Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/218

 or "twelve days' rite." The next part (25-32), which is concerned with the Agnihotra or "fire sacrifice" and other matters, has the character of a supplement. The last portion (33-40), dealing with the ceremonies of the inauguration of the king and with the position of his domestic priest, bears similar signs of lateness.

The other Brāhmaṇa of the Rigveda, which goes by the name of Kaushītaki as well as Çānkhāyana, consists of thirty chapters. Its subject-matter is, on the whole, the same as that of the original part of the Aitareya (i.-v.), but is wider. For in its opening chapters it goes through the setting up of the sacred fire (agni-ādhāna), the daily morning and evening sacrifice (agnihotra), the new and full moon ritual, and the four-monthly sacrifices. The Soma sacrifice, however, occupies the chief position even here. The more definite and methodical treatment of the ritual in the Kaushītaki would seem to indicate that this Brāhmaṇa was composed at a later date than the first five books of the Aitareya. Such a conclusion is, however, not altogether borne out by a comparison of the linguistic data of these two works. Professor Weber argues from the occurrence in one passage of Īçāna and Mahādeva as designations of the god who was later exclusively called Çiva, that the Kaushītaki Brāhmaṇa was composed at about the same time as the latest books of the White Yajur-veda and those parts of the Atharva-veda and of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa in which these appellations of the same god are found.

These Brāhmaṇas contain very few geographical data. From the way, however, in which the Aitareya mentions the Indian tribes, it may be safely inferred that this work had its origin in the country of the