out above that the recension of the Taittiriya Arax/yaka which Apastamba recognises is that called the Andhra text or the version current in the Andhra country, by which term the districts in the south-east of India between the Godavari and the Krishna, have to be understood '. Now it seems exceedingly improbable that a Vedic teacher would accept as authoritative any other version of a sacred work except that which was current in his native country. It would therefore follow, from the adoption of an Andhra text by Apastamba, that he was born in that country, or, at least, had resided there so long as to have become natu- ralised in it. With respect to this conclusion it must also be kept in mind that the above-quoted passage from the Mahan/ava particularly specifies the Andhra country (andhradi) as the seat of the Apastambiyas. It may be that this is due to an accident. But it seems 'to me more probable that the author of the Maharwava wished to mark the Andhra territory as the chief and perhaps as the original residence of the Apastambiyas.
This discovery has, also, a most important bearing on the question of the antiquity of the school of Apastamba. It fully confirms the result of the preceding enquiry, viz. that the Apastambiyas are one of the later /fara;/as. For the south of India and the nations inhabiting it, such as Kalirigas, DraviVas, Andhras, ATolas, and Pa-vrfyas, do not play any important part in the ancient Brahmanical tra- ditions and in the earliest history of India, the centre of both of which lies in the north-west or at least north of the Vindhya range. Hitherto it has not been shown that the south and the southern nations are mentioned in any of the Vedic Sawhitas. In the Brahmawas and in the Sutras they do occur, though they are named rarely and in a not complimentary manner. Thus the Aitareya-brahma;/a gives the names of certain degraded, barbarous tribes, and among them that of the Andhras2, in whose country, as
1 See Cunningham, Geography, p. 527 seqq. ; Burnell, South Ind. Pal., p. j^, note 2.
a Aitareya-brahmawa VII, 18.
XXXviil APASTAMBA.
has been shown, the Apastambiyas probably originated. Again, Baudhayana. in his Dharma-sCitra I, i, quotes some verses in which it is said that he who visits the Kalingas must purify himself by the performance of certain sacrifices in order to become fit for again associating with Aryans. The same author, also, mentions distinctive forbidden prac- tices (a£ara) prevailing in the south (loc. cit.). Further, Pamni's grammatical Sutras and Katyayana's Varttikas thereon contain rules regarding several words which pre- suppose an acquaintance with the south and the kingdoms which flourished there. Thus Pa;/ini, IV, 2, 98, teaches the formation of dakshi//atya in the sense of ' belonging to or living in the south or the Dekhan,' and a Varttika of Katyayana on Pamni, IV, i, 175, states that the words Kola and Pawrfya are used as names of the princes ruling over the Kola, and Pa#</ya countries, which, as is known from history, were situated in the extreme south of India. The oth'er southern nations and a fuller description of the south occur first in the Mahabharata J. While an acquain- tance with the south can thus be proved only by a few books belonging to the later stages of Vedic literature, several of the southern kingdoms are named already in the oldest historical documents. Ajoka in his edicts 2, which date from the second half of the third century B.C., calls the Kolas, Tandy as, and the Keralaputra or Ketalaputra his pratyantas (pra^anta) or neighbours. The same monarch informs us also that he conquered the province of Kalinga and annexed it to his kingdom 3, and his remarks on the condition of the province show that it was thoroughly imbued with the Aryan civilisation 4. The same fact is attested still more clearly by the annals of the Keta king of Kalinga, whose thirteenth year fell in the i65th year of the Maurya era, or about 150 B.C.5 The early
Lassen, Ind. Alterthnmsknnde, I, 684, and ed. Edict II, Epigraphia Indica, vol. ii, pp. 449-450, 466. Edict XIII, op. cit., pp. 462-465, 470-473. See also Indian Antiquary, vol. xxiii, p. 346.
Actes du 6*m- Congre* Int. d. Orient, vol. iii, 3, 135 seqq., where, however, the beginning of the Maorya era is placed wrongly in the eighth year of Ajoka.
