THE EDITOR. Dr. Martin Haug’s translation of the Aitareya Brahmana has been out of print for a long time, and so it has been reprinted as an extra volume in the series of the Sacred Books of the Hindus. To facilitate references to the original edition, paging of that edition has been given in Square brackets, thus [ ]. It has not been considered necessary to reprint the
Sanskrit text, as better editions of that text are now available.
Extracts from Professor Max Müller’s review of this work are repro. duced below:
The Aitareya-brāhmana, containing the earliest speculations of the Brahmans on the meaning of their sacrificial prayers, and the purport of their ancient religious rites, is a work which could be properly edited nowhere but in India. It is only a small work of about two hundred pages, but it presupposes so thorongh a familiarity with all the externals of the religion of the Brahmaps, the various offices of their priests, the times and seasons of their sacred rites, the form of their innumerable sacrificial utensils, and the preparation of their offerings, that no amount of Sanskrit scholarship, such as can be gained in England, would have been suficient to unravel the intricate speculations concerning the matters which form the bulk of tho Aitareya-brahmana……….
The ancient Indian ceremonial, however, is one of the most artificial and complicated forms of worship that can well be imagined; and though its details are, no doubt, most minutely described in the Brahmapas and the Satras, yet, without having seen the actual site on which the sacrifices are offered, the altars constructed for the occasion, the instruments employed by different priests-the tout-ensemble, in fact, of the sacred rites the reader seems to deal with words, but with words only, and is unable to reproduce in his imagination the acts and facts which were intended to be conveyed by them…….na
Dr. Haug succeeded, however, at last in procuring the assistance of a real Doctor of Divinity, who had not only performed the minor Vedic sacrifices, such as the fall and new moon offerings, but had officiated at some of the great Soma sacrifices, now very rarely to be seen in any part of India. He was induced, we are sorry to say, by very mercenary considerations, to perform the principal ceremonies in a secluded part of Dr. Haug’s premises. This lasted five days, and the same assistance was afterwards ren dered by the same worthy and some of his brethren whenever Dr. Haug was in any doubt es to the proper meaning of the ceremonial treatises which give the outlines of the Vedic sacrifices. Dr. Haug was actually allowed to taste that sacred beverage, the Soma, which gives health, wealth, wisdom, inspiration, nay immortality, to those who receive it from the bands of a twice-born priest … vse
After having gone through all these ordeals. Dr. Haug may well say that his explana. tions of sacrificial terms, as given in the notes, can be relied upon as certain ; that they proceed from what he himself witnessed, and what he was able to learn from men who had inherited the kowledge from the most ancient timas..-•****
In the preface to his edition of the Aitareya-brahmana, Dr. Haug has thrown out some new ideas on the chronology of Vedic literature which deserve careful considera tion. Beginning with the hymns of the Rig-veda, he admits, indeed, that there are in that collection ancient and modern hymns, but he doubts whether it will be possible to draw a sharp line between what has been called the Chhandas period, representing the free growth of sacred poetry, and the Mantra period, during which the ancient hymos „Were supposed to have been collected and new ones added, chiefly intended for sacrificial purposes. Dr. Haug maintains that some hymns of a decidedly sacrificial character should bo ascribed to the earliest period of Vedic poetry. He takes, for instance, the bymns describing the horse-sacrifice, and he concludes from the fact that seven prieste
only aro mentioned in it by name, and that none of thom bolonge to the class of the Udgātars (singers) And Brahmans (superintendents), that this hymn was written beforo the estabiishment of these two classes of priests. As these priests are mentioned in other Vedic hymns, he concludes that the hymn describing the horse-sacrifice is of a very early date. Dr. Haug strengthens bis caso by a reference to tho Zoroastrian coromonial, in which, as he says, the chanters and superintendonts are entirely unknow, whereas the other two classes, tho Hotars (reciters) and Adl varyus (assistants) are mentioned by the samo names as Zaotar and Rathwiskare. The establishment of the two new classes of priests would, therefore, seem to have taken placo in India after tho Zoroastrians had separated from the Brahmans ; and Dr. Haug would ascribe the Vodic hymns in which no more than two classes of priests are montioned to a period preceding, others in which the other two classes of priests are mentioned to a period succeeding, that ancient schism …com
