History of Vegitarianism and Cow Veneration in India

Author(s): Willem B Bollee
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd

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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
of 5, 48 and 5, 39. Citation from our Manu text is, therefore, not improbable for Vas. IV 6, too. The numerous common Vas. and Manu stanzas and stanza-parts should be once again examined in the light of these suppositions. Already now it may be shown at least in two cases, that our Manu text is clearly more correct or older than that of Vas. [25]
1. In Manu 8, 98, dealt with by Lüders (1917 = 1940: 439), Vas. reads kanyânṛte instead of paśv-anṛte which, as Lüders (1940: 444) confirms, is unoriginal against paśv-anṛte. 2. Ibid., p. 441 Lüders writes:
Although it is certain in general that the versified text-books are later than those composed in prose, it appears to me to be certain that the authors of the sutras have often refashioned old memorial verses into prose ... In numerous cases, the original metrical character of the sutras still distinctly gleams through; in others it results from the content or by comparison with aphoristic literature.73
If, in recollection of these sentences, one reads in Vas. VIII 4f.: sayam āgatam atithim nâparundhyāt/nâsyân-aśnan gṛhe vaset, then one can easily suppose that these two sūtras are nothing more than one śloka, of which the third pada and the last four syllables of the second (perchance 'kadācana'?) have been omitted. This supposition is confirmed by the Manu verse (3, 105) corresponding to the content, in which the sutra Vas. VIII 5 appears as the last pāda: a-pranodyo 'tithiḥ sayam sūryôḍho gṛha-medhinā/kāle prāptas tv a-kāle vā nâsyân-aśnan gṛhe vaset. At the same time, we can with greatest probability take from this stanza the missing third pada between Vas. VIII 4 and 5, since a little later we read as sūtra 8 the sloka: nâikagrāmīna atithir vipraḥ sāmgatikas tathā/kāle prāpto a-kāle vā nâsyânaśnan grhe vaset. Bühler translates this thus:
73 'So gewiß im allgemeinen. die versifizierten Lehrbücher jünger sind als die in Prosa abgefaßten, so gewiß scheint es mir zu sein, daß die SūtraVerfasser so und so oft alte Memorialverse in Prosa aufgelöst haben... In zahlreichen Fällen schimmert der ursprünglich metrische Charakter von Sūtras noch deutlich durch, in anderen ergibt er sich aus dem Inhalt oder durch Vergleich mit der Spruchliteratur' (WB).
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