8 Baudhayana'e treatment of the subject of penances is very un- methodical. He devotes to them the following sections: II, 1-2; II, 2, 3, 48-53 ; II, 2, 4 ; III, 5-10 ; and the greater part of Prasna IV.
]vi GAUTAMA.
even an additional argument in favour of the priority of
Gautama's text. It must, however, be admitted that the
value of this point is seriously diminished by the fact that
Baudhayana's third Pra^na is not above suspicion and may
be a later addition l.
As regards Baudhayana's second reference to Gautama, the opinion which it attributes to the latter is directly opposed to the teaching of our Dharmajastra. Baudha- yana gives II, 2, 4, 16 the rule that a Brahmawa who is unable to maintain himself by teaching, sacrificing, and receiving gifts, may follow the profession of a Kshatriya, and then goes on as follows a :
' 17. Gautama declares that he shall not do it. For the duties of a Kshatriya are too cruel for a Brahma«a.'
As the commentator Govindasvamin also points out, exactly the opposite doctrine is taught in our Dharma- jastra, which (VII, 6) explicitly allows a Brahmawa to follow, in times of distress, the occupations of a Kshatriya. Govindasvamin explains this contradiction by assuming that in this case Baudhayana cites the opinion, not of the author of our Dharma^astra, but of some other Gautama. According to what has been said above 3, the existence of two or even more ancient Gautama Dharma-sutras is not very improbable, and the commentator may possibly be right. But it seems to me more likely that the Sutra of Gautama (VII, 6) which causes the difficulty is an inter- polation, though Haradatta takes it to be genuine. My reason for considering it to be spurious is that the per- mission to follow the trade of arms is opposed to the sense of two other rules of Gautama. For the author states at the end of the same chapter on times of distress, VII, 25, that ' even a Brahma«a may take up arms when his life is in danger.' The meaning of these words can only be, that a Brahma#a must not fight under any other circumstances.
1 See Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv, p. xxxiv seq. 3 Baucih. Dh. II, 2, 4, 17.
%fjf jftmfiTjqi f? ^rw Tnrara n
' See p. Hi.
But according to Sutra 6 he is allowed to follow the occu- pations of a Kshatriya, who lives by fighting. Again, in the chapter on funeral oblations. XV, 18, those Brahmawas ' who live by the use of the bow ' are declared to defile the company at a funeral dinner. It seems to me that these two Sutras, taken together with Baudhayana's asser- tion that Gautama does not allow Brahmawas to become warriors, raise a strong suspicion against the genuineness, of VII. 6, and I have the less hesitation in rejecting the latter Sutra, as there are several other interpolated passages in the text received by Haradatta1. Among them I may mention here the Mantras in the chapter taken from the Samavidhana, XXVI, 12, where the three invocations addressed to Siva are certainly modem additions, as the old Sutrakaras do not allow a place to that or any other Paura'wic deity in their works. A second interpolation will be pointed out below.
The Vasish///a Dharma-sOtra shows also two quotations from Gautama ; and it is a curious coincidence that, just as in the case of Baudhayana's references, one of them only can be traced in our Dharma^astra. Both the quotations occur in the section on impurity, Vas. IV, where we read as follows *:
'33. If an infant aged less than two years, dies, or in the case of a miscarriage, the impurity of the Sapi«</as (lasts) for three (days and) nights.
' 34. Gautama declares that (they become) pure at once (after bathing).
' 35. If (a person) dies in a foreign country and (his
SapiWas) hear (of his death) after the lapse of ten days,
the impurity lasts for one (day and) night.
' 36. Gautama declares that if a person who has kindled the sacred fire dies on a journey, (his SaptJK&s) shall again
1 In some MSS. a whole chapter on the results of various sins in a second birth is inserted after Adhyaya XIX. But Haradatta does not notice it ; see Stenzler, Gautama, Preface, p. iii.
2 In quoting the VasishMa Dh. I always refer to the Benares edition, which is accompanied by the commentary of Krishwapam/ita Dhannadhikarin, called Vidvaumodini.
celebrate his obsequies, (burning a dummy made of leaves
or straw;) and remain impure (during ten days) as (if they
had actually buried) the corpse.'
The first of these two quotations or references apparently points to Gautama Dh. XIV, 44, where it is said, that 'if an infant dies, the relatives shall be pure at once.' For, though Vasish/£a's SOtra 34, strictly interpreted, would mean, that Gautama declares the relatives to be purified instantaneously, both if an infant dies and if a miscarriage happens, it is also possible to refer the exception to one of the two cases only, which are mentioned in SOtra 33. Similar instances do occur in the Sutra style, where brevity is estimated higher than perspicuity, and the learned commentator of Vasish//*a does not hesitate to adopt the same view. But, as regards the second quotation in Sutra 36, our Gautama contains no passage to which it could possibly refer. Govindasvamin, in his commentary on the second reference to Gautama in Bau- dhayana's Dharma^astra II, 2, 71, expresses the opinion that this Sutra, too, is taken from the 'other' Gautama Dharma-sutra, the former existence of which he infers from Baudhayana's passage. And curiously enough the regarding the second funeral actually is found in the metrical Vraldha-Gautama l or Vaishwava Dharma-^astra, which, according to Mr. Vaman Shastri Islampurkar 2, forms chapters 94-1 15 of the A^vamedha-parvan of the Maha- bharata in a Malayalam MS. Nevertheless, it seems to me very doubtful if Vasish/^a did or could refer to this work. As the same rule occurs sometimes in the Srauta- sutras 3, 1 think it more probable that the Srauta-sutra of the Gautama school is meant. And it is significant that the Wzddha-Gautama declares its teaching to be kalpa^o- dita * enjoined in the Kalpa or ritual.'