According to Dr. Haug, the period during which the Vedic hymns were composed extends from 1400 to 2000 B. C. The oldest hymns, however, and the sacrificial formulas he would place between 2000 and 2400 B. O. This period, corresponding to what has been called the Chhandas and Mantra poriods, would be succeeded by tho Brahmaga period, and Dr. Haug would place the bulk of the Brālmanas, all written in prose, betwoen 1400 and 1200 B, C. He does not attribute much woight to the distinction made by the Brah mang themselves between revealod and profane literature, and would place tho Sutras almost contemporaneous with tho Brābmanas. The only lixed point from which ho starts in his chronological arrangement is the date implied by the position of tho solstitial points mentioned in a littlo treatise, the Jyotiga, a date which has been accurately ixed by the Rov. R. Main at 1186 B. 0.* Dr. Haug fully adınits that such an observation was an absoluto necessity for the Brahmans in regulating thoir calondar ise…
This argument of Dr. Haug’s scems corroct as far as tho dato of the ostablishmont of the ceremonial is concernod, and it is curious that several scholars who have lately written on the origin of the Vodic calendar, and the possibility of its foreign origin, should not have perceived the intimato rolation between that calendar and the whole coremonial system of the Brahmans. Dr. Haug is, no doubt, perfoctly right whon ho claims tho invention of the Nakṣatras, or tho Lunar Zodiac of the Brahmans, if wo may so call it, for India ; ho may be right also when ho assigns the twelfth century as the earliest dato for the origin of that simple astronomical syston on which the calendar of the Vodio festivals is founded. Ho calls the thicories of others, who havo lately tried to claim tho first discovory of tho Naksatras for China, Babylon, or some other Asiatic country, absurd, and takes no notice of tho sanguine expectations of certain scholars, who imagino they will soon havo discovered tho very means of the Indian Nakatras in Balylonian inscriptions. But does it follow that, because the ceremonial prosupposes an observation of the solstitial points in about the wolfth century, thoroforo the theological works in which that coremonial is explained, commented upon, anal furnished with all kinds of maystorious imeanings, woro composcd at that early dato ? Wo soc no stringency wlatovor in this argumont of Dr, llaug’s, ard wo think it will be necessary to look for other anchors by which to fix the drilling wrecks of Vedic literature……….
Howover interising the Brahmanas may bo to sludonts of Indian literaturo, thoy aro of small intcrest to tho general reader. The greater portion of thom is simply twaddlo, and what is rorse, thcological twistilley, No p}rson who is not acquainted boforehand with tho placo which tho Brahmanas fill in the history of tho Indian mind, could road moro than ton pages without boing disgusted. To tho historian, howovor, and to the philosophor, thoy aro of inanito importance to tho fūrnor as roal link bottoon tho ancient and modern liloraturo of India ; to tlo lattur as most important pbaso in the growth of human mind, in its passago from hogth to discaso.
** Sud practice w tlu fourth yoluwo of my ubition of thc Kigyula,
PREFACE,
The present work is the first edition, and first translation of one of the most important works of the Brāhmaṇa literature…………
The editing of the text and the translation of the numerous stories contained in the work was a comparatively easy task, and might have been carried out as well in Europe by any respectable Sanscrit scholar in possession of the necessary materials obtainable there. But the case stands different with the translation of the technical parts of the work and principally the numerous explanatory notes which are indis pensable for an actual understanding of the book. Though Sāyana’s excellent Commentary, which I have used throughout, is a great help for making out the proper meaning of many an obscure word, or phrase, it is not sufficient for obtaining a complete insight into the real meaning of many terms and passages occurring in the work. Besides, a good many passages in the Commentary itself, though they may convey a correct meaning, are hardly intelligible to European Sanscrit scholars who have no access to oral sources of information. The difficulties mainly lie in the large number of technical terms of the sacrificial art, which occur in all Brāhmaṇas, and are, to those uninitiated into the mysteries of this certainly ancient craft, for the most part unintelligible. It is, there fore, not surprising that no Sanscrit scholar as yet ever attempted the translation of the whole of a Brahmana; for the attempt would, in many essential points, have proved a failure.
