The second and third Upanishads are not connected with the ceremonial of the Mahdavrata, but in the fourth and fifth Arazyakas the Mahavrata forms again the prin- cipal subject, treated, however, not as before in the style of the Brahmazas, but in the style of Sdtras. The fourth Aranyaka contains nothing but a list of the Mahanamni hymns’, but the fifth describes the Mahdvrata again, so that if the first Aravyaka may be looked upon as a portion of the Aitareya-brahmazas, the fifth could best be classed with the Sdtras of Asvalayana.
To a certain extent this fact, the composite character of the Aitareya-darazyaka, is recognised even by native scholars, who generally do not trouble themselves much on such questions. They look both on the Aitareya-brahmava and on the greater portion of Aitareya-arazyaka as -the works of an inspired AXzshi, Mahidasa Aitareya”, but they consider the fourth and fifth books of the Arazyaka as contributed by purely human authors, such as Asvalayana and Saunaka, who, like other Sitrakaras, took in verses belonging to other Sakhas, and did not confine their rules to their own Sakha only.
There are many legends about Mahidasa, the reputed author of the Aitareya-brahmavza and Arazyaka. He is
? See Boehtlingk and Roth, s. v. ‘Neun Vedische Verse die in ihrem voll- standigen Wortlaut aber noch nicht nachgewiesen sind.’ Weber, Indische Studien VIII, 68. How these hymns are to be employed we learn from the Asvalayana- sfitras VII, 12, 10, where we are told that if the Udgatr7s sing the Sakvara Saman as the Prish¢Aastotra, the nine verses beginning with Vida maghavan, and known by the name of Mahanamnf, are to be joined in a peculiar manner. The only excuse given, why these Mahanamnis are mentioned here, and not in the Brahmawa, is that they are to be studied in the forest.
? M. M., History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 177, 335.
XCIV UPANISHADS.
quoted several times as Mahidasa Aitareya in the Aranyaka itself, though not in the Brahmaza. We also meet his name in the KA&ndogya-upanishad (III, 16, 7), where we are told that he lived to the age of 116 years?. All this, however, would only prove that, at the time of the compo- sition or collection of these Arazyakas and Upanishads, a sage was known of the name of Mahidasa Aitareya, descended possibly from Itara or Itara, and that one text of the Brahmawas and the Aramzyakas of the Bahvrzkas was handed down in the family of the Aitareyins.
Not content with this apparently very obvious explana- tion, later theologians tried to discover their own reasons for the name of Aitareya. Thus Sdyavza, in his introduction to the Aitareya-brahmavza?, tells us that there was once a Kishi who had many wives. One of them was called Itara, and she had a son called Mahidésa. His father preferred the sons of his other wives to Mahidasa, and once he insulted him in the sacrificial hall, by placing his other sons on his lap, but not Mahidasa. Mahidasa’s mother, seeing her son with tears in his eyes, prayed to her tutelary goddess, the Earth (sviyakuladevata Bhimif), and the goddess in her heavenly form appeared in the midst of the assembly, placed Mahidasa on a throne, and on account of his learning, gave him the gift of knowing the Brahmaza, consisting of forty adhy4yas, and, as Sayama calls it, another Brahmaza, ‘treating of the Arazyaka duties’ (Arazyakavra- taripam brahmazam).
Without attaching much value to the legend of Itara, we see at all events that Sdyava considered what we call the Aitareydrazyaka as a kind of Brahmawa, not however the whole of it, but only the first, second, and third Ara- nyakas (atha mahavratam ityadikam Af#aryA AkaryA ityan- tam). How easy it was for Hindu theologians to invent such legends we see from another account of Mahidasa, given by Anandatirtha in his notes on the Aitareya-upani-
? Not 1600 years, as I printed by mistake; for 24+44+48 make 116 years. Rajendralal Mitra should not have corrected his right rendering 116 into 1600. Ait. Ar. Introduction, p. 3.
? M. M., History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 336.
Introduction, Xcv
shad. He, as Colebrooke was the first to point out, takes Mahidasa ‘to be an incarnation of Narayava, proceeding from Visala, son of Abga,’ and he adds, that on the sudden appearance of this deity at a solemn celebration, the whole assembly of gods and priests (suraviprasangha) fainted, but at the intercession of Brahma, they were revived, and after making their obeisance, they were instructed in holy science. This avatara was called Mahiddsa, because those venerable personages (mahin) declared themselves to be his slaves (dasa) ’.
