Sacred Laws of Aryas

Author(s): Gorge Buhler
Publisher: Oxford

Page 30

INTRODUCTION.
xxix
in several other cases he adopts a line of reasoning which fully agrees with that followed in Gaimini's Mimâmså-sätras. Thus the arguments !, that a revealed text has greater weight than a custom from which a revealed text may be inferred,' and that no text can be inferred from a custom for which a worldly motive is apparent,' exactly correspond with the teaching of Gaimini's Mimâmså-sútras I, 3, 3-4. The wording of the passages in the two works does not agree so closely that the one could be called a quotation of the other. But it is evident, that if Âpastamba did not know the Mîmâmsa-sútras of Gaimini, he must have possessed some other very similar work. As to the Vedanta, Åpastamba does not mention the name of the school. But Khandas 22, 23 of the first Patala of the Dharma-sútra unmistakably contain the chief tenets of the Vedantists, and recommend the acquisition of the knowledge of the Atman as the best means for purifying the souls of sinners. Though these two Khandas are chiefly filled with quotations, which, as the commentator states, are taken from an Upanishad, still the manner of their selection, as well as Apastamba's own words in the introductory and concluding Sûtras, indicates that he knew not merely the unsystematic speculations contained in the Upanishads and Aranyakas, but a well-defined system of Vedântic philosophy identical with that of Bâdarayana's Brahma-sætras. The fact that Åpastamba's Dharma-sâtra contains indications of the existence of these two schools of philosophy, is significant as the Púrvâ Mîmâmsâ occurs in one other Dharma-sútra only, that attributed to Vasishtha, and as the name of the Vedânta school is not found in any of the prose treatises on the sacred law.
Of non-Vedic works Åpastamba mentions the Purana. The Dharma-sútra not only several times quotes passages from 'a Purana' as authorities for its rules 2, but names in one case the Bhavishyat-purâna as the particular Purâna from which the quotation is taken: References to the
Åp. Dh. I, 6, 19, 13; 1, 10, 29, 7.
· Âp. Dh. I, 1, 14, 8, 9-10. Åp. Dh. II, 9, 24, 6.
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