8 The most ancient Grammar of the Fedas. [Jan. 



title and contents, and at all event more valuable than the Vedanga, 

 ia called the Mdnduki-pkshd (No. 680 E. Ind. H.) and contains 

 182 verses in sixteen divisions. But it is also of a later period. 



The assertion of Mad hus lid ana, that the Praticakhyas explain 

 merely single parts of the Vedas, is wrong, and the reason of this 

 assertion may be a misunderstanding of the word cakha, which in 

 no way means merely a branch of the Veda writings, but also a 

 1 1 ran eh of the Vedaic study, a school, and in this point of view is 

 of the same meaning as car ana. Krityacintamani in his com- 

 mentary to Gobhilas Crautasutren (MS. of the E. I. H. fol. 1) 

 proves to us that the difference of the Praticakhyas has its founda- 

 tion in the variety of schools, when, commencing with a Sutra, he 

 says, it was taken from the Mddhyandina cdkhiya prdticakhya. The 

 quotation is from the second of the above books, and we learn 

 in this manner, what we could not exclusively have taken from the con- 

 tents of the work. It is certainly in one instance expressly said (fol. 81, 

 6.), that the Madhyandinas do not make use of certain letters, and 

 in another passage (fol. 12. b.) the commentary remarks that that 

 school had a certain term, which was indeed also that of the text. 

 At this moment I can think of only one passage from Sayanas comment- 

 ary to the Rigveda, in which he quotes a Praticakhya (No. 2133, E. I. 

 H. fol. 21 a.) without any further reference. The quotation is from 

 the first of the abovementioned Praticakhyas, as likewise the note in 

 the commentary to Panini I. 1, 9. The passages of the commentary 

 to Pan. VIII. 3, 61, and VIII. 4, 67, speak in general terms of 

 those books. One of my proofs of the antiquity and the original 

 designation of these books is founded on the following passage of 

 the Nirukta I. 17, para, sannikarsha : sahita pada prakritini sarva- 

 caranana parshadani. " The Sanhita is the greatest contraction (of the 

 words) ; pada (the single separated words) is the fundamental form of 

 the Sanhita ; the (grammatical) books of instruction of the schools are 

 also of this opinion." It is remarkable that the first words of this passage 

 " para ; sannikarsha sanhita also are found as Sutra in Panini 1. 4, 109. 

 They arc however by no means of that description, that we have thence 

 to conclude Panini' s dependence on Jaska, or vice versa, both might have 

 used such a significant word on an object, so much discussed, from a 

 more ancient source. What are now the parshada and what the carana ! 



