English
l • C^' ^^^^^ ""Ce i prAtisIkhtasv 117 following manner : — During the Brdhmana [Period the songs of the Veda were preserved by oral tradition only : and as the spoken language of India had ad- vanced and left the idiom of the Veda behind as a kind of antique and sacred utterance, it was difficult to preserve the proper pronunciation of the sacred hymns without laying down a certain number of rules on metre, accent, and pronunciation in general The necessity, however, of such a provision could hardly have been felt until certain differences had actually arisen in different seats of Brahmanic learning. Thus, when the attempt was made to prevent a further cor- ruption, a certain number of local varieties in accent and pronunciation, and in the recital of the hymns, had actually crept in and become sanctioned by the tradition of different &milies or schools. These could not be given up, nor was there any means of de- termining which was the ancient and most correct way of reciting the sacred songs of the Veda. Dis- cussions having arisen on this subject, we find in the Brfthmanas occasional mention of verses which, if improperly pronounced, become changed in their meaning. But even where the sense of the Veda was not affected, the respect paid by each teacher, by each family, and by each Brahmanic community to its own established oral tradition, was sufficient to give an imaginary value to the slightest peculiarities of pronunciation, accent, or metre. A twofold advantage was gained when the rules and exceptions of the old sacred dialect were first re- duced to a system. First, ancient dialectical dif- ferences, many of which are not so much attributable to corruptions as to the freedom of the old spoken language, were carefully preserved, and even apparent I 3 fbAthSAkhtas. ^iksM was formerly embodied in tKe Aranyj 3-haps even in the Br&hmanas \ the questio 5/ it afterwards lost this place. This ca - accounted for by the appearance of moi c treatises, which embraced the same subject; I much more systematic style than any thin e could expect to meet with in the Br&hmana inyaKas. • ^auyaKas. . ^^ .e were the Pr4ti6&khyas, a branch of litera l^ich wxU claim our particular attention fo ^nan one reason If ^^^ ^'•^iii.roii 10 . with Br.hm^a3 'LrArA'L *^tJe^^*i indicate a considerable proTr^S^\,*^T f-"" They were written for S^!^i i ^ ^^"^'^^ -*yle is free from ^uJ^I Practical purposes Js.ry subtleties ItTs ^W -"^^aments, an< ^toedify;toe:5plain, * to^"^-^^*"' ^ *^*^^ ^hmanasorAran^al^^Xdelr"'*- Wher .1, or etymological questionrthJl ^*"^^aca] 5olog.cal and mystical d^L ^^ ^^ nothin .g elucidation, tL potts irru;t-^" ^""^ '^^ '■ "T. J"** still grater dark '''' gerall r that teachers appealed ^lu* ^* " ^<^ Brahmanas in ordS to d ^ *^^ Passage possible sanction fb^the^-- from th^ ?^ ^tnne8, if they were i! fo^trfnes. Bu :^afl8age from the Pushpa^A, *^' FRilTBAKHYAS. 119 portant points, where he hhnself differe frojA theimi his work was the more likely to supersede previous Pr&ti^khyas, particularly at the time when the Vedic religion was on its decline, and Brd.hmanic doctrines daily losing in influence. Though it is true that as yet only one Prd.ti6akhya belonging to each Yeda has been found in manuscript, yet they all belong not to one of the four Vedas in general, but to one l§d.kh& of each of them. Pr&tii^khya, therefore, does not mean, as has been supposed, a treatise on the phonetic peculiarities of each Veda, but a collcctioi^ of phonetic rules peculiar to one of the different branches of the four Vedas, i. e. to one of those dif- ferent texts in which each of the Vedas had been handed down for ages in different families and dif- ferent parts of India. The differences between the 6&kh&s of the some Veda, as far as the words of the hymns are concerned, seem certainly not to have been very great, if we may judge from the few instances in which different l§4kh&s of the same Veda have been preserved in manuscripts. Most 6&kh&3 do not differ in the general arrangement of the Sanhitds, or collec- tions of hymns, but merely in single words or verses. In a few cases only one 6d.kh4 contains