वैतान-श्रौत-सूत्रम्- Vaitana-Srauta-Sutra with Somaditya's Commentary Called Aksepanuvidhi (An Old and Rare Book)

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Along with its 17-Volume Critical Edition Project consisting of Rgveda with Commentaries by Skandasvamin, Udgitha, Venkata-Madhava and Mudgala in 8 volumes, Atharvaveda with Sayana's Bhasya in 5 volumes and the four Rajataranginis of Kalhana, Jonaraja, Srivara and Suka in 4 volumes which had been under active pursuance since 1957 and which has now been completed, our Institute undertook in 1962 to bring out the Critical Editions of (1) Vaitana-srauta-sutra with Somaditya's Commentary called Aksepanuvidhi, (2) Asvalayana-srauta-sutra with four Commentaries by Devatrata, Devasvamin, Siddhantin and Nara-Dhanvin's (3) Drahyayana-srauta-sutra yana, with Commentary, and (4) Latyayana-srauta-sutra with Agni-svamin's Commentary. The present publication marks the completion of the Institute's work, in this direction, on the Vaitana-srauta-sutra and its said Commentary. The other three Srauta-sutras and their Commentaries are still being processed through various editorial stages.

Shri Bhim Dev, Shastri, M.A., M.O.L. and Shri Pitambar Datt, Shastri whose names are being duly included in the title of this work, have carried, under the guidance of the present writer the main burden of its production. They are assisted by Shri Brahma Dev, Vidyavacaspati, Shri Ravikant, M.A. and Shri Har Dev Singh, Shastri in copying and collating the manuscripts and by Shri Pashupati Jha Acharya in Vyakarana and Sahitya in preparing the press-copy and Dev Raj Sharma, Shastri and Shri Dunichandra, Shastri in checking the proofs. Similarly, Shri S. Bhaskaran Nair, B.A. (Hons.), M.A., has assisted the editor in writing out the Preface and the Introduction to this volume. I cordially felicitate all these colleagues as well as those others, who collaborated in the printing and publication of this work which rested so much, towards its successful consummation, on their devoted co-operation.

Our hearty thanks are due to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, the Bharata Intihasa Samsodhaka Mandala, the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, the Oriental Institute, Baroda and the Sarasvati Bhavan Library, Sanskrit University, Varanasi for having lent to us their related manuscripts for use in this Edition.

It is also my most cherished privilege to express on this occasion on behalf of our Management and on my own behalf our deepest gratitude to the Government of India in the Ministry of Education (Sanskrit Unit) for having been pleased to grant 60 per cent of the publication charges of this volume, and to our all other patrons for having enabled us to foot the remaining portion of the bill of cost.

The Vaitana-srauta-sutra is identical with the Valtanakalpa which included among the five basic ritual texts of the Atharvaveda, the other four being (1) the Kausika-sutra which is also known as the Samhitakalpa, the Smartakalpa and the Samhitavidhi, (2) the Naksatrakalpa, (3) the Santikalpa and (4) the Angirasakalpa which is also known as the Abhicarakalpa and the Vidhanakalpa. The Vaitana-srauta-sutra happens to be the only available Srauta manual of the Atharvaveda.

The colophons to the Manuscripts of this Sutra-text refer to it either as Vaitana-kalpa or as Atharvaveda-vaitana-sutra or, simply, Vaitana-sutra. The eight adhyaya-colophons in the Manuscripts of Somaditya's commentary, called Aksepanuvidhi on this Sutra refer to it, uniformly, as Vaitana-kalpa. Karka, the well-known commentator of the Katyayana-srauta-sutra refers to our text, on about half a dozen occasions, either as Vaitana-sutra or as Athar-vana-sutra or as Atharva-sutra. For the purposes of the present publication, the word Srauta has been infixed in its title, merely, to show, in a familiar manner, that it deals with the same topics, to wit, the three Vedic sacrificial fires, namely, the garhapatya, the ahavaniya and the daksina and the various rites performed therein, as are common to all other works known as the Srauta-sutras. It may, however, be just mentioned here that the word Vaitana itself seems to have originally connoted the sacrificial rites which were performed in the said three Vedic fires. Its basic word namely, vaitana being just a phonetic variant of vidhana seems to have been derived from vidh 'worship' (puja-) and not, as generally taken from vitan 'expand' (vistara-).

No positive information is available regarding the authorship of this Srauta-text. It, however, seems that there did exist a tradition of its having been produced by the same Kausika family of Vedic authors as was responsible for the production of the aforesaid well-known Grhya-text of Atharvaveda, namely, Kansika-sutra. Thus the eight adhyaya-colophons in the three Manuscripts, as available to us, of Somaditya's commentary this text is uniformly described as kausikiya.

The present work consists of 8 adhyayas which contain, altogether, 43 kandikas, which have been numbered continuously. It was reported by Garbe that one out of the 5 manuscripts, which he used for his edition of the text, contained 14 adhyayas. The last six of them being separately designated as the Prayascitta-sutras. That these six additional adhyayas had been incorporated much later, as a mere supplement may be adduced from Somaditya having commented on the first 8 main adhyayas only.

While, in the other Vedic Schools, the codification of the Srauta-sutras had generally preceded that of the Grhya-sutras, the ritualistic formulators of the Atharvaveda appear, first, to have produced their Grhya-text, namely, the Kausika-sutra and, later on, the present Srauta-text, Apparently, this might have been due to the fact that the Atharva-samhita itself abounded in much that was in the nature of Grhya ritual. This may be said to be borne out by the appellations Samhita-vidhi and Samhita-kalpa by which the Kausika-sutra was also known. This circumstance, evidently, led to the present text drawing a lot from the said Grhya-text (e.g., 1, 19-20; 3,4; 3,21; 4, 20; 4, 21; 5, 2; 5,4; 5,12; 5, 13; 6, 12; 7,10; 11,4; 12,7; 23, 20; 24,7 etc. also cf. 43,46).

That the present work should have occasions to draw from the Gopatha-brahmana, which pertained to Atharva-veda, was natural enough (e.g., 3,20; 11, 1; 11, 5 etc.). It has, however, not hesitated from laying Yajurveda-texts, like the Madhyandina-samhita, the Taittiriya-samhita and the Katyayana-srauta-sutra, also, under contribution towards its own completion (e.g., 1,20; 5,15; 18,14; 2,4; 2,13; 3,11; 4,1; 13,23 etc.).

The text of Vaitana-srauta-sutra was first edited and translated into German by Richard Garbe. Both his Edition and Translation were published, simultaneously, in 1878 from London and Strassburg, respectively. In this edition, which was based on five manuscripts, variant readings from the said manuscripts were listed, Sutra-wise at the end of the text, followed by an inventory of textual citations which he succeeded in tracing out to the extent of about 50 percent. He added, at the end, a complete Word-Index, the usefulness of which was further increased by his having given therein the meanings of such words as were of technical bearing. The short Introduction to this edition compared the subject matter of the text of this Sutra with that of the Katyayana-srauta-sutra and sought to show that the former was, more or less, an abridged presentation of the latter. As, however, none of his manuscripts had any punctuation mark and further, as no commentary was avail-able to him to help him in properly deciphering and compre-hending the text, his edition could not but remain defective in many respects, particularly, in dividing the text and numbering the Sutras. Moreover, this edition of Garbe has since long gone out of print. A German Translation, with text critical and exegetical notes, by W. Caland of Garbe's text was published from Amsterdam in 1910. Caland, for the purposes of this Translation, introduced, with the help of the variant readings, certain changes in Garbe's text which he, also, redivided, more rationally.