Introduction. Xxxix
spread of the Aryan civilisation to the eastern coast- districts between the Godavari and the Kr/sh«a is proved by the inscriptions on the Bha//iprolu relic caskets, which probably belong to the period of 200 B.C.1 Numerous inscriptions in the Buddhist caves of Western India2, as well as coins, prove the existence during the last centuries before, and the first centuries after, the beginning of our era of a powerful empire of the Andhras, the capital of which was probably situated near the modem Amaravati on the lower Kmh«a. 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 (vedijri), ' he whose glory is the Vedi,' and another Yawasiri (ya^wajrl), 'he whose glory is the sacri- fice,' and a very remarkable inscription on the Nanaghat a contains a curious catalogue of sacrificial fees paid to priests (dakshiwa) for the performance of .Srauta sacrifices. For the third and the later centuries of our era the informa- tion 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
1 Epigraphia Indica, vol. ii, p. 323 seqq.
f See Burgess, Arch. Surv. Reports, West India, vol. iv, pp. 104-114 and vol. v, p. 75 seqq.
3 Op. cit, vol. v, p. 39 seqq. Its date probably falls between 150-140 B.C.
xl APASTAMUA.
authentic history of India begins, about 500 B. C., with the Persian conquest of the Paw^aband Sindh. It maybe 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 A'arawa 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 history. 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, written before the beginning of our era, is doubtful 1, it might be thought advisable to fix the terminus a quo for the composition of the Apastambiya-sutras about or shortly before the begin- ning 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, first, the Dharma-sutra contains a remarkable passage in which its author states that 5vetaketu, one of the Vedic teachers who is mentioned in the Satapatha-brahmawa and in the .AV/andogya Upanishad, belongs to the Avaras, to the men of later, i. e. of his own times. The passage referred to, Dh. I, 3, 5, 4-6, has been partly quoted above in order to show that Apastamba laid no claim to the title fiishi, or seer of revealed texts. It has been stated that according to Sutra 4, ' No AVshis 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,
1 The name Apastamba occurs only in the ga«a vidadi, which belongs to Pawini IV, i, 104, and the text of this gawa is certain only for the times of the Kajika, :ibout 650 A. D. The .SYauta-siitra of Apastamba is mentioned in the nearly contemporaneous commentary of Blmitrzhari on the Mahabhajhya, gee Zeitsch.-. d. Ifcut^hea Morg. Des., vol. xxxvi, p. 654.
' i. Verily, there lived .Svetaketu, a descendant of Aru«a. His father spake unto him, t; O .SVetaketu, 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."
' Verily, he (5vetaketu) 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-siitra. For the fact which the Upanishad mentions, that vSVetaketu 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 AV/andogya Upanishad about this 5vetaketu, who is said to have been the son of Uddalaka and the grandson of Aruwa (aruweya). The same person is also frequently mentioned in the •Satapatha-brahmawa. In one passage of the latter work, which has been translated by Professor Max Miiller1, it is alleged that he was a contemporary of Ya^«avalkya, the promulgator of the White Ya^ur-veda, and of the learned king Ganaka of Videha, who asked him about the meaning of the Agnihotra sacrifice. Now, as has been shown above, Apastamba knew and quotes the White Ya^ur-veda and
1 Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 421 seq.
xlii APASTAMBA.
the Satapatha-brahmawa. The passage of the latter work, which he quotes, is even taken from the same book in which the story about Svetaketu and kanaka 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 /sfawvas and Madhyandinas, to belong to a remote antiquity. On the other hand it makes the inference which otherwise might be drawn from the southern origin of the Apa- stambiya school and from the non-occurrence of its name in the early grammatical writings, viz. that its founder lived not long before the beginning of our era, extremely improbable. For even if the term Avara is not interpreted very strictly and allowed to mean not exactly a contem- porary, but a person of comparatively recent times, it will not be possible to place between Svetaketu and Apas- tamba a longer interval than, at the utmost, two or three hundred years. Svetaketu and Ya^wavalkya would accordingly, at the best, find their places in the fourth or fifth century B. C., and the Satapatha-brahmawa 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 Pawini IV, 3, 105, and from Pataw^ali's commentary on his words that the Brahmawa proclaimed by Ya^«avalkya, i.e. the Satapatha-brahmawa 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. probably in the fourth and second centuries B.C.1
1 This famous Varttika has been interpreted in various ways ; see Max Miiller, Hist. Anc.-Saiisk. Lit., pp. 360-364 ; Goldstiicker, Pawini, pp. 132-140; Weber,
INTRODUCTION. xliH
These considerations will show that it is necessary to
allow for Apastamba a much higher antiquity than the
first century B.C.
