Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Biihler, Introduction to Bombay Digest, I, p. xxii; Indian Antiquary, V, p. 30; Kasmir Report, p. 36. x VISHNU. used for this translation, and the principles of interpretation that have been followed in it, may be fitly reserved for the last. There is no surer way for ascertaining the particular Vedic school by which an ancient Sanskrit law-book of unknown or uncertain origin was composed, than by examining the quotations from, and analogies with, Vedic works which it contains. Thus the Gautama Dharmasastra might have originated in any one among the divers Gautama XKarazas with which Indian tradition acquaints us. But the comparatively numerous passages which its author has borrowed from the Samhita and from one Brahmavza of the Sdma-veda prove that it must belong to one of those Gautama Karawas who studied the Sdma-veda'. Regarding the code of Yagfiavalkya we learn from tradition that a Vedic teacher of that name was the reputed author of the White Yagur-veda. But this coincidence might be looked upon as casual, if the Yagiiavalkya-smriti did not contain a number of Mantras from that Vedic Samhita, and a number of very striking analogies, in the section on funeral ceremonies particularly, with the Grzhyasiitra of the Vagasaneyins, the Katiya Grzhya-sfitra of Paraskara?. In the case of the Vishvzu-sitra an enquiry of this kind is specially called for, because tradition leaves us entirely in the dark as to its real author. The fiction that the laws promulgated in Chapters II-XCVII were communicated by the god Vishzu to the goddess of the earth, is of course utterly worthless for historical purposes; and all that it can be made to show is that those parts of this work in which it is started or kept up cannot rival the laws themselves in antiquity. Now as regards, first, the Vedic Mantras and Prattkas (beginnings of Mantras) quoted in this work, it is necessary to leave aside, as being of no moment for the present purpose, 1. very well-known Mantras, or, speaking more 1 See Biihler, Introduction to Gautama (Vol. II of the Sacred Books of the East), pp. xlv-xlviii. 2 Biihler, Introduction to Digest, p. xxxii; Stenzler, on Paraskara’s Grihyasfitra, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, VII, p. 527 seq. INTRODUCTION. x1
2II of the Sacred Books of the East), pp. xlv-xlviii. 2 Biihler, Introduction to Digest, p. xxxii; Stenzler, on Paraskara’s Grihyasfitra, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, VII, p. 527 seq. INTRODUCTION. x1 precisely, all such Mantras as are frequently quoted in Vedic works of divers Sakh4s; 2. the purificatory texts enumerated under the title of Sarva-veda-pavitraazi in LVI. The latter can afford us no help in determining the particular Sakha to which this work belongs, because they are actually taken, as they profess to be, from all the Vedas indiscriminately, and because nearly the whole of Chapter LVI is found in the Vasish¢ha-smrti as well (see further on), which probably does not belong to the same Veda as this work. Among the former class of Mantras may be included, particularly, the Gayatri, the Purushas(kta, the Aghamarshama, the KishmAazdis, the Vyahritis, the Gyeshta SAmans, the Rudras, the Trizakiketa, the Trisupar#a, the Vaishzava, Sakra, and Barhaspatya Mantras mentioned in XC, 3, and the Mantra quoted in XXVIII, 51 (= Gautama’s ‘Retasya’). Among the twenty-two Mantras quoted in Chapters XLVIII, LXIV, LXV (including repetitions, but excluding the Purushasikta, Gayatri, Aghamarshava) there are also some which may be referred to this class, and the great majority of them occur in more than one Veda at the same time. But it is worthy of note that no less than twelve, besides occurring in at least one other Sakh4, are either actually found in the Samhita of the K4rayantya-kathas, the K4thaka' (or Karaka-sakh4?), or stated to belong to it in the Commentary, while one is found in the K4tsaka alone, a second in the Atharva-veda alone, a third in the Taittiriya Brahmavza alone, and a fourth does not occur in any Vedic work hitherto known*. <A far greater number of Mantras occurs in Chapters XXI, LXVII, LXXIII, LXXIV, LXXXVI, which treat of daily oblations, Srdddhas, and the ceremony of setting a bull at liberty. Of all these Mantras, which,—including the Purushasikta and other such well-known Mantras as well as the short invocations addressed to Soma, Agni, and other deities, but excluding the invocations addressed to Vishzu in the spurious Sftra, LXVII, 2,—are more than a. hundred in number, no more than forty or so are found in Vedic 1 In speaking of this work I always refer to the Berlin MS, 2 XLVIII, 10. Cf., however, Vagas. Samh. IV, 12. xii VISHNU.
