Grihya Sutras

SR No.: 007685
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1886
Total Pages: 2642
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 512

xiv
GRIHYA-SUTRAS.
context of the first line is different, but the metre is the
same:
111700
-
medhâm te Mitrâvarunau.
Or the saying with which the pupil (brahmakârin) has to lay a log of wood on the fire of the teacher1:
13 U
5110 Agnaye samidham åhårsham
13
C
31
- || - tayâ tvam Agne vardhasva.
11
(
There would be no object in multiplying the number of examples; those here given are sufficient to prove our proposition, that the development of the Grihya rites in the form in which they are described to us in the Sûtras, that especially their being accompanied with verses, which were to be recited by their performance, is later than the time of the oldest Vedic poetry, and coincides rather with the transition period in the development of the Anushtubh metre, a period which lies between the old Vedic and the later Buddhistic and epic form.
Besides the formulae intended to be recited during the performance of the various sacred acts, the Grihya-sûtras contain a second kind of verses, which differ essentially from the first kind in regard to metre; viz. verses of ritualistic character, which are inserted here and there between the prose Sûtras, and of which the subject-matter is similar to that of the surrounding prose. We shall have to consider these yagñagâthâs, as they are occasionally called, later; at present let us go on looking for traces of the Grihya ritual and for the origin of Grihya literature in the literature which precedes the Sutras.
The Brahmana texts, which, as a whole, have for their subject-matter the Vaitânika ceremonies celebrated with the three holy fires, furnish evidence that the Grihya fire, together with the holy acts accomplished in connection with it, were also already known. The Aitareya-Brahmana gives this
2
1 Arvalâyana-Grihya I, 21, 1. In Pâraskara and in the Mantra-Brahmana only the first hemistich has the Anushubh form.
Aitareya-Brahmana VIII, 10, 9: etya grihân paskâd grihyasyâgner upa
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