The Sacred Laws of the Aryas (Bühler) — Apastamba, Gautama, Vasishtha & Baudhayana, page scans + full text

As regards the older works on Dharma, the author of the Institutes of Vasish/#a certainly knew a-n,d used a treatise, attributed to Yama, the Dharma-sutras of Manu, Harita and Gautama, and perhaps that of Baudhiyana. With respect to two verses, which, as the Sutra says, were pro- claimed by Pra^apati, XIV, 24, 30, it is somewhat doubtful, if it is meant that they have been taken from a work, attributed to Pra^pati, or that they are merely utterances, supposed to have been made by that deity for the benefit

1 See Baudhayana Dhanna-sfltra II, 8, 14, a, note.

CM] b

XV111 VASISHTTfA.

1 They occur Vasishtta Dharmasastra 1, 17; III, 2 ; IV, 5-8; XI, 23 ; XII, 16; XIII. 16; XIX, 3?; XX, 18; XXIII, 43; XXVI, 8. 3 Digest of Hindu Law Cases, p. xxxi, note, first edition. 1 Such, I suppose, will be the opinion of all European scholars. Those Hindus

Introduction. Xix

show, by adding the particle ' id ' at the end of Sutra 8, that the quotation from the Manava is not finished with Sutra 5, but includes the two verses given in Sutras 6 and 7 and the second prose passage in Sutra 8. Among the verses the first is found entire in the metrical Manusmn'ti, and the second has likewise a representative in that work, though its concluding portion has been altered in such a manner that the permission to slaughter animals at sacri- fices has been converted into an absolute prohibition to take animal life. Sutra 8, which again is in prose, has no counterpart in the metrical Manusmrzti, as might be ex- pected from its allowing 'a full-grown ox' or ' a full-grown he-goat' to be killed in honour of a distinguished Brah- ma;/a or Kshatriya guest. A closely corresponding passage is found in the 6"atapatha-brahma«a, and a verse expressing the same opinion in the Ya^avalkya Smrttl, the versifica- tion of a Dharma-sutra of the White Ya^ur-veda. As the last part of the quotation resembles the text of the Brahmawa and its language is very archaic, it is quite possible that, though belonging to the passage from the Manava-sutra, it contains a Vedic text, taken from some hitherto unknown Brahmawa which Manu adduced in support of his opinion. On this supposition the arrange- ment of the whole quotation would be as follows. Sutra 5 would give the original rule of the author of the Manava in an aphoristic form ; Sutras 6-7 would repeat the same opinion in verse, the latter being probably .Slokas current among the Brahmanical community ; and Sutra 8 would give the Vedic authority for the preceding sentences. This arrangement would be in strict conformity vvitH the plan usually followed by the authors of Dharma-sutras. But whether Sutra 8 contains a second original aphorism of the Manava Dharma-sutra or a Vedic passage, it seems in- disputable that the author of the Vasish/^a Dharma-sutra knew a treatise attributed to a teacher called Manu, which, like all other Dharma-sutras, was partly written in apho-

who allow their religious convictions to get the better of their reason, will perhaps prefer Krtshnapam/ita's ingenious, but unsound explanation of the words iti manavam, by iti manumatam, ' such is the opinion of Manu.'

XX VASISHTVfA.

