Vinaya Texts

SR No.: 007684
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids, Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2523
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 47 MB

Page 1788

INTRODUCTION.
xxvii
and is confirmed by an analogous passage of the aphoristic Dharmasåstra of Usanas", the author adduces there the opinions of four older authorities, all of which are credited by the Hindu tradition with the revelation of law-books. We still possess several Smritis attributed to Atri, Saunaka, and to Gautama, as well as one said to belong to Bhrigu. With the exception of the aphoristic Gautamîya Dharmasastra all these works are modern, some being metrical recensions of older Satras, and some of very doubtful origin. It is, therefore, impossible that any of the existing Dharmasastras, Atri, Saunaka, and Bhrigu, can be referred to by Manu, and, as a matter of fact, the opinions quoted cannot be traced in them. But if we turn to Gautama's Satra we find among those persons who defile the company at a Sraddha dinner, and who are thus excluded from the community of the virtuous, the südråpati, literally the husband of a Sudra female?' The real signification of the compound seems, however, to be, as Haradatta suggests,
he whose only wife or dharmapatnî is a Sadra. As it appears from Manu III, 17-19, that the opinion attributed to the son Utathya was the same, it is not at all unlikely that the Manu-smriti actually quotes the still existing Satra of Gautama. Another reference to a lost Satra occurs at Manu VI, 21, where it is said of the hermit in the forest, 'Or he may constantly subsist on flowers, roots, and fruit alone ......, following the rule of the (Institutes) of Vikhanas.' The original Sanskrit of the participial clause is vaikhânasamate sthitah,' and means literally “abiding by the Vaikhanasa opinion. The commentators, with the exception of Narayana, are unanimous in declaring that
Us. Dharmasastra, chap. III, qfarat gustafa: 1 a garanterat i Alave कलविहिताचासोनुपूर्षेण भायी भवतीति पसिह चाह । पतति न पत्तीति संशयः । वृपल्या पततीति हारीतः । जननात्पत्तीति शोनकः । तदपायः wanita : Though Usanas' statements regarding the opinions of the ancient lawyers do not agree with those of the Manu-smriti, except in the case of Saunaka, they are yet important, because they show that differences of opinion regarding the effects of a marriage with a Südrâ did occur. See also Jolly, Tagore Lectures, P. 53.
Gautama XV, 18; Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, p. 255.
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