considerably older than Ai-oka's edicts, is certainly not younger. Numerous inscriptions in the Buddhistic caves of Western India, as well as coins, prove the existence during the last century before and the first centuries after the beginning of our era of a powerful empire of the Andhras, the capital of which w^as probably situated near the modern Amaravati on the lower Krishna. ^. The princes of the latter kingdom, though great patrons of the Buddhist monks, appear to have been Brahmanists or adherents of the ancient orthodox faith which is founded on the Vedas. For one of them is called Vedisiri (vedii-ri), 'he whose glory is the Vedi,' and another Yanasiri (ya^na- sn), ' he whose glory is the sacrifice,' and a very remark- able inscription on the Nanaghat^ contains a curious catalogue of sacrificial fees paid to priests (dakshiwa) for the performance of vSrauta sacrifices. For the third and the later centuries of our era the information regarding Southern India becomes fuller and fuller. Very numerous inscriptions, the accounts of the Buddhist chroniclers of Ceylon, of the Greek geographers, and of the Chinese pilgrims, reveal the existence and give fragments, at least, of the history of many kingdoms in the south, and show that their civilisation was an advanced one, and did not differ materially from that of Northern India.
There can be no doubt that the south of India has been conquered by the Aryans, and has been brought within the pale of Brahmanical civilisation much later than India north of the Vindhya range. During which century pre- cisely that conquest took place, cannot be determined for the present. But it would seem that it happened a con- siderable time before the Vedic period came to an end, and it certainly was an accomplished fact, long before the authentic history of India begins at the end of the fourth
* See Bha«(/arkar, Report of Or. Cong., pp. 306-354, and especially p. 348 seqq. The existence of the Andhra kingdom is also attested by Pliny, Hist. Nat. VI, 22.
" The Nanaghat is the pass leading from the Konkana through the Sahyadri range to the town of Gunir. The inscription in question has as yet been neither published nor deciphered completely.
Introduction. Xxxvu
century B.C. It may be added that a not inconsiderable period must have elapsed after the conquest of the south, before the Aryan civilisation had so far taken root in the conquered territory, that, in its turn, it could become a centre of Brahmanical activity, and that it could produce new Vedic schools.
These remarks will suffice to show that a Vedic /^Tarawa which had its origin in the south, cannot rival in antiquity those whose seat is in the north, and that all southern schools must belong to a comparatively recent period of Vedic his- tory. For this reason, and because the name of Apastamba and of the Apastambiyas is not mentioned in any Vedic work, not even in a Kalpa-sutra, and its occurrence in the older grammatical books, vmtten before the beginning of our era, is doubtful ^ it might be thought advisable to fix
the terminus a quo for the composition of the Apastam- biya-sutras about or shortly before the beginning of the era, when the Brahmanist Andhra kings held the greater part of the south under their sway. It seems to me, however, that such a hypothesis is not tenable, as there are several points which indicate that the school and its writings possess a much higher antiquity. For, firstly, the Dharma- sutra contains a remarkable passage in which its author states that 5vetaketu, one of the Vedic teachers who is mentioned in the 5atapatha-brahma;/a and in the K/iAn- dogya Upanishad, belongs to the Avaras, to the men of later, i.e. of his own times. The passage referred to, Dh. I, 2, 5, 4-6, has been partly quoted above in order to show that Apastamba laid no claim to the title Rishi, or seer of revealed texts. It has been stated that according to Sutra 4, ' No Rishls are born among the Avaras, the men of later ages, on account of the prevailing transgression of the rules of studentship;' and that according to Sutra 5, ' Some in their new birth become similar to Rishls by their know- ledge of the Veda (j-rutarshi) through a residue of merit
^ The name Apastamba occurs only in the ga«a vidadi, which belongs to Pa^iini IV, i, 104, and the text of this gana. is ceitain only for the times of the Kasika, about 800 a. d.
XXXVlll APASTAMBA.
acquired in former existences/ In order to give an illus- tration of the latter case, the author adds in Sutra 6, ' Like 5vetaketu.' The natural and, in my opinion, the only
admissible interpretation of these words is, that Apastamba considers 5vetaketu to be one of the Avaras, who by virtue of a residue of merit became a 6"rutarshi. This is also the view of the commentator Haradatta, who, in eluci- dation of Sutra 6, quotes the following passage from the AV/andogya Upanishad (VI, i, 1-2):
' I. Forsooth there lived 5vetaketu, a descendant of
Aruwa. His father spake unto him, " O 5vetaketu, dwell
as a student (with a teacher) ; for, verily, dear child, no one
in our family must neglect the study of the Veda and
become, as it were, a Brahma^^a in name only."
' 2. Forsooth he (5"vetaketu) was initiated at the age of
twelve years, and when twenty-four years old he had
learned all the Vedas ; he thought highly of himself and
was vain of his learning and arrogant.'
There can be no doubt that this is the person and the story referred to in the Dharma-sutra. For the fact which the Upanishad mentions, that ^vetaketu learned all the Vedas in twelve years, while the Smr/tis declare forty- eight years to be necessary for the accomplishment of that task, makes Apastamba's illustration intelligible and appropriate. A good deal more is told in the Khkn- dogya Upanishad about this ^"vetaketu, who is said to have been the son of Uddalaka and the grandson of Aru/za (aruweya). The same person is also frequently mentioned in the 5atapatha-brahma«a. In one passage of the latter work,. which has been translated by Professor Max Muller\ it is alleged that he was a contemporary of Ya^n aval ky a, the promulgator of the White Ya^ur-veda, and of the learned king G^anaka of Videha, who asked him about the mean- ing of the Agnihotra sacrifice. Now, as has been shown above, Apastamba knew and quotes the White Ya^ur-veda and the ^atapatha-brahma;/a. The passage of the latter work, which he quotes, is even taken from the same book
• Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 421 seq.