In order properly to understand this legend, we must remember that Anandatirtha, or rather, Visvesvaratirtha, whose commentary he explains, treated the whole of the Mahaitareya-upanishad from a Vaishvava point of view, and that his object was to identify Mahidasa with Ndrayama. He therefore represents Narayavza or Hari as the avatara of Visala, the son of Brahman (abgasuta), who appeared at a sacrifice, as described before, who received then and there the name of Mahidasa (or Mahidasa), and who taught this Upanishad. Any other person besides Mahidasa would have been identified with the same ease by Visvesvara- tirtha with Vishvzu or Bhagavat.
A third legend has been made up out of these two by
European scholars who represent Mahidasa as the son of
Visdla and Itard, two persons who probably never met
before, for even the Vaishzava commentator does not
attempt to take liberties with the name of Aitareya, but
simply states that the Upanishad was called Aitareyi, from
Aitareya.
Leaving these legends for what they are worth, we may at all events retain the fact that, whoever was the author of the Aitareya-brahmavza and the first three books of the Aitareya-arazyaka, was not the author of the two con- cluding Arazyakas. And this is confirmed in different ways. Sdyavza, when quoting in his commentary on the Rig-veda from the last books, constantly calls it a Sdtra of Saunaka, while the fourth Arazyaka is specially ascribed
1 Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays, 1873, II, p. 42.
XCV1 UPANISHADS.
to Asvalayana, the pupil and successor of Saunaka'. These two names of Saunaka and Asvaldyana are frequently in- termixed. If, however, in certain MSS. the whole of the Aitareya-4razyaka is sometimes ascribed either to Asvala- yana or Saunaka, this is more probably due to the colophon of the fourth and fifth Arazyakas having been mistaken for the title of the whole work than to the fact that such MSS. represent the text of the Arazyaka, as adopted by the school of Asvalayana.
The Aitareya-drazyaka consists of the following five Aranyakas :
The first Arazyaka has five Adhy4yas:
. First Adhyaya, Atha mahavratam, has four Khamdas, I-4.
. Second Adhyaya, A tv4 ratham, has four Khazdas, 5-8.
. Third Adhydya, Hinkarez1, has eight? Khamdas, 9-16.
. Fourth Adhyaya, Atha siidadohad, has three Khamdas, 17-19. . Fifth Adhyaya, Vasam samsati, has three Khandas, 20-22.
tn —® Ww H
The second Arazyaka has seven Adhydyas:
. First Adhyaya, Esha pantha, has eight Khazdas, 1-8. . Second Adhya&ya, Esha imam lokam, has four Khamdas, 9-12. . Third Adhyaya, Yo ha va atmanam, has eight (not three) Khandas, 13-20. g. Fourth Adhy&ya, Atma va idam, has three Khazdas, 21-23. ao, Fifth Adhydya, Purushe ha ya, has one Khamda, 24. 11. Sixth Adhyaya, Ko ’yam &tmeti, has one Khamda, 25. 12. Seventh Adhy4ya, Van me manasi, has one Khanda,' 26.
2sT OV
Bahvr/a-upanishad Aitareya upanishad
The third Arazyaka has two Adhy4yas:
13. First Adhyaya, Athatad samhitaya upanishat, has six Khamdas, 1-6.
14. Second Adhyaya, Prazo vamsa iti sthavirak Sakalya%, has six Khandas, 7-12.
The fourth Arazyaka has one AdhyAya :
15. First Adhyaya, Vida maghavan, has one Khanda (the Maha- namni's).
The fifth Arazyaka has three Adhyayas :
16. First Adhyaya, Mahavratasya pafikavimsatim, has six K_handas, 1-6.
17. Second Adhyaya, (Grivak) Yasyedam, has five Khasdas, 7-11.
18. Third Adhyaya, (Ord) Indragnf, has four Khandas, II-14.
" M.M., History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 235. ? Not six, as in Rajendralal Mitra’s edition.
Introduction. Xcvii
With regard to the Upanishad, we must distinguish between the Aitareya-upanishad, properly so-called, which fills the fourth, fifth, and sixth adhydyas of the second Aranyaka, and the Mahaitareya-upanishad }, also called by a more general name Bahvrzka-upanishad, which comprises the whole of the second and third Aranyakas.
The Persian translator seems to have confined himself to the second Arazyaka?, to which he gives various titles, Sarbsar, Asarbeh, Antrteheh. That Antrteheh 5,31 is a misreading of 13,2) was pointed out long ago by Burnouf, and the same explanation applies probably to w,.l, asar- beh, and if to that, then to Sarbsar also. No explanation has ever been given why the Aitareya-upanishad should have been called Sarvasdra, which Professor Weber thinks was corrupted into Sarbsar. At all events the Aitareya- upanishad is not the Sarvasara-upanishad, the Oupnek’hat Sarb, more correctly called Sarvopanishatsara, and ascribed either to the Taittiriyaka or to the Atharva-veda °.
