A reconsideration becomes inevitable. Yaska 1 offers a convenient starting-point. Between Yaska's Nighantu and Nirukta' and Sāyaṇa's Rgvedabhāṣya rise a number of interpreters and their commentators with varying degrees of accuracy as regards Vedic tradition and history. Chief among them are the following:

Treatises.-Nirukta-(Yaska) c. 500 B. C.*

Bṛhaddevatā (Śaunaka school) c. 400 B. C.
(a) Arṣānukramaņī;

(6) Chhando'nukramaṇī;

า

(c) Devatānukramaņi; Saunaka school."

(d) Anuvakānukramņi;

(e) Süktānukramaņi *;

Sarvānukramaṇī―(Kātyāyana) c. middle of the

4th. cen. B. C.

Commentaries. Sadgurusisya 7. Vedarthadipika, latter half of the 12th. cen. A. C.8.

Devarajayajvan', c. 12th. cen. A. C.

Durga 10, c. 13th cen. A. C.

Sāyaṇa11, 14th. cen. A. C.

It is important to remember that all the above authorities aim at carrying on the tradition in the Vedas. Even commentators on Yaska, like Devarajayajvan and Skandasvāmī do not hesitate to put in additional words from Vedic sources not

1 Yāska mentions the Prātiśākhyas, treatises on Vedic Phonology (physiology and acoustics) connecting the pada pāṭha with the Nirukta.

2 Yaska mentions 31 predecessors.

• Bṛhad. cites 32 authorities; Macdonell, op. cit., H. O. S., vol. S., p. 115. • Max Muller, 4. 8. L.,

p. 234.

According to Vedārtha dīpikā.

• Ibil.

' Macdonell, Sarvān., op. cit., p. v.

Weber, Ved. Stud., vol. viii, p. 160n.

• Devaraja quotes from Skandasvāmī. Bhaṭṭa Bhāskaramiśra, Mādhava.

10 Durga's predecessors were Ugra (Aufrecht', Catalogu Catalogorum, vol. i,

p. 297, and Skandasvāmi (Aufrecht op. cit.).

11 Followed by Nītimanjarī.

found in Yaska's collection 1. Only the Vedic sages knew the tradition first-hand. Others learn it from predecessors, others still understand the words only'-Sākṣālkṛtadharmāņa ṛṣaya babhuvuste varebhyo' asākṣāt kṛtadharmabhya upadesena

Paroksakrtah, Pratyaksak r ta h Adhyatm ikyah Vedic expressions.

Б

*

avare bilmagrahaṇāyemam grantham Samāmnāṣiṣurvedam vedāngāni cha 2. Yāska makes it abundantly clear that the words he seeks to explain are not his own but Samāmnāyaḥ Samām nāṭaḥ tam imam Samāmnāyam Nighaṇṭava ityācakṣate, known traditionally from Vedio days and called Nighantu'. This Nighaṇṭu with Yáska's explanations, Sāyaṇa designates as Nirukta. The Bṛhaddevata and the Anukramaņis deal with the same Vedic materials. Compare for instance Vedic tradition and history in the same stories cited by Yāska" and in the Bṛhaddevata and the Sarvānukramaņi. Sadguruśişya very aptly calls them itihāsas, i.e., history. Sāyaṇa 11 invokes purāņas tradition as well. The human touch is unmistakeable. See the itihasa of Vikuṇṭhā 12 an Asuri (female Asura) becomes the mother of a son like Indra (Vedārtḥadīpikā I. 47; also Sarvanukramaņi. The union suggests a metabolic assimilation of Arya and Asura, history and tradition. The object being an understanding of traditional history in the Vedas, none of the above treatises or commentaries can by itself be

10

8

1 Anyeşancha padānāmasmat kule Samāmnāyādhyayanasyāvichchhedāt— Devarāja.

2 Nirukta, 20.4.

• Samāmnāyah Samāmnātak.

• Ṛgvedabhāṣyabhümikā.

• Arthāvabodhe nirapekşatayā padajātam yatroktam.

• Samāmnāyānupuroafah.

'Sarup, op. cit., p. 246.

Cf. Macdonell, Bṛhad., pp. 132-133.

• Macdonell, Sarvān., p. 210.

10 Ibid.

11 Ṛgbhāṣyabhūmikā.

12 Ṛv. x. 47.

*

regarded as final or conclusive. Thus Yaska himself as known at present is hardly reliable, says Devarajayajvan 1 naighantukam kāṇḍamutsannaprāyamāsīt.2 Yaska himself quotes about 31 predecessors. Hence the significance of every expression, e.g., pratyakṣakṛtāḥ, parokṣakṛtāḥ, āhyātmikāḥ, quoted by Yaska from the Vedas must be examined in the light of interpretations offered by his successors up to Sāyaṇa dealing with the same data. That these three expressions as referring to three different kinds of hymns representing three sources of Indian traditional history were no mere creations of Yaska but inherited by him from earlier sources is further borne out by their occurrence in independent treatises like the Bṛhaddevatā, parokṣa iii. 141; v. 2 ; vii. i. 3; viii. 52: parokṣavat vii. 31: parokṣata, iv. 32: pratyakṣa, i.11; viii. 128: the Sarvānukramaṇī, parokṣavot, x. 28.