Introductio'n. Xxxix
in which the story about 5vetaketu and 6'anaka occurs. The fact, therefore, that Apastamba places a teacher whom he must have considered as a contemporary of the pro- mulgator of the White Ya^ur-veda among the Avaras, is highly interesting and of some importance for the history of Vedic literature. On the one hand it indicates that Apastamba cannot have considered the White Ya^ur-veda, such as it has been handed down in the schools of the Ka«vas and Madhyandinas, to belong to a remote antiquity. On the other hand it makes the inference which otherwise might be drawn from the southern oriein of the Apastambiya school and from the non-occurrence of its name in the early grammatical writings, viz. that its founder lived at the beginning of, or in the first century B.C., extremely improbable. For even if the term A vara is not interpreted very strictly and allowed to mean not exactly a contemporary, but a person of comparatively recent times, it will not be possible to place between vSvetaketu and Apastamba a longer interval than, at the utmost, two or three hundred ■ years. .5"vetaketu and Ya^iiavalkya would accordingly find their places in the third or fourth century B.C., and the 5atapatha-brahma7/a as well as all other Vedic works, which narrate incidents from their lives, must have been composed or at least edited still later. Though little is known regarding the history of the Vedic texts, still it happens that we possess some information regarding the texts in question. For we know from a statement made by Katyayana in a Varttika on Famni IV, 3, 105, and from Patafj^ali's commentary on his words that the Brahma;^a proclaimed by Ya^navalkya, i.e. the 6"atapatha-brahma//a of the White Ya^ur-veda, was considered to have been promulgated by one of the Ancients, in the times of these two writers, i.e. in the fourth and second centuries B.C.^
* This famous Varttika has been interpreted in various ways ; see Max Miiller, Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., pp. 360-364; Goldstiicker, Pacini, pp. 132-140; Weber, Ind. Stud. V, 65-74; XIII, 443, 444. As regards the explanation of Katya- yana's and Patan^ali's words, I side with Kaiya/a and Professor Goldstiicker. But I am unable to follow the latter in the inferences which he draws from the
xl APASTAMBA.
These considerations will show that it is necessary to
allow for Apastamba a much higher antiquity than the
first century B.C.
The same inference may also be drawn from another series of facts, viz. the peculiarities of the language of his Sutras. The latter are very considerable and very remark- able. They may be classed under four heads. In the Apastambiya Dharma-sutra we have, firstly, archaic words and forms either occurring in other Vedic writings or formed according to the analogy of Vedic usage ; secondly, ancient forms and words specially prescribed by Pacini, which have not been traced except in Apastamba's Sutras ; thirdly, words and forms which are both against Vedic usaee and against Pa/nni's rules, and which sometimes find their analogies in the ancient Prakrits ; and fourthly, anomalies in the construction of sentences. To the first class belong, kravyadas, I, 7, 21, 15, carnivorous, formed according to the analogy of r/j-adas; the frequent use of the singular dara, e.g. II, i, i, 17-18, a wife, instead of the plural dara//; salavr/ki, I, 3, 10, 17, for salavrzki ; the substitution of / for r in plerikha, I, 11, 31, 16 ; occa- sional off"ences against the rules of internal and external Sandhi, e.g. in agr/hyamanakarawa/;, I, 4, 12, 8; in
fact, that Katyayana and Pataug-ali declare Ya^lavalkya and other sages to be as ancient as those whose Brahmawas and Kalpas are designated by the plural of adjectives formed by the addition of the affix in to the names of the promul- gators. Though Pa^dni asserts, IV, 3, 105, that only those Biahma«as which are known under appellations like Bhallavina^, Kaushitakina^, &c., have been proclaimed by ancient sages, and though Katyayana and the author of the Great Commentary add that this rule does not hold good in the case of the work called Ya^iiavalkani Brahma^ani, it does not necessarily follow, as Professor Goldstiicker thinks, that an extraordinarily long interval lies between PJ,«ini and Katyayana— so long a period that what Pacini considered to be recent had become ancient in Katyayana's time. Professor Weber has rightly objected to this reasoning. The difference between the statements of the two grammarians may have been caused by different traditions prevailing in different schools, or by an oversight on the part of Pa/iini, which, as the scene of Yao-fiavalkya's activity seems to have been Videha in eastern India, while Pa'iini belonged to the extreme north-west, is not at all improbable. As regards the two dates, I place, following, with Professor Max Midler, the native tradition, Katyayana in the fourth century B.C., and Pataiio-ali, with Professors Goldstiickerj Kern, and Bhawrfarkar, between 178-140 b. c.
skuptva, I, II, 31, 24, absolutive of skubh ; in paduna,
I, I, 3, 13; in adhajanaj-ayin, I, i, 2, 21; and in sarvato- peta, I, 6, 19, 6 ; the neglect of the rule requiring vriddhi in the first syllable of the name Pushkarasadi, 1, 10, 28, 1; the irregular instrumentals vidya, 1, 11, 30, 3, for vidyaya, and ni//j-reyasa, II, 7, 16, 2, for ni//^reyasena ; the nominative dual avam, I, 7, 20, 6, for avam ; and the potentials in ita, such as prakshalayita, I, 1, 2, 28; abhi- prasarayita, I, i, 2, 28, &c.