ristic prose and partly in verse. The passage furnishes, therefore, the proof for Professor Max Miiller's conjecture that our metrical Manusmr/ti, like all the older works of the same class, is based on the Dharma-sutra of a Vedic Sutra-Tarawa. In connexion with this subject it may be men- tioned that the Institutes of Vasish/^a contain, besides the above-mentioned passages, no less than thirty-nine verses 1, which are not marked as quotations, but occur in Bhngu's metrical Manusawhita. Some of them present more or less important variae lectiones. Moreover, there are four verses which, though Vasish/$a attributes them to Harita and Yama2, are included in our Manusmrzti and treated as utterances of the father of mankind. The bearing of both these facts on the history of the Manusm^'ti is obvious. But the frequency of the references to or quotations from Manu which Vasish/>&a makes, teaches another important lesson. L,ike the fact that Manu is the only individual author to whom Gautama refers 3, it shows that in ancient times Manu's name had as great a charm for the Brahman teachers as it has for those of the present day, and that the old Manava Dharma-sutra was one of the leading works on the subject, or, perhaps, even held that dominant position which the metrical Manusmn'ti actually occupied in the Middle Ages and theoretically occupies in our days. It is interesting to observe that precisely the same inference can be drawn from the early Sanskrit inscriptions. If these speak of individual authors of Smrztis, they invariably place Manu's name first 4.

Vasish//&a gives only one quotation from Harita, II, 6.
Harita was one of the ancient Sutrakaras of the Black
Ya^ur-veda, who is known also to Baudhdyana. From a
passage which Kr/shwapa«^ita quotes in elucidation of

1 VasishfAa Dharmasastra I, 22 ; II, 3, 10, 27, 48 ; III, 5, 11, 60 ; V, a ; VI, 6, 8,11,13,19; VIII, 7, 15; X, 21-22; XI, 27-28,32, 35"; XIII, 48; XIV, 13, 16, 18; XVI, 18, 33-34; XVII, 5, 8; XVIII, 14, 15; XIX, 48; XX, 18 ; XXV, 4-5, 7; XXVII, 3.

2 VasishCAa Dharmasastra II, 6 ; XVIII, 14-15 ; XIX, 48. 8 Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, p. Ivii.

4 See e. g the grant of Dhruvasena I, dated Samvat, i.e. Guptasamvat 207. PI. i, 1. 7; Ijid. Ant., vol. iv, p. 105.

INTRODUCTION. xxi

Vasish/^a XXIV, 6, I conclude that Harita was a Maitra- yawiya1. The relation of the Vasish/^a Dharma-sutra to Gautama and Baudhayana has already been discussed in the introduction to the translation of the former work2. To the remarks on its connexion with Baudhayana it must be added that the third Pra^na of the Baudhayana Dharma-sutra, from which Vasish///a's twenty-second chapter seems to have been borrowed, perhaps does not belong to the original work, but is a later, though presumably a very ancient, addition to the composition of the founder of the Baudhayana school. The reasons for this opinion will be given below. If Baudhayana's third Pra^na is not genuine, but has been added by a later teacher of that school, the interval be- tween Baudhayana and the author of the Vasish^a Dharma- jastra .must be a very considerable one. I have, however, to point out that the inference regarding the priority of Baudhayana to Vasish//&a is permissible only on the sup- position that Vasish^a's twenty-second chapter is not a later addition to the latter work, and that, though it is found in all our MSS., this fact is not sufficient to silence all doubts which might be raised with respect to its genuine- ness ; for we shall see presently that other chapters in the section on penances have been tampered with by a later hand. It will, therefore, be advisable not to insist too strongly on the certainty of the conclusion that Vasish//fca knew and used Baudhayana's work.

In the introduction to his translation of the Vishtfusmrzti 3, Professor Jolly has pointed out two passages of Vasish/^a which, as he thinks, have been borrowed from Vishwu, and prove the posteriority of the VasishMa Dharma^astra, if not to the Vishtfusmrz'ti, at least to its original, the Kanaka Dharma-sutra. He contends that the passage Vasish/^a XXVIII, 10-15 is a versification of the Sutras of Vish«u LVI, which, besides being clumsy, shows a number of

1 He says : JTW ** ^\T^iC I ^WfrSTCi: ^PI [Vt ^311 ?]

* Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, pp. liii-lv. 8 Sacred Books of the East, vol. vii, p. xviii.

