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INTRODUCTION
xxix
texts here translated we find a somewhat detailed account of these ceremonies in the Gobhila-sätra and in the Khadira-Grihya only!
These remarks cannot claim to give a complete outline of the contents and arrangement of the Grihya texts; they only aim at giving an idea of the fundamental traits, which in each particular text are modified by manifold variations, but which nevertheless are to these variations as the rule is to the exceptions.
We must now speak of the relations of the Grihya-sätras to the two other kinds of Satra texts, with which they have so many points of contact in the Srauta-stras and the Dharma-stras.
Prof. Bühler, in several places of the excellent introductions which he has prefixed to his translations of the Dharma-sätras, has called attention to the fact that the relation in which the Satra texts of the same school stand to each other is very different in different schools. Many schools possess a great corpus of Satras, the parts of which are the Srauta-stra, the Grihya-stra, &c. This is, for instance, the case with the Apastambiya school?; its Satra is divided into thirty Prasnas, the contents of which are divided as follows:
I-XXIV: Srauta-sútra. XXV: Paribhashås, &c. XXVI: Mantras for the Grihya-stra. XXVII: Grihya-sätra XXVIII-XXIX: Dharma-sätra. XXX: Sulva-sätra.
In other cases the single Satra texts stand more independently side by side; they are not considered as parts of one and the same great work, but as different works. Of course it is the Dharma-sätras above all which could be freed from the connection with the other Satra texts to such an extent, that even their belonging to a distinct Vedic school may be doubtful. The contents
Gobhila IV, 5 seq.; Khad. IV, 1 seq. * Bühler, Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, pp. xi seq.
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