words, helps to aid the student in reading, understanding and applying it to sacrificial rites (and hence called Pravaćana, Manu III. 184): they are-1. Kalpa, 'ceremonial directory,' comprising rules relating to the Vedic ritual and the whole complicated process of sacrifices, which rules are called Śrauta-sutra, because they are Vedic, and relate directly to the application of the Mantra and Brāhmaņa portion of Śruti, being especially guides to the Brāhmaṇas; 2. Śiksha, the science of pronunciation;' 3. Chandas, metre;' 4. Nirukta, 'exposition of difficult Vedic words;' 5. Vyākaraṇa, 'grammar;' 6. Jyotisha, 'astronomy,' including arithmetic and mathematics, especially in connection with astrology. Of these Vedān-gas, 1. and 6. are for employing the Veda at sacrifices, 2. and 3. are for reading, 4. and 5. for understanding it. II. The Smarta-sutra, a comprehensive term for such rules as do not relate to Śrauta or Vedic ceremonies, which were usually on a grand scale and public in their character, but rather to religious acts of a private and personal kind, falling naturally under two divisions, viz. a. family or domestic rites (grihya) performed at stated periods; b. conventional usages and every-day practices (samayācāra); on which account these Smarta Sūtras must be separated into two classes, a. Grihya-sūtra, b. Sāmayāćārika-sūtra. III. The Dharma-śāstras or 'Law-books,' and especially the Laws of Manu, and other so-called inspired law-givers-supposed to have grown out of the Smarta Sūtras. IV. The Itihāsas or 'legendary poems,' under which head I place as portions of Smriti the two great epic poems called Rāmāyaṇa and Mahā-bhārata, and then, for convenience, as following and depending on these, but not as properly Smriti, the artificial poems (Kavyas) and erotic poems and the dramas, almost all of which in their subjectmatter are closely connected with the two great epics. V. The eighteen Purānas or ancient legendary histories

and traditions, with their train of eighteen inferior Purāņas (Upa-purana) and subsequent Tantras. VI. The Nitiśāstras or ethical and didactic writings of all kinds, including collections of fables and moral precepts.

I propose now to take these six divisions of post-Vedic literature in order, beginning with I. the Vedāngas.

I. The Vedangas.

They are six in number. Let us consider them (not quite according to the Hindu order) in the following sequence: 1. Kalpa; 2. Śikshā; 3. Chandas; 4. Nirukta; 5. Vyakarana; 6. Jyotisha.

The Vedangas-Kalpa, 'ceremonial directory.'

In the first place, then, as regards Kalpa; this denotes, as we have seen, a kind of ceremonial directory or rubric put forth in the form of short aphoristic Sutras or rules, called Śrauta, because serving as guides for the application of the Mantra and Brāhmaṇa portion of Śruti to the conduct of sacrificial rites. There are Śrauta Sutras for each of the five Samhitas of the Veda. Thus, for the Rig-veda there are the Aśvalāyana, Śānkhāyana, and Saunaka Srauta Sūtras; for the Sama-veda, the Masaka, Lāṭyāyana, and Drāhyāyaṇa; for the Taittiriya or Black Yajur-veda, the Apastamba, Baudhāyana, Satyāshāḍha Hiranya-kesin, Mānava, Bhāradvāja, Vādhūna, Vaikhānasa, Laugākshi, Maitra, Katha, and Vārāha; for the Vājasaneyi or White Yajur-veda there is only the Kātyāyana1; for the Atharva-veda only the Kusika.

I should remark here that the word Sutra (derived from the root Siv, to sew') means properly 'string,' and that this name was applied to any series of rules or

1 Edited by Professor Weber to complete the series of his great edition

of the White Yajur-veda with its Brāhmaṇa (the Satapatha).

2 Sūtra in the singular may denote a whole collection of rules.

aphorisms, either because they were, figuratively, strung together, or because they were written on leaves held together by strings. It is perhaps essential to the true nature of a Brahmanical Sūtra that it should be a rule or dogma expressed as briefly as possible. In the grammatical Sutras not a single letter is allowed which can by any contrivance be dispensed with, and moreover in these Sūtras letters and syllables are often used symbolically, like algebraic signs, to indicate ideas which would otherwise require a whole sentence or more to express them at full. In the philosophical Sūtras, as we have already seen, great brevity and a rigid economy of words is also practised, the aim being to furnish the shortest possible suggestive memorial sentences as an aid to the memory of both teachers and learners in an age when books were scarce and paper and printing unknown (see note, p. 48). This extreme conciseness is not always maintained, especially in later Sūtra works, but it generally holds good that the older the Sūtra the greater its curtness and elliptical obscurity, so that without a commentary or a key to their interpretation these ancient aphorisms are quite unintelligible. In later times, as books became more common, the necessity for elaborate and overstrained conciseness was gradually removed, and rules and aphorisms, though still strung together in Sūtra style, were more fully and explicitly and even sometimes metrically stated3. In fact, these later Sūtra works may be regarded as simple collections of formulated precepts or dogmas adapted to serve as convenient manuals to particular systems of teaching, whether in ritual, philosophy, law, or grammar.

