guage, as it is not altogether unsystematic, provided we omit certain parts which are plainly of later origin, or are irrelevant to the rest of the work. Such are the first, third, and fourth khandas of the first chapter, and the “vam̃ça” at the end of the work (ch. iii. kh. 9, § 7). The first section in the first chapter is an attempt to explain the existence of the Sâmavidhâna, and there can be no doubt that it belongs to a time when the brahmans felt the necessity of their sacred works being considered in connexion and as parts of a system, and to a movement which resulted later in the systematic philosophies of Kumârila and Çankara. The "vañça" (i.e. succession of teachers of the work) is certainly of a much older date, but it is there as an answer to a question similar to that which caused the composition of the first khanda, though belonging to a period of collection, and not to a period of criticism, it is of a different nature. The first khaṇḍa is an attempt to answer the question-how does this work fit in with the other Vedic works? The vança is an attempt to answer the question-why is this work to be considered a Vedic work?

The third and fourth sections of the first chapter interrupt the natural order, according to which the fifth should follow the second section (or khanda); but as the ceremonies described in them depend partly on ceremonies described in the second khaṇḍa, their insertion here is at least intelligible. However, as they merely contain substitutes for the more difficult and complicated sacrificial rites described in other Brâhmaņas, there can be no doubt that they belong to a late period.

The substance of the bulk of the work consists of descriptions of certain penances and ceremonies which are supposed to destroy the evil effects of some actions, and in other cases to bring about results desired by the performer. The first ("tapas," treated in ch. i. 2, and "prâyaçcitta" in i. 5 to 8) form but a small part of the work; the "kâmya" rites, or ceremonies of a magical nature, fill two out of the three chapters into which the Sâmavidhânabrâhmaṇa is divided. As in the other Vedic works, the matter of this Brâhmaņa is of little value in itself; but this book has an independent value of its own, inasmuch as it preserves for us a picture of the beginning of a civilization, and ideas and practices which other nations have in the course of their progress thrown aside or concealed with shame, and which now exist hardly anywhere on the earth. The Vedic literature, in the hands of Professor Max Müller, has furnished us with the key to mythology, and this must always remain the greatest service that can be rendered by it;1 but it has also preserved the explanation of many obscure customs by a record of them in their most original forms and in the very words of the people

1 It has been often asserted that the modern forms of Hindu worship (which are wrongly assumed to be more degraded than those prescribed by the Vedas) are chiefly derived from the primitive races of India, who are said to be of a different race to the Aryans. That the Aryans have long been mixed up with the tribes they found already in India when they entered it, there can be little doubt, but that the so-called Dravidian races have derived their religions from Âryan (or Sanskrit) sources is certain; the mythology of modern Hinduism can only be explained by Sanskrit, and the Dravidian languages not being sex-denoting languages, in regard to inanimate objects, could never have given rise to a mythology. The Dravidian races of India (like all tribes with languages that do not denote sex) have only ancestorworship for a religion, and could never (by themselves) get beyond it.

who followed them and believed in them. This is a point of the greatest importance, for the similar traditions and usages of the still existing semi-barbarous races are so contaminated by European influence as to be but of trifling value; and though accounts exist which were drawn up by the first Europeans who visited them, the authors were generally narrow-minded missionaries, who were so anxious to prove the working of the devil in all strange customs, as to render their works very untrustworthy. Such accounts have been always intended rather for the supporters of missions and wondermongers than for students, and thus explanation is often impossible. But there is no such accidental or intentional misrepresentation in the Vedic literature; the only difficulty is to collect the scattered facts, and to trace their connexion. Usages and customs can (if not interfered with) change but little: in another country natural circumstances may render some impossible, but where kept up they must always have substantially the same form.

Among the ceremonies described in the Sâmavidhânabrâhmaṇa, we find some which are intended to be expiations not only of sins, but also of crimes, such as murder, and a little further on we find other ceremonies of a like nature, which are intended to destroy enemies; it is therefore evident that the people whose religion is partly here described, did not think the act of killing wrong, but they feared certain consequences from it to themselves. What these consequences were supposed to be,

1 V. Bastian's "Reisen," iv. 446 ff.

is not clear from the Sâmavidhânabrâhmaṇa, but in the after-literature there are many passages which show that the Hindus entertained a belief that they were punished for sins or crimes by sickness or misfortune, in this or a future life; and it is everywhere among savage races a belief that the murdered individual can in his continued existence under another form avenge himself on his murderer, or that the being which causes death resents actions which interfere with its own functions. The reasons why one form of fast and penance should be supposed to expiate certain crimes, whereas other ceremonies were necessary in other cases, must always remain more or less doubtful; satisfactory explanations may be given of some, but as we have an account of the customs and superstitions only, and not of their evolution, much must always remain obscure. Those described in the Sâmavidhânabrâhmaṇa belong to what has been called the "Fetish age," but nevertheless in their combinations give evidence of a certain amount of progress and modification, and in that consists the difficulty. The state of mind of a man in the Fetish age, who judges everything independently, and has only one standard, viz., himself,' would induce him to avert the anger he feared by suffering and offerings such as we here find described as expiations for sins or crimes, but it is not plain what consequences to himself from some acts he could hope to avert in this manner.

The sins and crimes enumerated by the Sâmavidhâna

1 v. Vico, Scienza Nuova, I. p. 86 (edition of Milan, 1801); Comte, Cours de Philosophie Positive, I. 9, V. 25, 28; Politique Positive, iii. 84.

brâhmaṇa are not very numerous, but we have in them the elements of the criminal law of later times, and it is therefore important to show how this grew out of them. The Vedic literature as we possess it is unfortunately far from perfect; we have often only the later recasts of old works, or we have several of these, though but fragments of the works they are based on; so in this case we have the Sâmavidhânabrâhmaṇa, but the next class of works, the Dharmasûtras, is wanting, except the doubtful Gautamadharma; and the next after these, the Dharmaçâstras, is also wanting. As however it has been satisfactorily proved that works of the same class, though belonging nominally to different Vedas, closely resemble one another, there can be no wrong in comparing the Sâmavidhânabrâhmaṇa with the Âpastambadharmasûtra and the Dharmaçâstras of Manu and Yâjñavalkya, which are at once the best known, and at the same time the best types of the class.'

Though no distinction between the acts is made in the text, they may be classified as sins, and as crimes; the last against the person and against property. The sins are by far the most numerous, and include offences against morality: they are, 1. teaching an improper person (i. 5, 10); 2. sacrificing for an unfit person (i. 5, 11); 3. sight of, or smelling impure things (i. 5, 12); 4. eating unclean things (i. 5, 13); 5. committing

1 That the Dharmaçâstra is posterior to and based on the sûtras, and that these are posterior to and based on the Brâhmaņas, has been proved beyond a doubt by Professor Max Müller in his A. S. L. The proof in regard to the Dharmaçâstras has been strengthened and worked out by Professor Bühler in the Preface to his and Mr. West's Digest of Hindu Law.