MOST of the questions referring to the Grihya-sûtra of Âsvalâyana will be treated of more conveniently in connection with the different subjects which we shall have to discuss in our General Introduction to the Grihya-sûtras. Here I wish only to call attention to a well-known passage of Shadgurusishya, in which that commentator gives some statements on the works composed by Âsvalâyana and by his teacher Saunaka. As an important point in that passage has, as far as I can see, been misunderstood by several eminent scholars, I may perhaps be allowed here to try and correct that misunderstanding, though the point stands in a less direct connection with the Grihya-sûtra than with another side of the literary activity of Âsvalâyana. Shadgurusishya 1, before speaking of Âsvalâyana, makes the following statements with regard to Âsvalâyana's teacher, Saunaka. 'There was,' he says, 'the Sâkala Samhitâ (of the Rig-veda), and the Bâshkala Samhitâ; following these two Samhitâs and the twenty-one Brâhmanas, adopting principally the Aitareyaka and supplementing it by the other texts, he who was revered by the whole number of great Rishis composed the first Kalpa-sûtra.' He then goes on to speak of Âsvalâyana—'Saunaka's pupil was the venerable Âsvalâyana. He who knew everything he had learnt from that teacher, composed a Sûtra and announced (to Saunaka that he had done so) 2.' Saunaka then destroyed his own Sûtra, and
Here we have an interesting and important statement by which the authorship of a part of the Aitareyâranyaka, which would thus be separated from the rest of that text, is ascribed, not to Mahidâsa Aitareya, but to an author of what may be called the historical period of Vedic antiquity, to Âsvalâyana. But what is the fourth Âranyaka to which this passage refers? Is it the text which is now set down, for instance, in Dr. Râgendralâla Mitra's edition, as the fourth Âranyaka of the Aitareyinas? Before we give an answer to this question, attention must be called to other passages referring, as it could seem, to another part, namely, the fifth part of the Âranyaka. Sâyana, in his great commentary on the Rig-veda, very frequently quotes the pañkamâranyaka as belonging to Saunaka. Thus in vol. i, p. 112, ed. Max Müller, he says: pañkamâranyaka aushnihatrikâsîtir iti khande Saunakena sûtritam surûpakritnum ûtaya iti trîny endra sânasim rayim iti dve iti. There is indeed in the fifth Âranyaka a chapter beginning with the words aushnihi trikâsîtih, in which the words quoted by Sâyana occur 3. Similar quotations, in
But we must ask ourselves: Are the two books of the Âranyaka collection, ascribed to those two authors, really two different books? It is a surprising fact that Shadgurusishya, while speaking of Âsvalâyana's authorship of the fourth book, and while at the same time intending, as he evidently does, to give a complete list of Saunaka's compositions, does not mention the fifth Âranyaka among the works of that author. In order to account for this omission the conjecture seems to suggest itself that Shadgurusishya, when speaking of the fourth Âranyaka as belonging to Âsvalâyana, means the same work which Sâyana sets down as the fifth, and which he ascribes to Saunaka. At first sight this conjecture may seem perhaps rather hazardous or unnatural; however I believe that, if we compare the two texts themselves which are concerned, we shall find it very probable and even evident. What do those two Âranyaka books contain? The fourth is very short: it does not fill more than one page in the printed edition. Its contents consist exclusively of the text of the Mahânâmnî or Sakvarî verses, which seem to belong to a not less remote
So much for the fourth Âranyaka. The fifth contains a description of the Mahâvrata ceremony. To the same subject also the first book is devoted, with the difference that the first book is composed in the Brâhmana style, the fifth in the Sûtra style 2. Now which of these two books can it be that Shadgurusishya reckons as belonging to the 'Âsvalâyanasûtraka?' It is impossible that it should be the fourth, for the Mahânâmnî verses never were considered by Indian theologians as the work of a human author; they shared in the apaurusheyatva of the Veda, and to say that they have been composed by Âsvalâyana, would be inconsistent with the most firmly established principles of the literary history of the Veda both as conceived by the Indians and by ourselves. And even if we were to admit that the Mahânâmnî verses can have been assigned, by an author like Shadgurusishya, to Âsvalâyana,—and we cannot admit
153:1 See Max Müller's History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 230 seqq.; Indische Studien, I, 102. 153:2 This seems to me to be the meaning of sûtram kritvâ nyavedayat; 154:2 Dvâdasâdhyâyakam sûtram katushkam grihyam eva ka katurthâranyakam keti hy Âsvalâyanasûtrakam. 154:3 See p. 448 of Dr. Râgendralâla Mitra's edition in the Bibliotheca Indica. 155:1 2nd edition, p. 53: Obwohl wir für das vierte Buch des letztern (i.e. of the Aitareya Âranyaka) sogar die directe Nachricht haben, dass es dem Âsvalâyana, dem Schüler eines Saunaka angehört, so wie auch ferner für das fünfte Buch desselben dieser Saunaka selbst als Urheber gegolten zu haben scheint, nach dem was Colebrooke Misc. Ess. I, 47 n. darüber berichtet. 155:2 P. 11: If this assumption be admitted, the proper conclusion to be arrived at would also be that the whole of the fifth Book belongs to Saunaka, and the whole of the fourth Book to Âsvalâyana. P. 12: The writings of both Âsvalâyana and Saunaka which occur in the Âranyaka, etc. 156:1 See Sâṅkhâyana-Grihya II, 12, 13. 156:2 Thus Sâyana, in his note on V, 1, 1, says: Nanu prathamâranyakeTO THE
ÂSVALÂYANA-GRIHYA-SÛTRA.
rikâm tvah posham âste pupushvân gâyatram tvo gâyati sakvarîshu (Rig-veda X, 71, 11).
