xxii] APPROXIMATE DATE [Introduction ślokas of the text of the Brhaddevatã can be unmistakeably traced in the Sarvānukramanī. This takes no account of the identity of diction which occurs at every step in the Sarvānukramaṇī, but cannot be shown to have a metrical source. Hence the high value of the Sarvãnukramanī as a check on the readings of the Brhaddevata is obvious. With regard to the relationship of the Brhaddevata to the other cognate works attributed to S'aunaka, I may here add that it has a half-śloka and the greater part of the following pada in common with the Anuvä- kānukramanī. With the Arṣãnukramanī it shares three and a half ślokas, and with the Rgvidhana two and a half ślokas. There are besides a number of other passages in which its wording is very similar to that of the two latter works. All this borrowed or common matter will be found collected in parallel columns in Appendix vi, 'Relation of the Brhaddevata to other texts,' pp. 136-154. 10. Date and authorship of the Brhaddevatā. What evidence does the relationship of the Brhaddevata to other An texts furnish towards determining the question of its date? examination of the parallel material supplied in Appendix vi can leave no doubt whatever in regard, at least, to the relative date of the Brhadde- vata. From that material it results with certainty that the Brhaddevatā, while posterior to the Nirukta, is anterior to the Sarvänukramani. This conclusion at the same time takes us a considerable way towards an approximate estimate of the actual date of our text. It must thus be later than 500 B. C., but earlier than the time of Katyayana. Owing to the concise character of their style, both the Sarvãnukra- mani and the S'rauta Sutra of the White Yajur-veda probably belong to the later Sūtra period. Both works were composed by a Katyāyana. The Vajasaneyi Anukramani, which has nearly the whole of its introduc- tion in common with that of the Sarvanukramani', is also the work of a Katyayana. All this points to the author of these works being the same Katyayana, who, because the diction of the Sarvänukramaṇi shows several Vedic peculiarities and forms not sanctioned by Panini's grammar 2, could hardly be identical with Panini's commentator of that name. Hence it seems likely that the Sarvānukramaṇī, as a later but still probably pre-Pāṇinean Sūtra, dates from not later than the middle of the fourth century B.C.3 The Brhaddevata, its chief source, could, therefore, 1 See my edition of the Sarvänukramaṇī, p. viii, bottom. me in my edition of the Sarvănukramani, p. viii, and I see no reason to depart from it. But I do not think that its author can be iden- Op. cit., p. viii, middle. 3 This opinion has already been stated by tical with the grammarian Katyayana.
