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 1454

xxii
VISHNU.
as far as the civil and criminal laws are concerned, that the former enumerates them quite promiscuously, just like the other Dharma-sätras, with which he agrees besides in separating the law of inheritance from the body of the laws, whereas Yâgñavalkya enumerates all the laws in the order of the eighteen 'titles of law' of Manu and the more recent law-books, though he does not mention the titles of law by name.
However much the Vishnu-sútra may have in common with the Yâgñavalkya-smriti, there is no other law-book with which it agrees so closely as with the code of Manu. This fact may be established by a mere glance at the references in the foot-notes to this translation, in which Manu makes his appearance far more frequently and constantly than any other author, and the case becomes the stronger, the more the nature of these analogies is inquired into. Of Slokas alone Vishnu has upwards of 160 in common with Manu, and in a far greater number of cases still his Sûtras agree nearly word for word with the corresponding rules of Manu. The latter also, though he concurs in a very great number of points with the other law authors as well, agrees with none of them so thoroughly as with Vishnu. All the Smritis of Âpastamba, Baudhayana, Vâsishtha, Yagñavalkya, and Narada contain, according to an approximate calculation, no more than about 130 Slokas, that are found in the code of Manu as well. The latter author and Vishnu differ of course on a great many minor points, and an exhaustive discussion of this subject would fill a treatise; I must therefore confine myself to notice some of those differences, which are particularly important for deciding the relative priority of the one work before the other. In a number of Slokas Manu's readings are decidedly older and better than Vishnu's. Thus the latter (XXX, 7) compares the three 'Atigurus' to the three gods,' i.e. to the post-Vedic Trimûrti of 'Brahman, Vishnu, and Siva,' as the commentator expressly states, whereas Manu in an analogous Sloka (II, 230) refers to the three orders' instead. At the end of the section on inheritance (XVIII, 44) Vishnu mentions among other
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