3hundred in number, no more than forty or so are found in Vedic 1 In speaking of this work I always refer to the Berlin MS, 2 XLVIII, 10. Cf., however, Vagas. Samh. IV, 12. xii VISHNU. works hitherto printed, and in the law-books of Manu, Yagiiavalkya, and others; but nearly all are quoted, exactly in the same order as in this work, in the Aarayaniya-kathaka Grihya-sitra, while some of them have been traced in the Ka¢/aka as well. And what is even more important, the Ka¢saka Grzhya does not contain those Mantras alone, but nearly all the Sdtras in which they occur; and it may be stated therefore, secondly, that the Vishzu-sitra has four long sections, viz. Chapter LXXIII, and Chapters XXI, LXVII, LXXXVI, excepting the final parts, in common with that work, while the substance of Chapter LX XIV may also be traced in it. The agreement between both works is very close, and where they differ it is generally due to false readings or to enlargements on the part of the Vishzu-sitra. However, there are a few cases, in which the version of the latter work is evidently more genuine than that of the former, and it follows, therefore, that the author of the Vishzusitra cannot have borrowed his rules for the performance of Sraddhas &c. from the Kathaka Grzhya-sitra, but that both must have drawn from a common source, i. e. no doubt from the traditions current in the Kazha school, to which this work is indebted for so many of its Mantras as well. For these reasons! I fully concur in the view advanced by Dr. Biihler, that the bulk of the so-called Vishvu-smr‘ti is really the ancient Dharma-sitra of the K4rayamiyakAthaka SAkha of the Black Yagur-veda. It ranks, like other Dharma-sitras, with the Grzhya and Srauta-sitras of its school; the latter of which, though apparently lost now, is distinctly referred to in the Gvzhya-sitra in several places, and must have been in existence at the time when the Commentaries on Katydyana’s Srauta-sitras were composed, in which it is frequently quoted by the name ' For details I may refer the reader to my German paper, Das Dharmasitra des Vishau und das Katsakagrihyasfitra, in the Transactions of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Science for 1879, where the sections corresponding in both works have been printed in parallel columns, the texts from the Kathaka Grihya-sitra having been prepared from two of the MSS. of Devapala’s Commentary discovered by Dr. Biihler (Kasmir Report, Nos. 11, 12), one in Devanagari, and the other in Sarada characters. INTRODUCTION. Xxili
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Biihler, Introduction to Bombay Digest, I, p. xxii; Indian Antiquary, V, p. 30; Kasmir Report, p. 36. x VISHNU. used for this translation, and the principles of interpretation that have been followed in it, may be fitly reserved for the last. There is no surer way for ascertaining the particular Vedic school by which an ancient Sanskrit law-book of unknown or uncertain origin was composed, than by examining the quotations from, and analogies with, Vedic works which it contains. Thus the Gautama Dharmasastra might have originated in any one among the divers Gautama XKarazas with which Indian tradition acquaints us. But the comparatively numerous passages which its author has borrowed from the Samhita and from one Brahmavza of the Sdma-veda prove that it must belong to one of those Gautama Karawas who studied the Sdma-veda'. Regarding the code of Yagfiavalkya we learn from tradition that a Vedic teacher of that name was the reputed author of the White Yagur-veda. But this coincidence might be looked upon as casual, if the Yagiiavalkya-smriti did not contain a number of Mantras from that Vedic Samhita, and a number of very striking analogies, in the section on funeral ceremonies particularly, with the Grzhyasiitra of the Vagasaneyins, the Katiya Grzhya-sfitra of Paraskara?. In the case of the Vishvzu-sitra an enquiry of this kind is specially called for, because tradition leaves us entirely in the dark as to its real author. The fiction that the laws promulgated in Chapters II-XCVII were communicated by the god Vishzu to the goddess of the earth, is of course utterly worthless for historical purposes; and all that it can be made to show is that those parts of this work in which it is started or kept up cannot rival the laws themselves in antiquity. Now as regards, first, the Vedic Mantras and Prattkas (beginnings of Mantras) quoted in this work, it is necessary to leave aside, as being of no moment for the present purpose, 1. very well-known Mantras, or, speaking more 1 See Biihler, Introduction to Gautama (Vol. II of the Sacred Books of the East), pp. xlv-xlviii. 2 Biihler, Introduction to Digest, p. xxxii; Stenzler, on Paraskara’s Grihyasfitra, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, VII, p. 527 seq. INTRODUCTION. x1
