________________
INTRODUCTION
TO THE
ÂSVALAYANA-GRIHYA-SÚTRA.
Most of the questions referring to the Grihya-sätra of Åsvaldyana will be treated of more conveniently in connection with the different subjects which we shall have to discuss in our General Introduction to the Grihya-sútras. Here I wish only to call attention to a well-known passage of Shadgurusishya, in which that commentator gives some statements on the works composed by Åsvalâyana and by his teacher Saunaka. As an important point in that passage has, as far as I can see, been misunderstood by several eminent scholars, I may perhaps be allowed here to try and correct that misunderstanding, though the point stands in a less direct connection with the Grihya-sätra than with another side of the literary activity of Asvalâyana.
Shadgurusishya', before speaking of Åsvalâyana, makes the following statements with regard to Åsvalâyana's teacher, Saunaka. There was,' he says, 'the Sakala Samhità (of the Rig-veda), and the Bâshkala Samhità ; following these two Samhitas and the twenty-one Brâhmanas, adopting principally the Aitareyaka and supplementing it by the other texts, he who was revered by the whole number of great Rishis composed the first Kalpa-sútra.' He then goes on to speak of Åsvalâyana –
Saunaka's pupil was the venerable Asvalâyana. He who knew everything he had learnt from that teacher, composed a Satra and announced (to Saunaka that he had done so) Saunaka then destroyed his own Sætra, and
See Max Müller's History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, pp. 230 seqq.; Indische Studien, I, 102.
* This seems to me to be the meaning of satram kritvå nya vedayat;
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