What might be expected in the explanation of sacrificial terms from scholars unaided by oral information, may be learnt from the three vol umes hitherto published of the great Sanscrit Dictionary, compiled by Bahtlingk and Roth. The explanations of these terms there given (as. well as those of many words of the Samhita) are nothing but guesses, having no other foundation than the individual opinion of a scholar who never made himself familiar with the sacrificial art, even as far as it would be possible in Europe, by a careful study of the commentaries on the Sūtras and Brāhmaṇas, and who appears to have thought his own con jectures to be superior to the opinions of the greatest divines of Hindustan, who were especially trained for the sacrificial profession from times immemorial. These defects of a work which is in other respects a
ve
monument of gignatic toil and labour, and on account of its containing numerous references and quotations extremely useful to the small number of Sanscrit scholars who are able to make independent researches, have been already repeatedly pointed out by Professor Theodor Goldstücker, one of the most accurate Sanscrit scholars in Europe. Although his remarks excited the wrath principally of some savants at Berlin, who had tried to praise up the work as a masterpiece of perfection and ingenuity almost unparalleled in the history of lexicography, they are, nevertheless, though in some points too severe, not quite so undeserved and unjust, as the defenders of the Dictionary made them to appear. Goldstücker justly does not only find fault with its explanation of ritual terms, but with the meanings given to many words in the samhita. Though I am far from defending even the greater majority of Sayana’s explanations of the more difficult words and sentences of the Samhitét, it would have been at any rate advisable for the compilers of a Sanscrit Dictionary, which includes the Vedic words, to give Sayana’s explanations along with their own. Even granted that all Sayana’s explanations are only either guesses of his own, or of the great Blatticharyas* before him, whose labours he principally used, they nevertheless deserve all attention as the opinions and observations of men who had a much deeper knowledge of the Sanscrit language in general, and the rites of the Vedic religion, than any European scholar has ever attained to. It is quite erroneous to presuppose, as the editors of the Dictionary appear to do, that Sayana : himself made the majority of explanations in his Commentary. All Pandits who have any knowledge of the subject unanimously assert that he used a good many predecessors, and that comparatively few explana tions are entirely his own. The so-called Kausika Bhagya is said to be more ancient than that of Sāyana, and also the Rāvana Bhasya Botha are said to be still extant, but I have not yet been able to obtain copies of them.
Seeing the great difficulties, nay impossibility, of attaining to any thing like a real understanding of the sacrificial art from all the numerous books I had collected, I made the greatest efforts to obtain oral informa
- This is the name of those Hindu scholars who not only lcarn, 14 the Bhatlas do, one of the Vedas completoly by heart, but who study the meaning of each vorse and word, so as to bo able to givo orally the explanation of any passage required. The number of this class of scholars who ropresont the Doctors of Hindu theology, ix now very small. In this part of India, though there are many hundreds of parrotliko repeaters of the sacred texts, thero is not a singlo ond to be found. Somo (ilreo or four) aro said to bo at Benares. They are highly respectest, and, as incarnations of Brihaspati.com tho Pandit of the Gods, at cortain occasions regularly worshipped.
tion from some of those few Brahmans who are known by the name of Srotriyas, or Srautis, and who alone are the preservers of the sacrificial mysteries as they descended from the remotest times. The task was no easy one, and no European scholar in this country before me even suc ceeded in it. This is not to be wondered at; for the proper knowledge of the ritual is everywhere in India now rapidly dying out, and in many parts, chiefly in those under British rule, it has already died out. Besides, the communication of these mysteries to foreigners is regarded by old devout Brāhmans (and they alone have the knowledge) as such a mon strous profanation of their sacred creed, and fraught with the most serious consequences to their position, that they can only, after long efforts, and under payment of very handsome sums, be prevailed upon to give inform ation. Notwithstanding, at length I succeeded in procuring the assistance of a Srauti, who not only had performed the small sacrifices, such as the Darsapůrnamāsa Isti, but who had even officiated as one of the Hotars, or Udgātars, at several Soma sacrifices, which are now very rarely brought. In order to obtain a thorough understanding of the whole course of an Iṣti, and a Soma sacrifice, I induced him (about 18 months ago) to show me in some secluded place in my premises, the principal ceremonies. After the place had been properly arranged, and the neces sary implements brought to the spot, the performance began. I noted carefully everything I saw during about five days, and always asked for explanation if I did not properly comprehend it. I was always referred to the Sūtras and the Prayogas or pocket books of the sacrificial priest, 80 that no deception could take place. All information was conveyed to me by means of the Marathi language, of which I had by that time already acquired a sufficient knowledge for carrying on any conversation. In this way I obtained some sort of rough knowledge of the principal ceremonies (for they were generally only partially, in order to save time, and rapidly performed), which I completed afterwards by oral instruction, derived from the same and some other sacrificial priests, and Agnihotris, who had the sacrificial operations performed on themselves and in their behalf. Thus I was enabled to understand the various Sūtras, and consequently the technicalities of the Brāhmaṇas. Therefore the explana tions of sacrificial terms, as given in the notes, can be relied upon as certain ; for they are neither guesses of my own, nor of any other Hindu or European scholar, but proceed from what I have myself witnessed, and been taught by the only men who have inherited the knowledge from the most ancient times. My notes are therefore, for the most part, independent of Sāyaṇa, for I had almost as good sources as he himselfvi
had. He, however, does not appear to have troubled bimself much with a minute study of the actual operations of the sacrificial priests, but derived all his knowledge almost entirely from the Sātras only.
It had been easy for me to swell by accumulation of notes the work to double the size which it is now; but I confined myself to give only what was necessary……….
MARTIN HAUG.
Poona, 22nd November 1863.