DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49827#0074
SMRITI FRAGMENTS.
59
Smritis at all,1 but merely the standard Commentaries and Lectuue
Digests, and accounts thus for the gradual loss of nearly all ]1!-
those works, which were not accompanied by an authori-
tative Commentary. It is not altogether impossible that a
complete copy of the Brihaspati, Khtyayana or some other
lost Smriti may hereafter be discovered in a forgotten nopk
of an Indian Library, just as a complete copy of Vasishtha’s
Dharmasutra and the»fragment of the older Narada-smriti
has not turned up till quite recently. But it is more pro-
bable that the Smritis of Katyayana, Brihaspati and the
rest had been embodied so completely in the early Digests,
that they gradually ceased to be studied, and even to be
copied, as independent works. »
Turning from these general remarks2 to those among Fragments
the lost Smritis that are specially important for Civil Law, ^tras™
I will first notice those works which, judging from the
fragments, were written in prose or in mixed prose and
verse, and may therefore be referred among the earliest class
of law-books, the Dharmasutras. Such works are th?
Harita, Cankhalikhita, Cankha, Uganas and Paithinasi
Smritis. The claim of the Haritasmriti to the title of Harita,
a Dharmasutra is supported by conclusive evidence of
two other kinds. First, there is one prose text attributed
to Harita, in which “ the holy Maitrayani ” is referred
to as an authority.3 This makes it probable that Harita
was the authoritative teacher of a school studying
the Maitrayani Cakha of the Yajurveda. Secondly, the
prose texts attributed to Harita show the same archaic
language and compact style as the Dharmasutras. Some of
the Clokas ascribed to Harita may also have belonged to
his Dharmasutra, which cannot have been entirely in
prose, as such an early work as the Dharmasutra of Vasish-
tha quotes from a metrical Smriti of Harita. But the
1 That they were consulted occasionally in important cases may be
seen from a passage of the Mayukha (IV. 5, 10), where a certain text
quoted from the Kalikapurana is said to possess no authority, because on
looking it up in two or three MSS. of that work $ has not been found in
them. However this observation is common to several Digest-writers,
and they can hardly be supposed to have consulted the Kalikapurana
each independently of the rest.
2 It may be observed here that the rather numerous and curious texts,
which are quoted in the Sarasvativilasa but nowhere else, have not been
extracted from ’that work, because their authenticity is more than
doubtful.
3 Buhler, Sacred Books, XIV, p. xxi.
59
Smritis at all,1 but merely the standard Commentaries and Lectuue
Digests, and accounts thus for the gradual loss of nearly all ]1!-
those works, which were not accompanied by an authori-
tative Commentary. It is not altogether impossible that a
complete copy of the Brihaspati, Khtyayana or some other
lost Smriti may hereafter be discovered in a forgotten nopk
of an Indian Library, just as a complete copy of Vasishtha’s
Dharmasutra and the»fragment of the older Narada-smriti
has not turned up till quite recently. But it is more pro-
bable that the Smritis of Katyayana, Brihaspati and the
rest had been embodied so completely in the early Digests,
that they gradually ceased to be studied, and even to be
copied, as independent works. »
Turning from these general remarks2 to those among Fragments
the lost Smritis that are specially important for Civil Law, ^tras™
I will first notice those works which, judging from the
fragments, were written in prose or in mixed prose and
verse, and may therefore be referred among the earliest class
of law-books, the Dharmasutras. Such works are th?
Harita, Cankhalikhita, Cankha, Uganas and Paithinasi
Smritis. The claim of the Haritasmriti to the title of Harita,
a Dharmasutra is supported by conclusive evidence of
two other kinds. First, there is one prose text attributed
to Harita, in which “ the holy Maitrayani ” is referred
to as an authority.3 This makes it probable that Harita
was the authoritative teacher of a school studying
the Maitrayani Cakha of the Yajurveda. Secondly, the
prose texts attributed to Harita show the same archaic
language and compact style as the Dharmasutras. Some of
the Clokas ascribed to Harita may also have belonged to
his Dharmasutra, which cannot have been entirely in
prose, as such an early work as the Dharmasutra of Vasish-
tha quotes from a metrical Smriti of Harita. But the
1 That they were consulted occasionally in important cases may be
seen from a passage of the Mayukha (IV. 5, 10), where a certain text
quoted from the Kalikapurana is said to possess no authority, because on
looking it up in two or three MSS. of that work $ has not been found in
them. However this observation is common to several Digest-writers,
and they can hardly be supposed to have consulted the Kalikapurana
each independently of the rest.
2 It may be observed here that the rather numerous and curious texts,
which are quoted in the Sarasvativilasa but nowhere else, have not been
extracted from ’that work, because their authenticity is more than
doubtful.
3 Buhler, Sacred Books, XIV, p. xxi.