But more than this, on the strength of hymns like our own in which the interrogative pronoun ka, 'who,' occurs, the Brâhmans actually invented a god of the name of Ka. I pointed this out many years ago in my History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (1860, p. 433), where I said: In accordance with the same system, we find that the authors of the Brâhmanas had so completely broken with the past that, forgetful of the poetical character of the hymns, and the yearning of the poets after the unknown god, they exalted the interrogative pronoun into a deity,' and acknowledged a god 'Ka, or Who.' In the Taittirîya-samhitâ (I, 7, 6, 6), in the Kaushîtaki-brâhmana (XXIV, 4), in the Tândya-brâhmana (XV, 10), and in the Satapatha-brâhmana a, whenever interrogative verses occur, the author states, that Ka is Pragâpati, or 'the Lord of Creatures' (Pragâpatir vai Kah). Nor did they stop there. Some of the hymns in which the interrogative pronoun occurred were called Kadvat, i. e. having kad or quid. But soon a new adjective was formed, and not only the hymns, but the sacrifices also, offered to the god, were called Kâya, or who-ish b. This word, which is not to be identified with the Latin cujus, cuja, cujum, but is merely the artificial product of an effete mind, is found in the Taittirîya-samhitâ (I, 8, 3, 1), and in the Vâgasaneyi-samhitâ (XXIV, 15). At the time of Pânini

this word had acquired such legitimacy as to call for a separate rule explaining its formation (Pân. IV, 2, 25). The commentator there explains Ka by Brahman. After this we can hardly wonder that in the later Sanskrit literature of the Purânas, Ka appears as a recognised god, as the supreme god, with a genealogy of his own, perhaps even with a wife; and that in the Laws of Manu, one of the recognised forms of marriage, generally known by the name of Pragâpati-marriage, occurs under the monstrous title of 'Kâya.' Stranger still, grammarians who know that ka forms the dative kasmai only if it is an interrogative pronoun, consider kasmai in our hymn as irregular, because, as a proper name, Ka ought to form the dative Kâya.

Footnotes

4:a The last line is here, tasmai ta indo havishâ vidhema, let us sacrifice to him with thy oblation, O Soma!

4:b Var. lect. nimeshatáh.

5:a Var. lect. mâ´ mâ, satyádharmâ vyâ´nat, prathamó for brihatî´h.

5:b Var. lect., rûpâ´ni for bhûtâ´ni.

5:c Var. lect., ver. 5, dridhé, dual for drilhâ´; ver. 6, úditau vyéti for údito vibhâ´ti; ver. 8, agním for yagñám.

6:a M. M., India, What can it teach us? pp. 144, 162.

7:a muktihetu, not yuktihetu, as Weber prints.

7:b Is nimesháto in XXIII, 3, a varia lectio, or an asuddha? In XXV, 13, we read nimishato.

10:a See RV. X, 82, 5-6.

10:b See RV. X, 72, 7.

12:a Satap. Brâhm. I, 1, 1, 13; II, 5, 2, 13; IV, 5, 6, 4; also Aitar. Brâhm. III, 21.