Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 1452

XX
VISHNU.
the sections referred to directly from an old recension of this work, as Baudhayana has borrowed another chapter of his work from Gautama, while Vâsishtha in his turn has borrowed the same chapter from Baudhayana? It may be added in confirmation of this view, that as far as Vâsishtha is concerned, his work is the only Smriti, as far as I know, which contains a quotation from the 'Kathaka' (in XXIX, 18). The Dharma-sútras of Âpastamba and Gautama have nowhere a large number of consecutive Satras in common with the Vishnu-stra, but it is curious to note that the rule, which the latter (X, 45) quotes as the opinion of 'some' (eke), that a non-Brahmanical finder of a treasure, who announces his find to the king, shall obtain one-sixth of the value, is found in no other law-book except in this, which states (III, 61) that a Sûdra shall divide a treasuretrove into twelve parts, two of which he may keep for himself. Of the metrical law-books, one, the Yagñavalkyasmriti, has been shown by Professor Max Müller 2 to have borrowed the whole anatomical section (III, 84-104), including the simile of the soul which dwells in the heart like a lamp (III, 109, 111, 201), from this work (XCVI, 43-96; XCVII, 9); and it has been pointed out by the same scholar, that the verse in which the author of the former work speaks of the Aranyaka and of the Yoga-sâstra as of his own works (III, 110) does not occur in the Vishnu-sûtra. and must have been added by the versificator, who brought the Yâgñavalkya-smriti into its present metrical form. Several other Slokas in Yâgõavalkya's description of the human body (III, 99, 105–108), and nearly the whole section on Yoga (Y. III, I11-203, excepting those Slokas, the substance of which is found in this work and in the code of Manu, viz. 131-140, 177-182, 190, 198-201) may be traced to the same source, as may be also the omission of Vishnu's enumeration of the six limbs' (XCVI, 90) in the Yagñavalkya-smriti, and probably all the minor points on which it differs from this work. Generally speaking, those
1 See Bühler, Introduction to Gautama, pp. 1-liv. · Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 331.
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