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 1851

XC
LAWS OF MANU.
alone they adopt in each suc- beings), that alone it has ceeding creation.
spontaneously adopted in
each succeeding creation. 17. They turn to noxious- 29. Whatever he assigned ness or harmlessness, gentleness to each at the (first) creaor ferocity, virtue or sin, truth or tion, noxiousness or harmlessfalsehood, according to the ness, gentleness or ferocity, disposition with which they virtue or sin, truth or falsehood, were (first) created; hence that clung(afterwards)sponthat (particular course of action) taneously to it. pleases each.
The remainder of Vyasa's narrative, which continues through the following twenty-six verses, may be omitted, as, further on, it presents few points of contact with our Smriti. It must, however, be noticed that, according to verses 25-26, the Lord assigned to his creatures their names and conditions, in accordance with the words of the Veda.' This idea agrees with Manu I, 21, but the wording of the two passages differs very considerably.
The lesson which the facts, revealed by the above discussion, teach, is a double one. First, they clearly show that the editor of our metrical Manu-smriti has not drawn on the Mahabharata, but that the authors of both works have utilised the same materials. Secondly, they make it highly probable that the materials, on which both works are based, were not systematic treatises on law and philosophy, but the floating proverbial wisdom of the philosophical and legal schools which already existed in metrical form. The first point is so evident that it seems to me unnecessary to waste any more words on it. With respect to the second conclusion, I would point out that it is made unavoidable by the peculiar character of the differences found in closely connected Slokas, by the occurrence of identical lines and pådas in verses whereof the general sense differs, and by the faint, shadowy resemblance in words and ideas, observable in other pieces. I may add, further, that the supposition that each special school possessed such a body of metrical maxims is perfectly well founded.
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