A History of Sanskrit Literature

by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

To the Kaushītaki Brāhmaṇa is attached the Kaushītaki Āraṇyaka. It consists of fifteen chapters. The first two of these correspond to Books I. and V. of the Aitareya Āraṇyaka, the seventh and eighth to Book III., while the intervening four chapters (3–6) form the Kaushītaki Upanishad. The latter is a long and very interesting Upanishad. It seems not improbably to have been added as an independent treatise to the completed Āraṇyaka, as it is not always found in the same part of the latter work in the manuscripts.

Brāhmaṇas belonging to two independent schools of the Sāmaveda have been preserved, those of the Tāṇḍins and of the Talavakāras or Jaiminīyas. Though several other works here claim the title of ritual text-books, only three are in reality Brāhmaṇas. The Brāhmaṇa of the Talavakāras, which for the most part is still unpublished, seems to consist of five books. The first three (unpublished) are mainly concerned with various parts of the sacrificial ceremonial. The fourth book, called the Upanishad Brāhmaṇa (probably “the Brāhmaṇa of mystic meanings”), besides all kinds of allegories of the Āraṇyaka order, two lists of teachers, a section about the origin of the vital airs (prāṇa) and about the sāvitrī stanza, contains the brief but important Kena Upanishad. Book V., entitled Ārsheya-Brāhmaṇa, is a short enumeration of the composers of the Sāmaveda.

To the school of the Tāṇḍins belongs the Panchaviṃça (“twenty-five fold”), also called Tāṇḍya or Prauḍha, Brāhmaṇa, which, as the first name implies, consists of twenty-five books. It is concerned with the Soma sacrifices in general, ranging from the minor offerings to those which lasted a hundred days, or even several years. Besides many legends, it contains a minute description of sacrifices performed on the Sarasvatī and Dṛishadvatī. Though Kurukshetra is known to it, other geographical data which it contains point to the home of this Brāhmaṇa having lain farther east. Noteworthy among its contents are the so-called Vrātya-Stomas, which are sacrifices meant to enable Aryan but non-Brahmanical Indians to enter the Brahmanical order. A point of interest in this Brāhmaṇa is the bitter hostility which it displays towards the school of the Kaushītakins. The Shaḍviṃça Brāhmaṇa, though nominally an independent work, is in reality a supplement to the Panchaviṃça, of which, as its name implies, it forms the twenty-sixth book. The last of its six chapters is called the Adbhuta Brāhmaṇa, which is intended to obviate the evil effects of various extraordinary events or portents. Among such phenomena are mentioned images of the gods when they laugh, cry, sing, dance, perspire, crack, and so forth.

The other Brāhmaṇa of this school, the Chhāndogya Brāhmaṇa, is only to a slight extent a ritual text-book. It does not deal with the Soma sacrifice at all, but only with ceremonies relating to birth and marriage or prayers addressed to divine beings. These are the contents of only the first two “lessons” of this Brāhmaṇa of the Sāma theologians. The remaining eight lessons constitute the Chhāndogya Upanishad.

There are four other short works which, though bearing the name, are not really Brāhmaṇas. These are the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa, a treatise on the employment of chants for all kinds of superstitious purposes; the Devatādhyāya Brāhmaṇa, containing some statements about the deities of the various chants of the Sāmaveda; the Vaṃça Brāhmaṇa, which furnishes a genealogy of the teachers of the Sāmaveda; and, finally, the Saṃhitopanishad, which, like the third book of the Aitareya Āraṇyaka, treats of the way in which the Veda should be recited.

The Brāhmaṇas of the Sāmaveda are distinguished by the exaggerated and fantastic character of their mystical speculations. A prominent feature in them is the constant identification of various kinds of Sāmans or chants with all kinds of terrestrial and celestial objects. At the same time they contain much matter that is interesting from a historical point of view.

In the Black Yajurveda the prose portions of the various Saṃhitās form the only Brāhmaṇas in the Kaṭha and the Maitrāyaṇīya schools. In the Taittirīya school they form the oldest and most important Brāhmaṇa. Here we have also the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa as an independent work in three books. This, however, hardly differs in character from the Taittirīya Saṃhitā, being rather a continuation. It forms a supplement concerned with a few sacrifices omitted in the Saṃhitā, or handles, with greater fulness of detail, matters already dealt with. There is also a Taittirīya Āraṇyaka, which in its turn forms a supplement to the Brāhmaṇa. The last four of its ten sections constitute the two Upanishads of this school, vii.–ix. forming the Taittirīya Upanishad, and x. the Mahā-Nārāyaṇa Upanishad, also called the Yājnikī Upanishad. Excepting these four sections, the title of Brāhmaṇa or Āraṇyaka does not indicate a difference of content as compared with the Saṃhitā, but is due to late and artificial imitation of the other Vedas.

The last three sections of Book III. of the Brāhmaṇa, as well as the first two books of the Āraṇyaka, originally belonged to the school of the Kaṭhas, though they have not been preserved as part of the tradition of that school. The different origin of these parts is indicated by the absence of the change of y and v to iy and uv respectively, which otherwise prevails in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka. In one of these Kāṭhaka sections (Taitt. Br. iii. 11), by way of illustrating the significance of the particular fire called nāchiketa, the story is told of a boy, Nachiketas, who, on visiting the House of Death, was granted the fulfilment of three wishes by the god of the dead. On this story is based the Kāṭhaka Upanishad.

Though the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā has no independent Brāhmaṇa, its fourth book, as consisting of explanations and supplements to the first three, is a kind of special Brāhmaṇa. Connected with this Saṃhitā, and in the manuscripts sometimes forming its second or its fifth book, is the Maitrāyaṇa (also called Maitrāyaṇīya and Maitri) Upanishad.

The ritual explanation of the White Yajurveda is to be found in extraordinary fulness in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa., the “Brāhmaṇa of the Hundred Paths,” so called because it consists of one hundred lectures (adhyāya). This work is, next to the Rigveda, the most important production in the whole range of Vedic literature. Its text has come down in two recensions, those of the Mādhyaṃdina school, edited by Professor Weber, and of the Kāṇva school, which is in process of being edited by Professor Eggeling. The Mādhyaṃdina recension consists of fourteen books, while the Kāṇva has seventeen. The first nine of the former, corresponding to the original eighteen books of the Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā, doubtless form the oldest part. The fact that Book XII. is called madhyama, or “middle one,” shows that the last five books (or possibly only X.–XIII.) were at one time regarded as a separate part of the Brāhmaṇa. Book X. treats of the mystery of the fire-altar (agnirahasya), XI. is a sort of recapitulation of the preceding ritual, while XII. and XIII. deal with various supplementary matters. The last book forms the Āraṇyaka, the six concluding chapters of which are the Bṛihadāraṇyaka Upanishad.