Yaksa on Parok sakrtah, Pratyak Adhyat

**Sa mantro bhavatı tās!ṛividhā ṛchaḥ parokṣakṛtāḥ pratyakṣakṛtā ādhyātmikyascha tatra paroksakṛtāḥ sarvābhirnāmavibhaktibhɩryujyante prathamapuruṣaischākhyātasya * * atha pratyakṣakṛtā madhyamapuruṣayogāḥ * * athādhyātmikya uttamapuruṣayogāḥ.”

sakrtah mikah.

'Mantra' says Yāska, is a general term in reference to some deity. Both rsi (sage) and devata (deity) are comprehensive. But Yaska remembers that some of these deities and their worshippers were originally not Aryans. Some of these nonAryans were once 'hostile' and 'powerful.'10 They even

Bib. Ind. edition.

Ibid,. vol. i. pp. 2-5.

Sarup, op. cit., p. 247.

• Samāmnāyah samāmnātah.

In direct line with the Pratiśākbyas.

• Yāska himself knew other Vedāngas, which [must be different from thɔse including Papini, his successor.

' Yāska, Daiv. I. 1.

Rv. i. 150.

• Av. 8.6.

10 Rr. x .161.

possessed the land. Cf. Rv. i. 150. Yaska explains arih as amitraḥ i.e. unfriendly and 'lord'. Friends and foes invoking the same deity is illustrated by Ṛv. ii. 12, pare avare ubhayāḥ amitrāḥ and nānā havete. Durga amplifies Yāska and explains ariḥ as competent to sacrifice: even though a stranger or a hostile person.' (Roth). All the mantras' are thus todasyeva Sarana ā mahasya1 and Vedic tradition 'a great well containing waters from different streams flowing into it 6 The rchaḥ represent these streams. And they owe their origin to different sources. The stories of Panis and Sarama' 'Mitrāvaruņā and Urvasi' " etc., thinly veil an ancient nonAryan stratum. Already of course in Vedic days an assimilation had been attempted. Thus the Vedic conception of the origin of man combines the patrilinear Vivasvat's son Manu (Rv. × 63), father of Manus (Ṛv. 1.80)10, with “Yama Vaivasvata, Vivasvat's son, who with his twin sister Yami produced the human race." How again to disentangle the threads of Asura-Arya-Dāsa motifs.12 Ṛv. x. 151 remembers the Asuras as friendy and dependable.13 Ṛv. ii. 30 discovers them as wolfish.1 Rv. x. 138 credits them with being crafty.15 From

1 Ind. Stud., 3,164f. (human foes).

* Yāska's ‘amitra in reference to the Aryas, not to the deities, Ṛv. vi. 73. • Rv. ii. 12.8.

Roth, Nighantu, p. 59.

• Ibid.

Yaska, 11.25.

↑ Ibid., 5.18.

• Bergaigne, La Religion Védique, 2.220.

Muir, Skt. Texts, 5,52.

10 Av. 8.10; Śat. Br. 13, 4, 3.

Manu possibly ancestor of the Aryans only'-Macdonell, Ved. Myth.,

p. 139 n.2.

11 Macdonell, Ved. Myth, p. 15.

13 Spiegel, Die Arische Periode, 272.

18 Muir, Skt. Texts, 4, 52, 58.

14 Bradke, Dyaus Asura, 109.

1 Ibid., p. 106.

being epithets of Varuna or Mitra-Varuna,1 gifted with māyā or 'occult power', the Asura became the wicked (Rv. x. 124) hostile (Rv. x. 53) godless (Rv. viii. 85) oreature who must be vanquished (Rv. x. 53). And yet tradition depicts the Aryans as worsted at the outset and only winning by artifice.' And all through these seeming contradictions runs the later Brahmana historical belief that the Asuras were the offspring of Prajapati and originally equal to and like the gods. No wonder coming later still, Kautsya felt dismayed and preferred to keep aloof from further mystification. Yaska boldy undertook to sift tradition. He included in his traditional list of historical directions the Vedic expressions paroksakṛtāḥ (hymns composed by others in undetermined times), pratyakṣakṛtāḥ (bymns composed by people in known times) and ādhyātmikyaḥ (hymns composed by contemporaries.)8 He begins the section with * * achakṣate, i.e. traditionally held as an authority for these expressions. But he feels it beyond him to distinguish between the works of these ancient seers, these known seers and contemporaries, except that the former two constitute by far the most important portion from the traditional historical point of view.10 He thus refrains from applying the ordinary oriterion of rsi, devatā and chhandas.11 He offers instead a rough description.

1 Ibid. pp. 120ff.

Bergaigne, op. cit., p. 3,81.

Bradke, op. cit, p. 109.

Of these hymns the parokṣakṛtāḥ

• Muir, op. cit., 4,52,53, cf. deva, Tait. Sam 3,5,4; Av. 3,15.

• Uttamapuruşayog ah, etc.

Yaska, Daiv., 1, 1.

10 This partially explains the extraordinary care with which this traditional history was preserved. It also explains Pargiter's difficulty why it preserved the earlier information, and was ignorant of the later work.' Pargiter, A.1.H.T., p.9.

11 Yäska does not attempt here his general etymological device.