824 On the History and Literature of the Veda. [Aug. 



called Piirshada, 1. e. "what is received from, or belongs to, the assem- 

 bly," and to this appellation would be joined the particular designation 

 of the school, thus Madhyandina-parshada, &c. The same passage of 

 the Nirukta also shows that these books are older than Yaska, and 

 that they were known by him as manuals of the different schools of 

 grammarians (Karana.) In order to arrive at an approximative deter- 

 mination of time, let us now assume, — according to the current and 

 tolerably well established view, — the year 350 B. C. as the date of 

 Panini, let us further set Yaska only 50 years earlier, and we then have 

 the end of the 5th century B. C. as the age of the latter. Since now 

 Yaska is acquainted with the Pratisakhyas, these must have been 

 already composed and recognized as an authority in the 5th century 

 B. C. These books, themselves, again, recognize a great number of 

 still older grammarians (in all about thirty names) and even schools. 

 These must therefore be assigned to the beginning of the 5th or end 

 of the 6th century B. C. 



In order to extend my demonstrations from this point, I must men- 

 tion the various modes of writing the Vedas, the Pathas. Of these, 

 according to the representation of the Pratisakhya, there are three, the 

 Sanhita-patha, the Pada-patha, and the Krama-patha. Sanhita-patha 

 means the natural mode of writing, with observation of the rules of 

 Sandhi. The Pada-patha which separates single words, and compara- 

 tively speaking parts of words (elements of a compound word,) is 

 sufficiently known by means of Rosen's edition. The Krama-patha, 

 of which we have as yet no printed specimen, is twofold, the letter 

 krama, and the word krama (varna-krama, and pada-krama) ; the 

 former always doubles the first consonant of a group of consonants 

 (most MSS. of the Vajasaneyi are written in this way) : the word 

 krama takes two words of the sentence together, and always repeats the 

 second of them with a following one. In this Patha itself again a 

 number of changes may take place, which I here pass over. 



We know further the inventors of these modes of writing. Sakalya 

 is named by Yaska as the author of the Pada-patha, (at least for the 

 llig Veda) and other accounts which we have of him in the Pratisakhya 

 and even in Panini, do not contradict this statement. This gramma- 

 rian and his school appear to have had a great influence generally on 

 the conformation of the Veda, at least of the Rik. The orthography of 



