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 1457

INTRODUCTION.
XXV
rules is warranted to a certain extent by corresponding rules occurring in the Smritis of Yâgñavalkya and Nârada; and the evidence for the modifications and entire transformations, which the code of Manu must have undergone in a number of successive periods, is so abundant, that the archaic character of many of its rules cannot be considered to constitute a sufficient proof of the priority of the whole code before other codes which contain some rules of a comparatively modern character. To this it must be added that the Nârada-smriti, though taken as a whole it is decidedly posterior to the code of Manu1, is designated by tradition as an epitome from another and more bulky recension of the code of Manu than the one which we now possess ; and if this statement may be credited, which is indeed rather doubtful, the very particular resemblance between both works in the law of evidence and in the rules regarding property (see LVIII) can only tend to corroborate the assumption that the Vishnu-sûtra and the Manu-smriti must have been closely connected from the first.
This view is capable of further confirmation still by a different set of arguments. The so-called code of Manu is universally assumed now to be an improved metrical edition of the ancient Dharma-sûtra of the (Maitrayanîya-) Mânavas, a school studying the Black Yagur-veda; and it has been shown above that the ancient stock of the Vishnusûtra, in which all the parts hitherto discussed may be included, represents in the main the Dharma-sutra of the Kârâyanîya-kathas, another school studying the Black Yagur-veda. Now these two schools do not only belong both to that Veda, but to the same branch of it, as may be seen from the Karanavyuha, which work classes both the Kathas and Kârâyanîyas on the one hand, and the Mânavas
See the evidence collected in the Preface to my Institutes of Nârada (London, 1876), to which the important fact may be added that Nârada uses the word dînâra, the Roman denarius. It occurs in a large fragment discovered by Dr. Bühler of a more bulky and apparently older recension of that work than the one which I have translated; and I may be allowed to mention, incidentally, that this discovery has caused me to abandon my design of publishing the Sanskrit text of the shorter recension, as it may be hoped that the whole text of the original work will soon come to light.
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