A History of Sanskrit Literature c30.s2.8

c30.s2.8

While we may readily believe that the kernel in some degree of the Smṛti was formed by an older Dharmasūtra, and, while it is natural to see in this the *Mānava Dharmasūtra* of a branch of the Maitrāyaṇīya school of the Black Yajurveda, it must be admitted that no strict proof is possible. The *Vāsiṣṭha Dharmaçāstra*¹ cites from the Mānava a long passage in prose and verse which agrees in part with the Smṛti, and some minor detailed similarities can be traced between the Smṛti and the fortunately extant Gṛhyasūtra of the Mānavas.² The difficulties in the text which here and there occur, and occasional incongruities, may best be accounted for by use of an old Sūtra. The Smṛti itself ascribes its origin to Brahman, whence it came to men via Manu and Bhṛgu; while the *Nārada Smṛti* tells of a Smṛti in 100,000 verses by Manu reduced to 12,000 by Nārada, 8,000 by Mārkaṇḍeya and 4,000 by Sumati, son of Bhṛgu. This might suggest that there was a successive series of redactions of the original Sūtra, and the inconsistencies in the Smṛti, as well as later allusions to a *Vṛddha-Manu* and *Bṛhan-Manu*,³ have been adduced in support of this view. It seems, however, much more probable that the Smṛti is an early attempt at composition, whence its defects, while the larger texts were writings up of a popular original. Unfortunately we cannot find any historical event to explain precisely why the new effort became specially appropriate; there was a Brahmanical revival in the first century B.C.,¹ though on a small scale and no great duration, and the Gupta revival of the fourth century is probably rather late for the composition of the work. In what sense it was an individual production or the work of a group we cannot say.