Page:Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Purānic.djvu/31

 dissension between its own schools far more important than the differences which separated the school of each [of the] other Vedas. It is known by the distinction between a Yajur-Veda called the Black—and another called the White—Yajur Veda. Tradition, especially that of the Purānas, records a legend to account for it. Vaisampāyana, it says, a disciple of Vyāsa, who had received from him the Yajur Veda, having committed an offence, desired his disciples to assist him in the performance of some expiatory act. One of these, however, Yājnavalkya, proposed that he should alone perform the whole rite ; upon which Vaisampāyana, enraged at what he considered to be the arrogance of his disciple, uttered a curse on him, the effect of which was that Yājnavalkya disgorged all the Yajus texts he had learned from Vaisampāyana. The other disciples, having been meanwhile transformed into partridges (tittiri), picked up these tainted texts and retained them. Hence these texts are called Taittiriyas. But Yājnavalkya, desirous of obtaining Yajus texts, devoutly prayed to the Sun, and had granted to him his wish—'to possess such texts as were not known to his teacher.'" And thus there are two Yajur-Vedas to this day; the Black being considered the older of the two.

As to the date of the Vedas, there is nothing certainly known. There is no doubt that they are amongst the oldest literary productions of the world. But when they were composed is largely a matter of conjecture. Colebrooke seems to show from a Vaidick Calendar that they must have been written before the 14th century B.C. Some assign to them a more