Sacred Laws of Aryas

Author(s): Gorge Buhler
Publisher: Oxford

Page 37

ÂPASTAMBA.
xxxvi
of the Âpastambya (read Âpastambîya) sâkhâ, a scion of the Vasishtha gotra1. Further, the eastern Kâlukya king Vigayâditya II2, who ruled, according to Dr. Fleet, from A.D. 799-843, presented a village to six students of the Hiranyakesi-sûtra and to eighteen students of the Apastamba, recte the Âpastamba-sûtra. Again, in the abovementioned earlier grant of the Pallava king Nandivarman, there are forty-two students of the Âpastambha-sûtra 3 among the 108 sharers of the village of Udayakandramangalam. Finally, on an ancient set of plates written in the characters which usually are called cave-characters, and issued by the Pallava king Simhavarman II, we find among the donees five Âpastambhîya Brahmanas, who, together with a Hairanyakesa, a Vâgasaneya, and a Sâma-vedî, received the village of Mangadûr, in Vengorâshtra *. This inscription is, to judge from the characters, thirteen to fourteen hundred years old, and on this account a very important witness for the early existence of the Âpastambîyas in Southern India.
Under the circumstances just mentioned, a casual remark made by Âpastamba, in describing the Srâddhas or funeral oblations, acquires considerable importance. He says (Dh. II, 7, 17, 17) that the custom of pouring water into the hands of Brahmanas invited to a Srâddha prevails among the northerners, and he indicates thereby that he himself does not belong to the north of India. If this statement is taken together with the above-stated facts, which tend to show that the Apastambîyas were and are restricted to the south of India, the most probable construction which can be put on it is that Âpastamba declares himself to be a southerner. There is yet another indication to the same effect contained in the Dharma-sûtra. It has been pointed
1 Colebrooke, Essays, II, p. 264, ver. 24 (Madras ed.)
2 See Hultzsch, South Indian Inscriptions, vol. i, p. 31 seqq., and Indian Antiquary, vol. xx, p. 414 seqq.
Apastambha may be a mistake for Apastamba. But the form with the aspirate occurs also in the earlier Pallava grant and in Devapâla's commentary on the Kâthaka Grihya-sutra.
Ind. Ant. V, 135.
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