Grihya Sutras

Author(s): Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford

Page 20

10
SÂNKHẨYANA-GRIHYA-SÛTRA.
designated as a parisish ta in a Kárikå quoted by Nârâyana :
parisish tâd avasathye pårvanàtikrame karuh
Vaisvânarâyâgnaye kâgnayel tantumate tatha. (According to the Parisishta, if one of the half-monthly sacrifices has been omitted, a mess of rice should be offered on the sacred domestic fire to Agni Vaisvânara and to Agni Tantumat.')
The passages of the 'Parisishta' here referred to are the two first aphorisms of V, 4:
Now if a half-monthly sacrifice has not been performed, one or the other of them, then a mess of rice (is to be offered)
With (the words), "To Agni Vaisvânara svâhâ ! To Agni Tantumat svâhâ !'".
There are, besides, several passages in which Nârâyana himself mentions the fifth book under the designation of Pariseshâdhyâya?. And even if we had not the authority of the Kârikâ and of Narayana, the contents alone of the fifth book would raise our suspicion against its genuineness. The matter ordinarily treated of in the Grihya texts is brought to an end in Adhyâyas I-IV; in the fifth book we find diverse supplementary additions on points discussed before; rules, which no doubt would have been given at their proper place, had the fifth book been composed at the same time, and by the same author, as the preceding books3. Besides, we find different prâyaskitta oblations treated of, and a description of two ceremonies which are mentioned, as far as I know, in no other Grihya-sútra, but belong to the rites frequently described in such works as Purânas, Parisishtas, and later Dharma texts: the consecration of ponds or wells (chap. 2), and the consecration of gardens (chap. 3).
There can thus be little doubt as to the secondary character of the fifth book. And this alone suffices to
1 vâgnaye the MS. Narayana on I, 9, 3; 10, 2.
The Paddhati inserts the paraphrase of several of these rules into the explanation of the first Adhyâya.
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