Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/287

 to Kātyāyana. Only three of these need be mentioned here. The Nigama-pariçishṭa, a glossary of synonymous words occurring in the White Yajurveda, has a lexicographical interest. The Pravarādhyāya, or "Chapter on Ancestors," is a list of Brahman families drawn up for the purpose of determining the forbidden degrees of relationship in marriage, and of indicating the priests suitable for the performance of sacrifice. The Charaṇa-vyūha, or "Exposition of the Schools" of the various Vedas, is a very late work of little importance, giving a far less complete enumeration of the Vedic schools than certain sections of the Vishṇu- and the Vāyu-Purāṇa. There is also a Charaṇa-vyūha among the Pariçishṭas of the Atharva-veda, which number upwards of seventy. This work makes the statement that the Atharva contains 2000 hymns and 12,380 verses.

In concluding this account of Vedic literature, I cannot omit to say a few words about, the great mediæval Vedic scholar, to whom or to whose initiation we owe a number of valuable commentaries on the Rigveda, the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka, as well as the Taittirīya Saṃhitā, Brāhmaṇa, and Āraṇyaka, besides a number of other works. His comments on the two Saṃhitās would appear to have been only partially composed by himself and to have been completed by his pupils. He died in 1387, having written his works under Bukka I. (1350-79), whose teacher and minister he calls himself, and his successor, Harihara (1379-99). These princes belonged to a family which, throwing off the Muhammadan yoke in the earlier half of the fourteenth century, founded the dynasty of Vijayanagara ("city of victory"), now Hampi, on the Tungabhadrā, in the Bellary district. Sāyaṇa's elder brother, Mādhava, was minister of King