The Aitareya-upanishad, properly so called, has been
edited and translated in the Bibliotheca Indica by Dr.
Roer. The whole of the Aitareya-drazyaka with Sayama’s
commentary was published in the same series by Rajen-
dralal Mitra.
Though I have had several MSS. of the text and com-
mentary at my disposal, I have derived little aid from
them, but have throughout endeavoured to restore that
text which Sankara (the pupil of Govinda) and Sayama
had before them. Sdyama, for the Upanishad portion, fol-
lows Sankara’s commentary, of which we have a gloss by
Anandagiiana.
Colebrooke in his Essays (vol. ii, p. 42) says that he
1 This may have been the origin of a Rishi Mahaitareya, by the side of the Rishj Aitareya, mentioned in the Asvalayana Grthya-sitras III, 4 (ed. Stenzler). Professor Weber takes Aitareya and Mahaitareya here as names of works, but he admits that in the Saikh4yana Grzhya-siltras they are clearly names. of Rishis (Ind. Stud. I, p. 389).
2 He translates II, 1-II, 3, 4, leaving out the rest of the third adhydya ; afterwards II, 4-II, 7.
3 Bibliotheca Indica, the Atharvaza-upanishads, p. 394.
[3] Ss
xeviil UPANISHADS.
possessed one gloss by Nardyazendra on Sankara’s com- mentary, and another by Anandatirtha on a different gloss for the entire Upanishad. The gloss by Narayavzendra’, however, is, so Dr. Rost informs me, the same as that of Anandagifiana, while, so far as I can see, the gloss contained in MS.E.I. H. 2386 (also MS. Wilson 401), to which Cole- brooke refers, is not a gloss by Anandatirtha at all, but a gloss by Visvesvaratirtha on a commentary by Anandatir- thabhagavatpadafarya, also called Pirzapragfiakarya, who explained the whole of the Mahaitareya-upanishad from a Vaishvzava point of view.
LY, THE KAUSHITAKI-BRAHMAWA-UPANISHAD.
THE Kaushitaki-upanishad, or, as it is more properly called, the Kaushitaki-brahmava-upanishad, belongs, like the Aitareya-upanishad, to the followers of the Rig-veda. It was translated into Persian under the title of Kokhenk, and has been published in the Bibliotheca Indica with Sanka- rananda’s commentary and an excellent translation by Professor Cowell.
Though it is called the Kaushitaki-brahmava-upanishad, it does not form part of the Kaushitaki-brahmaza in 30 adhydyas which we possess, and we must therefore account for its name by admitting that the Aramzyaka, of which it formed a portion, could be reckoned as part of the Brah- mavza literature of the Rig-veda (see Aitareya-drazyaka, Introduction, p. xcii), and that hence the Upanishad might be called the Upanishad of the Brahmaza of the Kaushi- takins *.
From a commentary discovered by Professor Cowell it appears that the four adhydyas of this Upanishad
1 A MS. in the Notices of Sanskrit MSS., vol. ii, p. 133, ascribed to Abhi- navanarayamendra, called Atmashafkabh4shyasikA, begins like the gloss edited by Dr. Roer, and ends like Sayaza’s commentary on the seventh adhy4ya, as edited by Rajendralal Mitra. The same name is given in MS. Wilson 94, Stimatkaivalyendrasarasvatipiigyapadasishya-srimadabhinavanara yawendrasara- syatti.
? A Maha-kaushitaki-brahmama is quoted, but has not yet been met with.
As there were various recensions of the Kaushitaki-brah- maa (the Saakhayana, Kauthuma, &c.), the Upanishad also exists in at least two texts. The commentator, in some of its MSS., refers to the various readings of the Sakhas, explaining them, whenever there seems to be occasion for it. I have generally followed the text which is presupposed by Sankar4nanda’s Dipika, and contained in MSS. F, G (Cowell, Preface, p. v), so far as regards the third and fourth adhydyas. According to Professor Cowell, Vidyarazya in his Sarvopanishadarthanubhatiprakasa fol- lowed the text of the commentary, while Sankardzarya, if we may trust to extracts in his commentary on the Vedanta-satras, followed the other text, contained in MS. A (Cowell, Preface, p. v).
2 See Weber, History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 50.
Cc UPANISHADS.