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INTRODUCTION.
xxi
Vasishtha XXIV, 6, I conclude that Hârîta was a Maitrâyanîya1. The relation of the Vâsishtha Dharma-sutra to Gautama and Baudhâyana has already been discussed in the introduction to the translation of the former work 2. To the remarks on its connexion with Baudhâyana it must be added that the third Prasna of the Baudhâyana Dharma-sûtra, from which Vasishtha's twenty-second chapter seems to have been borrowed, perhaps does not belong to the original work, but is a later, though presumably a very ancient, addition to the composition of the founder of the Baudhâyana school. The reasons for this opinion will be given below. If Baudhâyana's third Prasna is not genuine, but has been added by a later teacher of that school, the interval between Baudhâyana and the author of the Vâsishtha Dharmasâstra must be a very considerable one. I have, however, to point out that the inference regarding the priority of Baudhayana to Vasishtha is permissible only on the supposition that Vasishtha's twenty-second chapter is not a later addition to the latter work, and that, though it is found in all our MSS., this fact is not sufficient to silence all doubts which might be raised with respect to its genuineness; for we shall see presently that other chapters in the section on penances have been tampered with by a later hand. It will, therefore, be advisable not to insist too strongly on the certainty of the conclusion that Vasishtha knew and used Baudhâyana's work.
In the introduction to his translation of the Vishnusmriti3, Professor Jolly has pointed out two passages of Vasishtha which, as he thinks, have been borrowed from Vishnu, and prove the posteriority of the Vâsishtha Dharmasâstra, if not to the Vishnusmriti, at least to its original, the Kathaka Dharma-sûtra. He contends that the passage Vasishtha XXVIII, 10-15 is a versification of the Sûtras of Vishnu LVI, which, besides being clumsy, shows a number of
1 He says: तथा च हारीतः । तदेतद्वाह्मणः पुत्राय ['यो नापुत्राय ?] नाशिष्याय नासमा निकाय नासंवत्सरोषिताय नाविदितकुलशीलाचाराय दद्यादित्याह भगघानयोनिजो रश्मिसंभवो मित्रयुतो [?] मैत्रायणिरिति ॥
Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, pp. liii-lv.
* Sacred Books of the East, vol. vii, p. xviii.
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