic rites according to the rules laid down in the Grihya-sútra of this schools. Kasmîr is moreover the country where nearly all the yet existing works of the Kathaka school have turned up, including the Berlin MS. of the Kathaka, which was probably written by a Kasmîrian 4. It is true that some of the geographical and historical data contained in that work, especially the way in which it mentions the Pañkalas, whose ancient name, as shown by the Satapatha Brâhmana (XIII, 5, 4, 7) and Rig
1 See Weber, Über das Ramayana, p. 9; Ind. Stud. I, p. 189 seq.; III, P 469 seq.; XIII, pp. 375, 439; Ind. Litteraturgeschichte, pp. 99, 332 ; Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 102 seq.
See, however, Max Müller, Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 333. * Bühler, Kasmir Report, p. 20 seq. • This was pointed out to me by Dr. Bühler,
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