Among the words mentioned by Pacini, but not traced except in the Dharma-sutra, may be enumerated the verb strih, to do damage, I, 11, 31, 9; the verb srihkh, to sneeze, from which j-r/nkhanika, I, 5, 16, 4, and ni/i- j-r/rikhana, I, 2, 5, 9, are derived ; and the noun veda- dhyaya, I, 9, 24, 6; II, 4, 8, 5, in the sense of a student of the Veda. Words offending against rules given by Pa//ini, without being either archaic or Prakritic, are e. g. sar- vannin, I, 6, 18, 39, one who eats anybody's food, which, according to Pa;nni V, 2, 9, should be sarvannina; sarpaj-irshin, I, 5, 17, 39; annasa/wskartr/, a cook, II, 3, 6, 16; dharmya, righteous, for dharmya I, 2, 7, 21, and elsewhere; divitr/, a gambler, II, 10, 25, 13, for devitr/, the very remarkable form praj-iiati, I, 1, 4) ^, for prai-nati, which finds an analogy in yaj^ila; and the curious compounds avahgagra, I, i, 2, 38, paranga- vr/tta II, 3, 10, II, where the first parts show the forms of the nominative instead of the base, and pratisurya- matsya//, which as a copulative compound is without analogy. The irregular forms caused by the same ten- dencies as those which effected the formation of the Prakrit languages, are, aviprakramiwa, II, 2, 5, 2, for aviprakrama;/a, where an a standing in thesi has been changed to i; saLmvritti/i, II, 3, 6, 14, sa;/^vartete,
II, 5, II, 20, and paryanta, I, 3, 9, 21 (compare Mara//zi ami for ant a//), in each of which a standing before a nasal has been lengthened ; a;nka, I, 6, 19, i, the initial a of which stands for r/, if it really has the meaning of riuika., as some commentators asserted; anulepawa, I, 3, II, 13; I, II, 32, 5, with the Prakritic change of na to
xlli Apastamba.
na.; vyupa^ava, I, 2, 8, j^, with va for pa; rztve for ri tvye, where j/ seems to have been absorbed by the following e; apa^i-ayita, I, ii, ^2, i6, for apaj-rayita, and bhatr/vyatikrama, I, lo, 28, 20, where r has been assimilated to the preceding, or has been lost before the following consonant. The irregularities in the construction are less frequent. But in two Sutras, I, 3, 10, 2, and I, 3, 11, 21, some words which ought to stand in the locative case have the terminations of the nominative, and it looks as if the author had changed his mind about the construction which he meant to use. In a third passage, II, 10, 26, 20, sisnakk/ieda-tiam savrzshawasya, the adjective which is intended to qualify the noun jijrna has been placed in the genitive case, though the noun has been made the first part of a compound.
The occurrence of so many irregularities ^ in so small a treatise as the Dharrria-sutra is, proves clearly that the author did not follow Pa;/ini's grammar, and makes it very unlikely that he knew it at all. If the anomalous forms used by Apastamba all agreed with the usage of the other Sutrakaras, known to us, it might be contended that, though acquainted with the rules of the great grammarian, he had elected to adopt by preference the language of the Vedic schools. But this is by no means the case. The majority of the irregular forms are peculiar to Apastamba. As it is thus not probable that Apastamba employed his peculiar expressions in obedience to the tradition of the Vedic schools or of his particular school, he must have either been unacquainted with Pa/zini or have considered his teachings of no great importance. In other words, he must either have lived earlier than Pa;nni or before Pa?/ini s grammar had acquired general fame throughout India, and become the standard authority for Sanskrit authors. In either case so late a date as 100 B.C. or the first century B. C. would not fit. For Patan^ali's Mahabhashya furnishes
* Many more might be collected from the other divisions of the body of Sutras. I have noticed them especially in the Gr/hya-sutra, the only part, besides the Dharraa-sutra, which I have read carefully.
abundant proof that at the time of its composition, in the second century B. C, Pacini's grammar occupied a position similar to that which it holds now, and has held since the beoinnincr of our era in the estimation of the learned of
India. On linguistic grounds it seems to me Apastamba cannot be placed later than the third century B. C, and if his statement regarding 6Vetaketu is taken into account, the lower limit for the composition of his Siltras must be put further back by 150-200 years.
But sufficient space has already been allotted to these attempts to assign a date to the founder of the Apastambiya school, the results of which, in the present state of our knowledge of the ancient history of India, must remain, I fear, less certain and less precise than is desirable. It now is necessary to say, in conclusion, a few words about the history of the text of the Dharma-sutra, and about its commentary, the U^^vala Vr/tti of Haradatta. The oldest writer with a known date who quotes the Apastam- biya Dharma-sutra is Vi^fiane^'vara, who composed the Mitakshara, the well-known commentary on Ya^navalk}'a's Dharma-j-astra during the reign of the ATalukya king Vikra- maditya VI, of Kalya//a towards the end of the eleventh century. From that time downwards Apastamba is quoted by almost every writer on law. But the whole text, such as it is given in my edition \ is vouched for only by the commentator Haradatta, who probably wrote his U^^ala Vrztti in the sixteenth century A. D. Haradatta is very reticent about himself and about his circumstances '^. But his date may be inferred from the fact that the oldest writer on law quoting his opinions is Mitramij-ra, the author of the Viramitrodaya, who dedicated his learned treatise
1 Apastambiya Dharma-sutram, Fart I, Bombay, 1868; Part II, Bombay, 187 1.
^ It seems, however, not doubtful that Haradatta, the author of the U^o-vala, is the same person who wrote the Anakula Vr/tti on the Apastambiya Gnhya- sutra, an explanation of the Apastambiya Grzhya-mantras (see Burnell, Ind. Ant. 1, 6>, which I have not seen, and the Mitakshara Vr/tti on the Dharma- siitra of Gautama. From the occurrence in the latter work of Tamil words, added in explanation of Sanskrit expressions, it follows that Haradatta was a native of the south of India. I am not in a position to decide if our author also wrote the Padamanp-ari Vrftti on the Kasika of Vamana and Gayaditya,
xliv APASTAMLA.
