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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1885.
who seems to have merely copied Kullaka's spite. examination of the relation of our Manu to the fal remarks at the end of the Mandarthamuktavali, Mahabharata. The latter undertaking will solve and the exposure of the true character of the latter. various questions which at present appear puzzl. Nobody who has compared the commentaries of ing. An incomplete investigation of the MahaGovindaraja and of Kullaka, can deny that the bharata, which I have lately made, has shown that latter author was an impudent plagiary, who about one-tenth of Manu's verses occurs in the epic, appropriated without a word of acknowledgment either entire or in part, sometimes literally and a very large portion of the work of his predecessor, sometimes with more or less important various and took good care to point out every slip of the readings. The peculiar character of the resemlatter in malicious prose or verse. There are only blances and of the differences makes the conclu. two points in this section on which I differ from sion inevitable that the authors of both works Professor Jolly. Mêdhatithi was not a Southerner, drew on the same source, and that this source but a Kasmirian. For he shows an intimate probably was the oral tradition of the law-schools. acquaintance with Kasmir and its Vedic Sakha If the existence of a large floating body of metri. the Kathaka, and he once gives a vernacular cal maxims on the sacred law is once established, Kaśmirian word. Secondly Gôvindaraja, the son it is no longer difficult to understand why the of Bhatta-Madhava, cannot have been a royal secondary Smritis are written throughout in epic author. The son of a Bhatta must have been a verse. Brahman. In Professor Jolly's remarks on the Lecture III., which treats of the minor Smritis modern law-schools I am glad to find fresh clear and of the fragments of lost law.books, gives us evidence showing that under native rule the the important results of Professor Jolly's exten. Mitakshard was considered a work of the highest sive and patient researches regarding this hitherto authority even in Central India. This is so much unduly neglected branch of legal literature. We the more valuable because Rao Saheb v. N. Mandlik receive here for the first time detailed accounts a short time ago denied the high position of Vijña. of the larger Ndrada and of the works of Bribasnêsvara's work. Very important, finally, is the clear pati, Katyayana, Dévala, Vyåsa, Sankha, Uśanas, exposition of the true character of the majority and other authors. The larger Narada turns out of the medieval Digests and Commentaries. Those to be the older version. This discovery will perwhich were written at the command of kings haps help to correct the view expressed by some were certainly intended for practical use in the scholars, according to which the Indian law-books law.courts. They might, I think, be fitly compared always grew in extent and never lost in bulk. with the edicts of the Roman praetore, because, The remarks on Brihaspati and Katyayana show like the latter, they lay down the principles on that both authors knew and used a law.book of which lawsuits were to be decided during a parti. Manu closely resembling or perhaps identical cular period, and in a particular territory
with the existing text. With respect to BrihasThe chief novelty in Lecture II. is the explana- pati's work-it is, I think, permissible to assert tion of the origin of the oldest metrical Smritis. confidently that it was a Virttika on our ManuI can, of course, only agree with the view that sarhitd, written in order to explain and to supple. they must be considered the manuals of certain, ment the rules of the latter. The only discreas yet nameless, special law.schools, which arose
pancy between Brihaspati and Manu noted by on the disruption of the ancient Vedic Charanas.
Professor Jolly at page 158 disappears, if it is Further details regarding this theory the outline borne in mind that Manu does not reckon the of which I first gave in my unpublished Vienna putriki among the subsidiary sons. The relation Lectures on Hindu law (Jolly, p. v. and 347) will of the Kdtydyanasmriti to Manu is more doubt. be found in my forthcoming introduction to ful. The quotation of a prose passage from a Manu. The remainder of this lecture contains Katydyana, which is made by Mêdhâtithi on a clear summary of the views held at present Manu, VIII. 215, indicates the former existence regarding the history of the Dharmasutras and of of a Katyayaniya Dharmasdtra, from which the
| metrical Smriti was probably derived. Professor to the Vishnusmriti, the modern representative Jolly's discovery, which I can only confirm, that of the Kathaka-Dharm isútra, it ought to be noted the so-called Brihat- or Vriddha-Manu was a later that one aphorism from the latter work is pre- recension of Bhrigu's Sanhita, deprives Professor served in Govindaraja's Smritimasjari. The Max Müller's opinion (according to which our Manu evidence adduced for the antiquity of our Manu must be later than the fifth century, because its requires sifting, and additional arguments may be predecessor, the Vriddha-Manu, enumerated the found by a further exploration of the classical signs of the zodiac) of its foundation. literature and of the inscriptions, as well as by an!
G. BÜHLER.
