Sacred Laws of Aryas

Author(s): Gorge Buhler
Publisher: Oxford

Page 12

INTRODUCTION.
prose works which latter, in the first instance, were destined to be committed to memory by the young Aryan students, and to teach them their duties. This circumstance, as well as the fact that Apastamba's work is free from any suspicion of having been tampered with by sectarians or modern editors, and that its intimate connection with the manuals teaching the performance of the great and small sacrifices, the Srauta and Grihya-sútras, which are attributed to the same author, is perfectly clear and indisputable, entitle it, in spite of its comparatively late origin, to the first place in a collection of Dharma-sútras.
The Åpastambîya Dharma-sútra forms part of an enor. mous Kalpa-sútra or body of aphorisms, which digests the teaching of the Veda and of the ancient Rishis regarding the performance of sacrifices and the duties of twice-born men, Brâhmanas, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, and which, being chiefly based on the second of the four Vedas, the Yagurveda in the Taittirîya recension, is primarily intended for the benefit of the Adhvaryu priests in whose families the study of the Yagur-veda is hereditary.
The entire Kalpa-sůtra of Åpastamba is divided into
od men, and as the last redestä Mann from the author of be
dharma-sâstra. I consider, therefore, the Satras as the principal source of the metrical Smritis, such as the Mânava-dharma-sastra, Yagnlavalkya-dharmasastra, &c., though there are also many other verses in these works which may be traced to different sources. They are paraphrases of verses of the Sambitás, or of passages of the Brahmanas, often retaining the same old words and archaic constructions which were in the original. This is indeed acknowledged by the author of the Mânava-dharma-sastra, when he says (B. II, v. 6), “The roots of the Law are the whole Veda (Sambitás and Brahmanas), the castoms and traditions of those who knew the Veda (as laid down in the Satras), the conduct of good men, and one's own satisfaction. The Mânava-dharmasastra may thus be considered as the last redaction of the laws of the Mânavas. Quite different is the question as to the old Mann from whom the family probably derived its origin, and who is said to have been the author of some very characteristic hymns in the Rig-veda-samhità. He certainly cannot be considered as the author of a Mânava-dharma-sastra, nor is there even any reason to suppose the author of this work to have had the same name. It is evident that the author of the metrical Code of Laws speaks of the old Manu as of a person different from himself, when he says (B. X, v. 63), 'Not to kill, not to lie, not to steal, to keep the body clean, and to restrain the senses, this was the short law which Manu proclaimed amongst the four castes.' Yours truly, M. M.
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