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Tittiri, therefore, was believed to be the founder of a S&khft, but not the author of the Aranyaka. A third Aranyaka is the Aitareya-^ranyaka, be* longing to the Eig-veda. It forms a work by itself, and is not counted as part of the Aitareya-br^hmana. This is an important point. The work consists of five books or Aranyakas ^, the second and third of which ^ I find that HariBTamin also, in his commentary on the 6ata- patha-brahmana^ quotes the Dakshin&tyas and Sanrashtras, to- gether with the Kanvas, as authorities on Vedic subjects. See Dr. Weber's Ind. Stadien, i. 77. In the same place Dr. Weber attempts to prove the late origin of this work by the contraction of sa indrah into sendra^. This contraction^ however^ occurs already in the Rig-veda-sanhita. See also P^n. tI. 1. 134. 3 Tlie first Aranyaka consists of five Adhyayas and twenty-two Khandas. The second Aranyaka consists of seyen Adhy&yas and twenty-six Khandas. The Upanishad begins with the fourth Adhy&ya and the twenty-first Kha^da. The third Aranyaka consists of two Adhy&yas and twelve ELhandas. The fourth Ara- nyaka consists of one Adhyaya and one E^handa (ascribed to Asvalayana in ShadguruSishya's commentary on the Sarvanu- krama). The fifth Aranyaka consists of three Adhyayas and fourteen Khandas (ascribed to ^lonaka). 336 AITABBTA-iBANYAE:A. form the Bahvricha-upanishad, if by this name we like to distinguish the complete Upanishad from a portion of it, viz. : Adhy&yas 4 — 6, of the second Aranyaka, commonly quoted as the Aitareyopanishad. If we ask for the name of the author, we find again the same un- certainty as in the Brihaddjranyaka and the Taittin- y&ranyaka. All we know for certain is that there was a j§£Lkh& of the Aitareyins, which was in the pos- session of a Br&hmana and an Aranyaka. Both these works were afterwards adopted by the later iS^h&s of the Eig-veda, so that we actually hear of an Afivalftyana text of the Aitareyakam, We also know from the Chh&ndogya-upanishad (iii. 16.) that there was a Mahid&sa Aitareya, who, by means of his sacred know- ledge was supposed to have defied death for 1,600 years ; and in the Aitareya-^ranyaka, not in the Br&h- mana, he is several times quoted by the same name as an authority. In the later commentaries, a story is mentioned according to which the Br&hmana and Aranyaka of the Rig-veda were "originally revealed to one Aitareya, the son of Itarft. This story, how- ever, sounds very apocryphal, and had a merely etymological origin. Itard^ in Sanskrit^ means not only the other of two, but also low, rejected. Thus, if the patronymic Aitareya was to be accounted for, it was extremely easy to turn it into a me- tronymic, and to make ^tareya the son of an Itard., a rejected wife. Thus SAyana, in his introduc- tion to the Aitareya-br&hmana, tells us that there was once a great Rishi who had many wives. One of them was called Itar&, and she had a son called Mahid&sa. His father preferred the sons of his other wives to Mahid&sa, and once he insulted him in the sacrificial hall, by placing all his other sons KAUSHtTAKI-ARANTAKA. 337 on his lap. Mahiddsa's mother, seeing her son with tears in his eyes, prayed tO' her own tutelary goddess, the Earth (sviyakuladevatd. Bhiimih), and the goddess in her heavenly form appeared in the midst of the assembly, placed MahidlLsa on a throne, and gave him on account of his learning the gift of knowing the Br&hmana, consisting of forty Adhyfir yas, and, as S&yana calls it, another Br&hmana, treat- ing " of the Aranyaka duties." This, and similar stories mentioned by Colebrooke^, are not calculated to inspire much confidence. On the contrary we feel inclined to attach more value to the accidental admissions of the Brahmans who ascribe the later portions of the Aitarey&ranyaka to such well known authors as Saunaka and Al;val&yana. There may have been an Aitareya, the founder of the l§&kh& of the Aitareyins, and himself the expounder of those ceremonial, philological, and philosophical tracts which are incorporated in the Br&hmana and the Aranyaka of the Aitareyins. He is quoted him- self as an authority in those works, but nothing is said in them of his