Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/189

 also agree in arranging their matter according to a similar principle, which is different from that of the Vājasaneyi recension.

The Saṃhitā of the latter consists entirely of the verses and formulas to be recited at the sacrifice, and is therefore clear (çukla), that is to say, separated from the explanatory matter which is collected in the Brāhmaṇa. Hence it is called the White (çukla) Yajurveda, while the others, under the general name of Black (kṛishṇa) Yajur-veda, are contrasted with it, as containing both kinds of matter mixed up in the Saṃhitā. The text of the Vājasaneyins has been preserved in two recensions, that of the Mādhyaṃdinas and of the Kāṇvas. These are almost identical in their subject-matter as well as its arrangement. Their divergences hardly go beyond varieties of reading, which, moreover, appear only in their prose formulas, not in their verses. Agreeing thus closely, they cannot be separated in their origin by any wide interval of time. Their discrepancies probably arose rather from geographical separation, since each has its own peculiarities of spelling. The White Yajurveda in both these recensions has been edited by Professor Weber (1849-52).

It is divided into forty chapters, called adhyāyas. That it originally consisted of the first eighteen alone is indicated by external as well as internal evidence. This is the only portion containing verses and prose formulas (both having the common name of mantras) which recur in the Taittirīya Saṃhitā, the sole exceptions being a few passages relating to the horse-sacrifice in chapters 22-25. Otherwise the contents of the last twenty-two chapters are found again only in the Brāhmaṇa and the Āraṇyaka belonging to the Taittirīya Saṃhitā. Moreover, it is only the mantras of the first