2II of the Sacred Books of the East), pp. xlv-xlviii. 2 Biihler, Introduction to Digest, p. xxxii; Stenzler, on Paraskara’s Grihyasfitra, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, VII, p. 527 seq. INTRODUCTION. x1 precisely, all such Mantras as are frequently quoted in Vedic works of divers Sakh4s; 2. the purificatory texts enumerated under the title of Sarva-veda-pavitraazi in LVI. The latter can afford us no help in determining the particular Sakha to which this work belongs, because they are actually taken, as they profess to be, from all the Vedas indiscriminately, and because nearly the whole of Chapter LVI is found in the Vasish¢ha-smrti as well (see further on), which probably does not belong to the same Veda as this work. Among the former class of Mantras may be included, particularly, the Gayatri, the Purushas(kta, the Aghamarshama, the KishmAazdis, the Vyahritis, the Gyeshta SAmans, the Rudras, the Trizakiketa, the Trisupar#a, the Vaishzava, Sakra, and Barhaspatya Mantras mentioned in XC, 3, and the Mantra quoted in XXVIII, 51 (= Gautama’s ‘Retasya’). Among the twenty-two Mantras quoted in Chapters XLVIII, LXIV, LXV (including repetitions, but excluding the Purushasikta, Gayatri, Aghamarshava) there are also some which may be referred to this class, and the great majority of them occur in more than one Veda at the same time. But it is worthy of note that no less than twelve, besides occurring in at least one other Sakh4, are either actually found in the Samhita of the K4rayantya-kathas, the K4thaka' (or Karaka-sakh4?), or stated to belong to it in the Commentary, while one is found in the K4tsaka alone, a second in the Atharva-veda alone, a third in the Taittiriya Brahmavza alone, and a fourth does not occur in any Vedic work hitherto known*. <A far greater number of Mantras occurs in Chapters XXI, LXVII, LXXIII, LXXIV, LXXXVI, which treat of daily oblations, Srdddhas, and the ceremony of setting a bull at liberty. Of all these Mantras, which,—including the Purushasikta and other such well-known Mantras as well as the short invocations addressed to Soma, Agni, and other deities, but excluding the invocations addressed to Vishzu in the spurious Sftra, LXVII, 2,—are more than a. hundred in number, no more than forty or so are found in Vedic 1 In speaking of this work I always refer to the Berlin MS, 2 XLVIII, 10. Cf., however, Vagas. Samh. IV, 12. xii VISHNU.
3hundred in number, no more than forty or so are found in Vedic 1 In speaking of this work I always refer to the Berlin MS, 2 XLVIII, 10. Cf., however, Vagas. Samh. IV, 12. xii VISHNU. works hitherto printed, and in the law-books of Manu, Yagiiavalkya, and others; but nearly all are quoted, exactly in the same order as in this work, in the Aarayaniya-kathaka Grihya-sitra, while some of them have been traced in the Ka¢/aka as well. And what is even more important, the Ka¢saka Grzhya does not contain those Mantras alone, but nearly all the Sdtras in which they occur; and it may be stated therefore, secondly, that the Vishzu-sitra has four long sections, viz. Chapter LXXIII, and Chapters XXI, LXVII, LXXXVI, excepting the final parts, in common with that work, while the substance of Chapter LX XIV may also be traced in it. The agreement between both works is very close, and where they differ it is generally due to false readings or to enlargements on the part of the Vishzu-sitra. However, there are a few cases, in which the version of the latter work is evidently more genuine than that of the former, and it follows, therefore, that the author of the Vishzusitra cannot have borrowed his rules for the performance of Sraddhas &c. from the Kathaka Grzhya-sitra, but that both must have drawn from a common source, i. e. no doubt from the traditions current in the Kazha school, to which this work is indebted for so many of its Mantras as well. For these reasons! I fully concur in the view advanced by Dr. Biihler, that the bulk of the so-called Vishvu-smr‘ti is really the ancient Dharma-sitra of the K4rayamiyakAthaka SAkha of the Black Yagur-veda. It ranks, like other Dharma-sitras, with the Grzhya and Srauta-sitras of its school; the latter of which, though apparently lost now, is distinctly referred to in the Gvzhya-sitra in several places, and must have been in existence at the time when the Commentaries on Katydyana’s Srauta-sitras were composed, in which it is frequently quoted by the name ' For details I may refer the reader to my German paper, Das Dharmasitra des Vishau und das Katsakagrihyasfitra, in the Transactions of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Science for 1879, where the sections corresponding in both works have been printed in parallel columns, the texts from the Kathaka Grihya-sitra having been prepared from two of the MSS. of Devapala’s Commentary discovered by Dr. Biihler (Kasmir Report, Nos. 11, 12), one in Devanagari, and the other in Sarada characters. INTRODUCTION. Xxili
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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