1 This last is the theory of the late Professor Goldstücker.

2 This relaxation led at last to the very opposite extreme of prolixity, as in the Buddhist Sutras.

3 In some Sūtra works, such as the Rig-veda-prātiśākhya, there is an occasional admixture of Slokas.

If Sanskrit scholars are asked to state the age of the oldest Sūtra works, they are again obliged to confess their inability to fix any precise date. The most ancient are probably not older than the fifth or sixth century B. C., and the time of the compilation of the most recent is perhaps not far removed from the commencement of the Christian era. I have placed the Kalpa Sutras first because they are probably oldest, being closely connected with the Brāhmaṇa or ritual portion of Śruti, and thence called Śrauta.

The following translation of the first ten Sutras of Katyāyana's Śrauta-sutra, which belong to the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa and White Yajur-veda (see Weber's edition), will give some idea of the nature of these rules. To make each aphorism intelligible, additional matter has to be introduced from the commentary of Yajnika-deva. This I have done parenthetically in the examples here given. I have also given the original text of the Sūtras in italics :

I. Now, therefore, the right (of engaging in sacrificial acts is about to be laid down in the following rules). [Athāto 'dhikāraḥ.]

2. (Sacrificial) acts (like the Agni-hotra, &c.) are attended with recompense (such as the attainment of heaven, of wealth, of a son, &c.) [Phalayuktāni karmāni.]

3. (According to the primâ facie view of the matter there must be a right) of all (creatures, e. g. of men, even though blind, dumb, lame, or deaf, of gods, of Rishis, and of animals, but not of plants, to engage in sacrificial acts), without distinction, (because all such creatures are capable of desiring recompense.) [Sarveshām aviseshāt.]

4. But (according to the orthodox view, the right belongs) to human beings (only), because (they only, as the Veda declares, have) the power of undertaking (sacrificial acts, and not to gods, Rishis, and animals). [Manushyāṇām vārambha-sāmarthyāt.]

5. Cripples, those ignorant of the Veda, eunuchs, and Sūdras (are to be) excepted. [Anga-hīnāśrotriya-shandha-śūdra-varjam.]

6. (The right belongs) to Brahmans, Kshatriyas', and Vaisyas (but not to Sudras), according to the Vedic precept. [Brāhmaṇa-rājanyavaisyānām śruteḥ.]

1 The word Rajanya is used here and in the Purusha-sukta for Kshatriya, see p. 24.

7. A woman also (has the right), since there is no difference (between her and her husband in regard to the desire for heaven). [Strī ćāviseshāt.] 8. And since it is so seen (in the Veda). [Darsanāć-ća.]

1

9. (According to one view, the right belongs) to a man of the Rathakāra (chariot-maker') caste, (so far as regards the rite) of placing the sacred fire (on the sacrificial ground, on the score of this caste being reckoned among the first three classes). [Rathakārasyādhāne.]

10. (But according to the orthodox view) it is settled (that the Rathakāra is not to be reckoned among the first three classes). [Niyatam ća.]

The Vedāngas—Śikshā, 'phonetic directory.'

The next Vedān-ga in our list is Siksha or the science of proper pronunciation, especially as teaching the laws of euphony peculiar to the Veda. This comprises the knowledge of letters, accents, quantity, the right use of the organs of articulation, and phonetics generally. One short comparatively modern treatise on phonetics, consisting in one recension of thirty-five and in another of fifty-nine verses (ascribed to Pāņini), and a chapter of the Taittiriyāranyaka are regarded as the representatives of this subject; but the Vedic Prātiśākhyas and other works on Vedic phonetics may be included under it 2, and it will be convenient so to regard them. These Pratiśākhyas are grammatical, or rather phonetic, treatises written in the Sūtra style (some of them perhaps of a more recent date than Panini3), regulating the euphonic combination of

1 This mixed caste, held to be the offspring of a Mahishya by a Karani, is also called Saudhanvana. It appears to have enjoyed some religious privileges, perhaps because the Ribhus were Ratha-kāras, see note, p. 17. Cf. Rig-veda III. 60. 4.

2 Professor Max Müller mentions another work on Siksha, called the Māṇḍūki-siksha, and describes it as a production later than the Sūtra period.

3 The late Professor Goldstücker, in his work on Pāņini, decides that all the Prātiśākhyas must have been posterior to Panini; but this opinion is not shared by all scholars.