corruptions and grammatical mistakes, and that Vasish///a XXVIII, 18-22 has been borrowed from Vish«u LXXXVII. Professor Jolly's assertion regarding the second passage in- volves, however, a little mistake. For the first two 51okas, Vasish//&a XXVIII, 18-19, describe not the gift of the skin of a black antelope, which is mentioned in the first six Sutras of Vishwu LXXXVII, but the rite of feeding Brahmans with honey and sesamum grains, which occurs Vish;m XC, 10. The three verses, Vasish/7/a XXVIII, 20-22, on the other hand, really are the same as those given by Visrwu LXXXVII, 8- j o. It is, however, expressly stated in the Vishmismrfti that they contain a quotation, and are not the original composition of the author of the Dharma-sutra. Hence no inference can be drawn from the recurrence of the same stanzas in the Vasish/^a Dharma-sutra. As regards the other passage, Vasish//fca XXVIII, 10-15, Professor Jolly is quite right in saying that it is a clumsy versification of Vishwu's Sutras, and it is not at all improbable that Vasish^a's verses may have been im- mediately derived from the Kanaka. The further inference as to the priority of the ancient Ka^aka-sutra to VasishAfa, which Professor Jolly draws from the comparison of the two passages, would also be unimpeachable, if the genuineness of Vasish/7/a's twenty-eighth chapter were certain. But that is unfortunately not the case. Not only that chapter, but the preceding ones, XXV-XXVII, in fact the whole section on secret penances, are, in my opinion, not only suspicious, but certainly betray the hand of a later restorer and cor- rector. Everybody who carefully reads the Sanskrit text of the Dharma-sutra will be struck by the change of the style and the difference in the language which the four chapters dn secret penances snow, as compared with the preceding and following sections. Throughout the whole of the first twenty-four chapters and in the last two chapters we find a mixture of prose and" verse. With one exception in the sixth chapter, where thirty-one verses form the beginning of the section on the rule of conduct, the author follows always one and the same plan in arranging his materials. His own rules are given first in the form of aphorisms, and after

Introduction. Xx1u

these follow the authorities for his doctrines, which consist either ofVedic passages or of verses, the latter being partly quotations taken from individual authors or works, partly specimens of the versified maxims current among the Brahmans, and sometimes memorial verses composed by the author himself. But chapters XXV-XXVIII contain not a single Sutrn. They are made up entirely of Anush/ubh 51okas, and the phrases l ' I will now declare,' ' Listen to my words,' which arc so characteristic of the style oi the later metrical SmMis and of" the Purawas, occur more frequently than is absolutely necessary. Again, in the first twenty-four and the last two chapters the language is archaic Sanskrit, interspersed here and there with Vedic anomalous forms. But in the four chapters on secret penances we have the common Sanskrit of the metrical Smr/tis and Pura-^as, with its incorrect forms, adopted in order to fit inconvenient words into the metre. Nor is this all. The contents of a portion of this suspicious section are merely useless repe- titions of matters dealt with already in the preceding chapters, while some verses contain fragmentary rules on a subject which is treated more fully further on. Thus the description of the Kr/HV/ra and ATandraya;/a penances, which has been given XXI, 20 and XXIV, 4/5, is repeated XXVII, 16, 21. Further, the enumeration of the purificatory texts XXVIII, 10-15 is merely an enlargement of XXII, 9. Finally, the verses XXVIII, 16—2-3 contain detached rules on gifts, and in the next chapter, XXIX, the subject is begun once more and treated at considerable length. Though it would be unwise to assume that all genuine productions of the old Sntrakaras must, throughout, show regularity and consistency, the differences between the four chapters and the remainder of the work, just pointed out. are, it seems to me. sufficient to warrant the conclusion that they do not belong to the author of the Institutes. Under these circumstances it might be assumed that the whole section is simply an interpolation. But that would be going too far. For, as other Dharma-sutras show, one or even several chapters on secret penances belonged to such works.

1 See XXV, i ; XXVII, 10 ; XXVIII, 10, 20.