Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/227

 ." At that time the land to the eastward was very uncultivated and marshy, but now many Brahmans are there, and it is highly cultivated, for the Brahmans have caused Agni to taste it through sacrifices. Māṭhava the Videgha then said to Agni, "Where am I to abide?" "To the east of this river be thy abode," he replied. Even now, the writer adds, this river forms the boundary between the Kosalas (Oudh) and the Videhas (Tirhut).

The Vājasaneyi school of the White Yajurveda evidently felt a sense of the superiority of their sacrificial lore, which grew up in these eastern countries. Blame is frequently expressed in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa of the Adhvaryu priests of the Charaka school. The latter is meant as a comprehensive term embracing the three older schools of the Black Yajurveda, the Kaṭhas, the Kapishṭhalas, and the Maitrāyaṇīyas.

As Buddhism first obtained a firm footing in Kosala and Videha, it is interesting to inquire in what relation the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa stands to the beginnings of that doctrine. In this connection it is to be noted that the words Arhat, Çramana, and Pratibuddha occur here for the first time, but as yet without the technical sense which they have in Buddhistic literature. Again, in the lists of teachers given in the Brāhmaṇa mention is made with special frequency of the Gautamas, a family name used by the Çākyas of Kapilavastu, among whom Buddha was born. Certain allusions are also suggestive of the beginnings of the Sānkhya doctrine; for mention is several times made of a teacher called Āsuri, and according to tradition Āsuri is the name of a leading authority for the Sānkhya system. If we inquire as to how far the legends of our Brāhmaṇa contain the germs of the later epic tales, we find that there is indeed some slight connection.