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INTRODUCTION.
manuals of their own which differed from the Dharmasůtras. In favour of this opinion the metrical quotation at Baudhayana II, 4, 14–15 may be adduced, as it seems to have been taken from a work in Anushtubh-Slokas?. Though the unsatisfactory state of the text of Baudhayana does not allow us to insist too strongly on this passage, it is undeniable that the formation of special law schools must inevitably lead after a short time to the composition of manuals for their use. It is, no doubt, true that their founders possessed in the Dharma-sútras, the number of which, to judge from the quotations, must have been very great, plentiful materials on which they could base their investigations. But the treatment of a science from a new point of view was in itself an incentive to the production of new manuals, and there were in the case of the special law schools also other reasons which made such a course desirable. Minute as the Dharma-sūtras generally are on the majority of the topics connected with the moral duties of Åryas, their arrangement of the rules is frequently unsystematic, and their treatment of the legal procedure, the civil and the criminal law, with the exception of one single title, the dâyavibhaga, i. e. the law of inheritance and partition, extremely unsatisfactory. With respect to the other titles, the Dharma-satras give nothing more than a few hints, intended to indicate the general principles, but they never proceed systematically, and always show most embarrassing omissions. From the standpoint of the Vedic schools, a more detailed and orderly treatment of these matters was, of course, irrelevant, as their chief aim was to point out the road to the acquisition of spiritual merit, and to guard their pupils against committing sin. Though some of their members might be called upon, and no doubt actually were destined in later life, to become practical lawyers, as Dharmadhikårins, i.e. legal advisers of kings and chiefs, or as judges, and to settle the law between man and man, the few general principles which they had learnt during their course of instruction would suffice for their wants. For the details
* Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv, p. xli.
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| SR No. | 007684 |
| Book Title | Vinaya Texts |
| 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 |