degraded descent, nor of the eru* dition granted to him by the goddess of the earth. Another Aranyaka, belonging to another Sd.kh& of the Rig-veda, is the Kaushitaki-Aranyaka. Colebrooke stated in his Essay on the Veda that ^^ the original of the Eaushitakam was among the portions of the Veda which Sir Eobert Chambers collected at Be- nares, according to a list which he sent to me some time before his departure from India." According to the catalogue of Sir Robert's MSS. which are now at the Royal Library at Berlin, there is in that ool- 1 Misccllnneous Essays, i. 46. n.. Z 338 KAUSHtTAKI-iRANTAEA. lection not only the text and commentary of* the Kaushitaki-br&hmana, bat likewise the Aranyaka, in three Adhy&yas, of which the third constitutes the Kaushitaki-npanishad. Here again we know nothing as to the name of an author, Eaushitakin being simply the name of that sect in which the text of these works was handed down from teacher to pupil. There are no Aranyakas for the S&ma-veda, nor for the so-called fourth Veda, the Atharvana. Traces of modem ideas are not wanting in the Aranyakas, and the very fact that they are destined for a class of men who had retired from the world in order to give themselves up to the contempla- tion of the highest problems, shows an advanced, and already declining and decaying society, not un- like the monastic age of the Christian world. The problems, indeed, which are discussed in the Aran- yakas and the old Upanishads are not in them- selves modern. They had formed the conversation of the old and the young, of warriors and poets, for ages. But in a healthy state of society these ques- tions were discussed in courts and camps: priests were contradicted by kings, sages confounded by children, women were listened to when they were moved by an unknown spirit.^ This time, which is represented to us by the early legends of the Aran- yakas, was very different from that which gave rise to professional anchorites, and to a literature composed exclusively for their benefit. As sacrifices were per- formed long before a word of any Br^mana or S&tra ^ A Kum&ii gand1iarvagrihit& is quoted as an anthoritj in the KauBhitaki-brahmana, and it is explained by " videshabhijna.'' Kaush.-br. ii. 9.; Ait.-br. y. 29. Ind. Stadien, i. 84. 217. Abanyakas. S3Sf had been uttered, so metaphysical speculations were carried on in the forests of India long before the name& of Aranyaka or TJpanishad were thought of. We must carefully distinguish between a period of growth, and a period which tried to reduce that growth to rules and formulas. In one sense the Aranyakas are old, for they reflect the very dawn of thought ; in another, they are modem, for they speak of that dawn with all the experience of a past day. There are passages in these works, unequalled in any lan guage for grandeur, boldness, and simplicity. These passages are the relics of a better age. But the ge- neration which became the chronicler of those Titanic wars of thought, was a small race : they were dwarfs, measuring the footprints of departed giants. Chronologically we can see with great clearness that the Aranyakas are anterior to the Siitras. It is only in their latest portions that they show traces of the style of SAtra compositions. We can likewise see that they are later than the Br&hmanas, to which they themselves, in several instances, form a kind of appendix. Beyond this we cannot go, and an im^ partial consideration of the arguments adduced in favour of a much earlier or a much later date for this class of Vedic literature, will show a complete absence of facts and arguments, such as lire required for historical inductions^ Whether PAnini knew the Aranyakas as a branch of sacred literature is uncertain. Although he mentions the word " 4ran-> yaka," he only uses it in the sense of " living in the forest;" and it is the author of the V&rttikas^ who first remarks that the same word is also used in the IV. 2. 129. z 2 340 A&ANTAEAS. sense of "read in the forest" The word Upanishadj besides being used in the Upanishads themselves^, occurs in the SAtras of PAnini (i. 4. 79), but there is nothing to prove that P4nini knew Upanishad as the name of a class of sacred writings.