on law to the Bundela chief Virasiwha of Or/V/a, the murderer of Akbar's friend Abul Fazl, and who wrote, therefore, in the beginning of the seventeenth century A. D. Haradatta was, however, not the first commentator of the Dharma-sutra. He frequently quotes the opinions of several predecessors whom he designates by the general expressions anya/^ or apara/z, i. e. another (writer). The fact that the U^^vala was preceded by earlier commentaries which pro- tected the text from corruption, also speaks in favour of the authenticity of the latter, which is further attested by the close agreement of the Hira;/yakej-i Dharma-sutra, mentioned above.
As regards the value of the U^^vala for the explanation of Apastamba's text, it certainly belongs to the best com- mentaries existing. Haradatta possessed in the older Vr/ttis abundant and good materials on which he could draw ; he himself apparently was well versed in Hindu law and in Sanskrit grammar, and distinguished by sobriety and freedom from that vanity which induces many Indian commentators to load their works with endless and useless quotations. His explanations, therefore, can mostly be followed without hesitation, and, even when they appear unacceptable, they deserve careful consideration.
Introduction
To
GAUTAMA.
Compared with the information collected above regard- ing the origin and the history of Apastamba's Dharma- siitra, the facts which can be brought to bear on Gautama's Institutes are scanty and the conclusions deducible from them somewhat vague. There are only two points, which, it seems to me, can be proved satisfactorily, viz. the con- nexion of the work with the Sama-veda and a Gautama /Tarawa, and its priority to the other four Dharma-sutras which we still possess. To go further appears for the present impossible, because very little is known regard- ing the history of the schools studying the Sama-veda, and because the Dharmaj-astra not only furnishes very few data regarding the works on which it is based, but seems alsoj though not to any great extent, to have been tampered with by interpolators.
As regards its origin, it was again Professor Max Miiller, who, in the place of the fantastic statements of a fabri- cated tradition, according to which the author of the Dharmai-astra is the son or grandson of the sage Utathya, and the grandson or great-grandson of Ui^anas or 5ukra, the regent of the planet Venus, and the book possessed generally binding force in the second or Treta Yuga \ first put forward a rational explanation which, since, has been adopted by all other writers on Sanskrit literature. He says, Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 134, 'Another collection of Dharma- sAtras, which, however, is liable to critical doubts, belongs
* Manu III, 16; Colebrooke, Digest of Hindu Law, Preface, p. xvii (Madras ed.) ; Anantayao-van in Dr. Burnell's Catalogue of Sanskrit MSS., p. 57; Parasara, Dharmasastra I, 22 (Calcutta ed.)
xlvi GAUTAMA.
to the Gautamas, a ^Tarawa of the Sama-veda.' The cor- rectness of this assertion may be proved by the following arguments. Gautama's work, though called Dharma^-astra or Institutes of the Sacred Law, closely resembles, both in form and contents, the Dharma-sutras or Aphorisms on the Sacred Law, which form part of the Kalpa-sutras of the Vedic schools of Baudhayana, Apastamba,and Hirawyakejin. As we know from the A^arawavyuha, from the writings of the ancient grammarians, and from the numerous quotations in the Kalpa-sutras and other works on the Vedic ritual, that in ancient times the number of Vedic schools, most of which possessed 5rauta, Gr/hya, and Dharma-sutras, was exceedingly great, and that the books of many of them have either been lost or been disintegrated, the several parts being torn out of their original connexion, it is not unreasonable to assume that the aphoristic law-book, usually attributed to the Rishi Gautama, is in reality a manual belonging to a Gautama KarsLua.. This conjecture gains considerably in probability, if the fact is taken into account that formerly a school of Sama-vedis, which bore the name of Gautama, actually existed. It is mentioned in one of the redactions of the ii'ara;,?avyuha ^ as a sub- division of the Ra;myaniya school. The Vawi-a-brahma;/a of the Sama-veda^ also, enumerates four members of the Gautama family among the teachers who handed down the third Veda, viz. Gatrz Gautama, Sumantra Babhrava Gautama, Sawkara Gautama, and Radha Gautama^, and the existing 5rauta and Grzhya-sutras frequently appeal to the opinions of a Gautama and of a Sthavira Gautama ^. It follows, therefore, that at least one, if not several Gau- tama A'ara;/as, studied the Sama-veda, and that, at the time when the existing Sutras of La/yayana and Gobhila were composed, Gautama 6"rauta and Grzliya-sutras formed part of the literature of the Sama-veda. The correctness of the latter inference is further proved by Dr. Burnell's
' Max Miiller, Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 374. ^ See Burncll, Vawsa-brahma/ja, pp. 7, 9, 11, and 12.
^ See the Petersburg Dictionary, s. v. Gautama ; Weber, Hibt. Ind. Lit., p. 77 (English ed,); Gobhila Gn'hya-sutia III, 10, 6.
INTRODUCTION. xlvii
discovery of a Pitr/medha-sutra, which is ascribed to a teacher of the Sama-veda, called Gautama ^.
