Jolly, Julius [VerfasserIn]: Outlines of an history of the Hindu law of partition, inheritance, and adoption: as contained in the original Sanskrit treatises (Calcutta, 1885)

NEW MATERIALS FOR A HISTORICAL STUDY OF HINDU
LAW.
3.—THE MINOR SMRITIS AND THE SMRIT1
FRAGMENTS.

Number of the Smritis— Minor Smritis — Works in the Siitra style — Metric"
Smritis—Harfta— Sectarian works — Lost works on Civil Law — rhe
recently discovered fragment of Narada— Date of the Narada-smriti —
Introduction to Narada—The quotations — The lost Smritis—Fragments
of Dharmasutras — Harfta, — Cankhalikhita, — Cankha, — Ucanas and
Paithinasi — Brihaspati and Katyayana— Brihaspati— Katyayana—Com-
parison of these two authors with Yajnavalkya and Narada—Fragments
of minor works — 1. Independent works — Vyasa — Devala —Pitamaha —
Miscellaneous fragments— 2. The several redactions of divers Smritis —
3. Metrical fragments attributed to the authors of Dbarmasturas and to Manti
and Yajnavalkya — 4. Anonymous texts—Date of the Metrical Smriti
fragments — Legal rules in the Sanskrit play Mricchakatika — Importance
of the Smriti fragments.
Number of
The important Smriti works noticed in the last Lecture tlie Smritls
represent merely a few select specimens picked out of the
vast and almost immense field of Smriti literature. The
Introductions to the Yajnavalkya and Paragara Smritis name
twenty teachers of the Sacred Law. A well-known metrical
Smriti, the Chaturvimgati-smriti, owes its naw to its being
based on the teaching of the twenty-four earlier authors who
are enumerated in the Introduction to* that work, and
another metrical Smriti is similarly called the Shattrim-
ganmata as recording “the opinions of 36 authors.” The
figure 36 represents the number of the “Smritis according
to the now current tradition, which distinguishes between
eighteen Smritis and 18 Upa-smritis or secondary Smritis.
The same statement occurs in some of the Smritis them-
selves, notably’in the Paithinasi and Angiras-smritis,1 and in

1 Hemadri, Danakhanda, pp. 527—529,