Regarding Gautama's nineteenth chapter, which appears in the Vasish/^a Dharma^astra as the twenty-second, I have
1 Dharmarastra sa/wgraha (Clbahand), p. 627, Adhy. 20, i seqq.
8 Parirara Dharma Sawhita (Bombay Sansk. Series, No. xlvii), vol. i, p. 9.
1 See e. g. A p. .Sr. Sfl.
INTRODUCTION. lix
already stated above that it is not taken directly from Gautama's work, but from Baudhayana's. For it shows most of the characteristic readings of the latter. But a few new ones also occur, and some Sutras have been left out, while one new one, a well-known verse regarding the efficacy of the Vauvanara vratapati and of the Pavitreshri, has been added. Among the omissions peculiar to Va- sish/>&a, that of the first Sutra is the most important, as it alters the whole character of the chapter, and removes one of the most convincing arguments as to its original position at the head of the section on penances. Vasish///a places it in the beginning of the discussion on penances which are generally efficacious in removing guilt, and after the rules on the special penances for the classified offences.
These facts will, I think, suffice to show that the Gautama Dharma.jastra may be safely declared to be the oldest of the existing works on the sacred law1. This assertion must, however, not be taken to mean, that every single one of its Sutras is older than the other four Dharma- sfltras. Two interpolations have already been pointed out above 2, and another one will be discussed presently. It is also not unlikely that the wording of the Sutras has been changed occasionally. For it is a suspicious fact that Gautama's language agrees closer with Pawini's rules than that of Apastamba and Baudhayana. If it is borne in mind that Gautama's work has been torn out of its original connection, and from a school-book has become a work of general authority, and that for a long time it has been studied by Pandits who were brought up in the traditions of classical grammar, it seems hardly likely that it could retain much of its ancient peculiarities of language. But I do not think that the interpolations and alterations can have affected the general character of the book very much. It is too methodically planned and too carefully arranged to admit of any very great changes. The fact, too, that in
1 Professor Stenzler, too, had arrived independently at this conclusion, see Grnndriss der Indo-Ar. Phil, und Altertumsk., vol. ii, Pt. 8, p. 5. ' See p. Ivii.
Ix GAUTAMA.
the chapter borrowed by Baudhayana the majority of the variae lectiones are corruptions, not better readings, favours this view. Regarding the distance in time between Gautama on the one hand, and Baudhayana and Vasish/^a on the other, I prefer not to hazard any conjecture, as long as the position of the Gautamas among the schools of the Sama- veda has not been cleared up. So much only can be said that Gautama probably was less remote from Baudhayana than from Vasish/V&a. There are a few curious terms and rules in which the former two agree, while they, at the same time, differ from all other known writers on Dharma. Thus the term bhikshu, literally a beggar, which Gautama l uses to denote an ascetic, instead of the more common yati or sannyasin, occurs once also in Baudhayana's Sutra. The same is the case with the rule, III, 13, which orders the ascetic not to change his residence during the rains. Both the name bhikshu and the rule must be very ancient, as the £ainas and Buddhists have borrowed them, and have founded on the latter their practice of keeping the Vasso, or residence in monasteries during the rainy season.
As the position of the Gautamas among the SSman schools is uncertain, it will, of course, be likewise inad- visable to make any attempt at connecting them with the historical period of India. The necessity of caution in this respect is so obvious that I should not point it out, were it not that the Dharmajastra contains one word, the occurrence of which is sometimes considered to indicate the terminus a quo for the dates of Indian works. The word to which I refer is Yavana. Gautama quotes, IV, 21, an opinion of 'some,' according to which a Yavana is the off- spring of a Sudra male and a Kshatriya female. Now it is well known that this name is a corruption of the Greek 'Ia/W, an Ionian, and that in India it was applied, in ancient times, to the Greeks, and especially to the early Seleucids who kept up intimate relations with the first Mauryas, as well as later to the Indo-Bactrian and Indo-Grecian kings who from the beginning of the second century B. C. ruled
* Gaut. Dh. Ill, a, 1 1 • see also Weber, Hist. lad. Lit., p. 327 (English ed.)
over portions of north-western India. And it has been occasionally asserted that an Indian work, mentioning the Yavanas, cannot have been composed before 300 B. c., because Alexander's invasion first made the Indians ac- quainted with the name of the Greeks. This estimate is certainly erroneous, as there are other facts, tending to show that at least the inhabitants of north-western India became acquainted with the Greeks about 200 years earlier1. But it is not advisable to draw any chrono- logical conclusions from Gautama's Sutra, IV, 21. For, as pointed out in the note to the translation of Sutra IV, 18, the whole section with the second enumeration of the mixed castes, IV, 17-21, is probably spurious.
