20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

A lesser-known Agniṣṭoma Prayoga of the Sāmaveda 657clue in the text itself. Like almost all the Ancient authors, he is modestlysilent about himself. But we have respectful references to him in other texts.Prayogadīpikā (no. 533, acc. no. 9860 B) in the opening verse pays homageto God and then to the author’s teachers and preceptors, like Bhavatrāta. Theverse number 4 says: kṛtvā śeṣakratuvaraṁ vasiṣṭhagrāmabhūṣaṇaṁ […]natvā tam asmadācāryaṁ śrīnivāsāryam ākhyayā […] /. He bows down toĀrya Śrīnivāsa, who is his teacher, who has performed all the sacrifices (anadhvarīndra indeed), and was an ornament of the village named Vasiṣṭha.It then seems that this probably is the same person who wrote the Prayoga.He is also known to have written a commentary on the Jaiminīya GṛhyaSūtra (JGS). A. PARPOLA, in his article “On the JŚS and its Annexes”,says in a footnote that this place Vasiṣṭha probably is the same villagefrom which Bhavatrāta’s family came to Kerala. Dr. V. RAGHAVAN, inhis valuable book Present Position of Vedic Recitation and Vedic Schoolsstates that Bhavatrāta’s family migrated from a place called Tittagudi(Vasiṣṭha kuṭi) in South Arcot district to Kerala. It is interesting to notethat the last verse in the commentary on the JGS describes Śrīnivāsa as “thefull moon from the family of the Viśvāmitras”. If all these references pointto one and the same person, who happens to be the author of the Prayogaunder consideration, just think of the irony that a person belonging to aViśvamitra family hails from a village named Vasiṣṭha.Whatever the place and the family he comes from, he is obviously avery learned Sāmavedin, skilled in the audgātram ritual. The entire text ofthe Prayoga is a testimony to that.The Prayoga opens with: athaudgātaraṁ sūtri prāha. Who is a sūtri?This is a newly coined word, not seen before this. It means the one who is asūtradhāra, “an organizer”. Or, may be the one who follows the Jaiminīyasūtra? The JŚS itself uses a very clear word: somapravāka, “announcer ofthe Soma sacrifice”.The JŚS 1 and 2 tell us about the selection of an udgātar. So does thePrayoga, opening with udgātṛvaraṇam. The JŚS then goes on to describethe Agniṣṭoma in detail and then later, almost as an afterthought, it talksabout Agnyādheya. The Prayoga reverses this sequence. Immediatelyafter the selection of the udgātar, it describes the ādhānam of the fires.That is why it is rightly named as Ādhānapūrvakāgniṣṭomaprayoga. TheKratudīpikā too models its sequence of contents according to the Prayoga,as against the JŚS itself. Quite an indication of the impact and influence ofthe Prayoga on the later manuals and literature.Before the Pravargya section, the Prayoga talks aboutTānūnaptrasparśaḥ. The JŚS does not include this in the text at all. Nor