ly the main author of the new or White recension in which the
prayers and directions are more or less separate, whereas in the old or
Black recension they are mixed together. According to the legend he
vomited forth the texts which he had learnt, calling his fellow pupils
"miserable and inefficient Brahmans," and then received a new revelation
from the Sun[220]. The quarrel was probably violent for the Satapatha
Brahmana mentions that he was cursed by priests of the other party. Nor
does this work, while recognizing him as the principal teacher, endorse
all his sayings. Thus it forbids the eating of beef but adds the curious
remark "Nevertheless Yajnavalkya said, I for one eat it, provided it is
tender[221]." Remarkable, too, is his answer to the question what would
happen if all the ordinary materials for sacrifices were absent, "Then
indeed nothing would be offered here, but there would be offered the
truth in faith[222]." It is probable that the Black Yajur Veda
represents the more western schools and that the native land of the
White recension and of Yajnavalkya lay further east, perhaps in Videha.
But his chief interest for us is not the reforms in text and ritual
which he may have made, but his philosophic doctrines of which I have
already spoken. Our principal authority for them is the Brihad-Aranyaka
Upanishad of which he is the protagonist, much as Socrates is of the
Platonic dialogues. Unfortunately the striking picture which it gives of
Yajnavalkya cannot be accepted as historical. He is a prominent figure
in the Satapatha Brahmana which is older than the Upanishad and
represents an earlier stage of speculation. The sketch of his doctrines
which it contains is clearly a preliminary study elaborated and
amplified in the Upanishad. But if a personage is introduced in early
works as expounding a rudimentary form of certain doctrines and in later
works is credited with a matured philosophy, there can be little doubt
that he has become a great name whose authority is invoked by later
thought, much as Solomon was made the author of the Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes and the Song which bears his name.

Yajnavalkya appears in the Brihad-Aranyaka as the respected friend but
apparently not the chaplain of King Janaka. This monarch celebrated a
great sacrifice and offered a thousand cows with a present of money to
him who should prove himself wisest. Yajnavalkya rather arrogantly bade
his pupil drive off the beasts. But his c