some hymns more than another. The S&kh&s were not indepen- dent collections of the old hymns, but different edi- tions of one and the same original collection, which in the course of a long continued oral tradition had become modified by slight degrees. The texts of the Veda as they existed and lived in the oral tra- dition of various sets of people became S&khfi,s dif- fering from other i§d>kh&s somewhat in the same way as the MSS. of the New Testament differ from each other. The Pr&tifi^hyas, besides giving general I 4 exceptions were banded /o^^^^ being eliminated and forgottexi. J?s^!de towards a sciexxtific at^dy he collection of a large numl>er of general laws were eUcited wliicli as the phonetic basis of a granamar . a work which, although ascribed i8t have required ages of observa,tion fore its plan could be conceived or 3 individual. Even the PrUtife&khyas, - )t refer to grammar properly so called, to the phonetic laws of language, ag-continued study of graiTimatical 3 to the time of their composition. f this lies in the great number of au- the Prd,ti6fi,khyas, whose opinions are nance with the precepts contained in s themselves. Thougb "we are not n of the works of these earlier authors, right to assunae that their doctrines y in the shape of Pr&tig&khyas. In 8 one only of the different ^iLkh&s or e Rig-veda has been preserved to us in ! S&kala-&&kh&, -whicb -was followed by lay understand how one only of tbe f the Rig-veda has come down to us ; its composition is ascribed to the same 9 s^d to have united the Bikshkala and h&8, and who, as far as the Sanhitfi. is 8 a follower of the Saifeira-feakhft. 6au^ khya of the S^-kalas, being one of the itions of this kind, was probably alo feet and complete. As Saunaka states )pinion9 of S&kala grammarians on im- PrAtISAkHTAS; 121 to the d&ka]a-6ftkhft, which was finally collected by Saunaka, yet the great number of previous autho- rities quoted in our Pr&ti^&kbyas makes it likely that a large number of similar works did actually exist for the principal S&kh&s that are mentioned in earlier writings. In the Pratijndparifiishta^ it is stated that there were fifteen codes of law for the fifteen l§dkh&8 of the y&jasaneyins : and Eum&rila says that the text of these CSodes of law and of the Grihyas was peculiar in each Charana, in the same manner as the formal rules of the Pr&ti6&khyas.' Madhus&dana Sarasvati's definition of Pr&ti6l^hya b perfectly in accordance with this view of the subject. He says: — "The Yeda^ consists of two parts: one teaching the sacrifice, the other teaching Brahman, or the Su- MS. Bodl W. 610. : ?hrt v^^r^ ^TOT^ Tjf^: Ti^nfm ^ ^w^:i The meaniDg of << Yath&syaram pratishthas" is doubtful. Should it mean ** rules with reference to accents ? " If so, thej would be the rules of Frftti^tth jas. That the dakhfts differed about the accents ia seen in the case of the Mandukejas and 6&kalas. Fratiii&khya L 200. E&ty&yana, as the author of a FratiMkhya, is caUed ^RC^QKT- Tantra V. L 8. (MS. BodL W. 825. p. 15 b.) ' Yeda is taken here in the general sense of sacred literature as Uvata says, *' Everj single collection of hymns which existed at any time, and in any place^ without reference to the divisions in each CharaajA (sectX 18 called Veda." :Cor the proper pronunciation of the .^e in general, were intended to xecord <5uliar in the pronunciation of certain tei ^ir schools. Even in cases where tbese jcome extinct, we find the names of TS, preserved as authorities on matters with the pronunciation of certain lett real object of the Pr&ti6£Lkhyas, as sho^ not to teach the grammar of the old ^j, to lay down the rules of declensic ^tion, or the principles of the formal This is a doctrine which, though it eoi ^^sen unknown during the Vedic period, 1 unbodied, as far as we know, in any ; The Pr&ti&ftkhyas are never called Vy&k _arsS and it is only incidentally tha -to strictly grammatical questions. The ^c system on which PiLnini's grammar i oubt taken fipom the PrlLtifefilkliyas ; 1 of P&nini's strictly grammatical ^d< .o looked for elsewhere* oiigh, then, there is no necessity to 8upp< fXie of the numerous Vedic l3&khlLs th .