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INTRODUCTION.
xvii
which belong to the latest productions of the Smriti epoch of Hindu Law, but its legal rules and judicial theories have a decidedly more advanced character than either Vishnu's or Yagnavalkya's. The Smriti of Vishnu cannot belong to an earlier period than the third century A. D. 1, and the Yagnavalkya Smriti is not likely to be anterior to it in date2.
Again, the judicial trial which is described in the welland with the drama known drama Mrikkhakatikâ corresponds Mrikkhakatikâ. in all essential features to the rules laid down in Nârada's chapter on 'The Plaint 3.' If, then, the Nâradiya Dharmasastra and the Mrikkhakatika are contemporaneous productions, we have a further reason for assigning the composition of the former work to the fifth or sixth century A. D. It may also be noted that Nârada (XII, 74) regards sexual intercourse with a female ascetic, pravragitâ, as a kind of incest. In the earlier Indian dramas likewise, such as Kâlidâsa's Mâlavikâgnimitra and Sûdraka's Mrikkhakatikâ, the position of nuns and monks is highly dignified.
The term Dinâra.
Last, not least, the European term Dînâra, i. e. denarius or δηνάριον, which is so important for the purposes of Indian chronology, occurs repeatedly in the Nârada-smriti. In the first passage (Introd. II, 34, p. 32), Dînâras are mentioned among other objects made of gold, and it would seem that a gold coin used as an ornament is meant, such as e. g. the necklaces made of gold mohurs, which are being worn in India at the present day. A string of Dînâras' (dînâra- mâlaya) used as a necklace occurs in a well-known Jain work, the Kalpa-sutra of Bhadrabâhu. It is, however, possible that the 'Dînâras or other golden things' may be gold coins simply, and that Nârada means to refer to forged or otherwise counterfeit coins. The second passage (Appendix v. 60, p. 232) is specially valuable, because it contains an exact
1 Sacred Books of the East, vol. vii, p. xxxii.
'Tagore Law Lectures, p. 49.
'See, particularly, p. 27, note on 18.
• See Dr. Jacobi's edition, par. 36 (p. 44), and the same scholar's translation of the Kalpa-sûtra, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxii, p. 232.
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