DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52359#0014
X
VISHNU.
used for this translation, and the principles of interpreta-
tion 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 exa-
mining the quotations from, and analogies with, Vedic
works which it contains. Thus the Gautama Dharma-
^astra might have originated in any one among the divers
Gautama Warazzas with which Indian tradition acquaints
us. But the comparatively numerous passages which its
author has borrowed from the Sazzzhita and from one Brah-
mazza of the Sama-veda prove that it must belong to one
of those Gautama Warazzas who studied the Sama-veda1.
Regarding the code of Yagmavalkya we learn from tradi-
tion that a Vedic teacher of that name was the reputed
author of the White Yag'ur-veda. But this coincidence
might be looked upon as casual, if the Ya^navalkya-smrzti
did not contain a number of Mantras from that Vedic
Sazzzhita, and a number of very striking analogies, in the
section on funeral ceremonies particularly, with the Gz'zhya-
sutra of the Vagmsaneyins, the Katiya Gz'zhya-sutra of Para-
skara2. In the case of the Vishzzu-sutra 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 Vishzzu 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 Pratikas
(beginnings of Mantras) quoted in this work, it is neces-
sary to leave aside, as being of no moment for the present
purpose, i. very well-known Mantras, or, speaking more
1 See Buhler, Introduction to Gautama (Vol. II of the Sacred Books of the
East), pp. xlv-xlviii.
2 Buhler, Introduction to Digest, p. xxxii ; Stenzler, on Paraskara’s Grzhya-
sutra, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, VII, p. 527 seq.
VISHNU.
used for this translation, and the principles of interpreta-
tion 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 exa-
mining the quotations from, and analogies with, Vedic
works which it contains. Thus the Gautama Dharma-
^astra might have originated in any one among the divers
Gautama Warazzas with which Indian tradition acquaints
us. But the comparatively numerous passages which its
author has borrowed from the Sazzzhita and from one Brah-
mazza of the Sama-veda prove that it must belong to one
of those Gautama Warazzas who studied the Sama-veda1.
Regarding the code of Yagmavalkya we learn from tradi-
tion that a Vedic teacher of that name was the reputed
author of the White Yag'ur-veda. But this coincidence
might be looked upon as casual, if the Ya^navalkya-smrzti
did not contain a number of Mantras from that Vedic
Sazzzhita, and a number of very striking analogies, in the
section on funeral ceremonies particularly, with the Gz'zhya-
sutra of the Vagmsaneyins, the Katiya Gz'zhya-sutra of Para-
skara2. In the case of the Vishzzu-sutra 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 Vishzzu 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 Pratikas
(beginnings of Mantras) quoted in this work, it is neces-
sary to leave aside, as being of no moment for the present
purpose, i. very well-known Mantras, or, speaking more
1 See Buhler, Introduction to Gautama (Vol. II of the Sacred Books of the
East), pp. xlv-xlviii.
2 Buhler, Introduction to Digest, p. xxxii ; Stenzler, on Paraskara’s Grzhya-
sutra, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, VII, p. 527 seq.