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A History of Sanskrit Literature c30.s3: 3. The Later Smṛtis

A History of Sanskrit Literature c30.s3

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English

3. The Later Smṛtis

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If we were to believe the *Nārada Smṛti*,¹ it would represent an older account of Manu's views than the *Manu Smṛti*, but the claim is disproved by the contents; it subdivides titles of law into 132, has 15 kinds of slaves, 21 ways of acquiring property, 5 ordeals, 11 classes of witnesses, and lays great stress on records in procedure and written proofs. The term *dīnāra* suggests a date not before the second century A.D.; Bāṇa in the seventh knows it, and Asahāya commented on it in the eighth. It is preserved in two recensions; a prose preface in one claims it as chapter ix of Nārada's recension of Manu, and an old Nepalese manuscript supports the claim, but its validity is dubious. The text cannot vie with Manu in importance, but it here and there contains passages of the same earnestness, as in the admonishments directed to witnesses warning them that 'truth is the one mode of winning purity, truth the ship that bears men to heaven, truth weighed against a thousand horse sacrifices outweighs them, truth is the highest oblation, the highest asceticism, the highest morality, truth the summit of bliss, by telling truth man attains by himself the highest self which is itself truth.'

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¹ Longer text ed. J. Jolly, BI. 1885; trans. SBE. xxxiii.

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The *Bṛhaspati Smṛti*¹ is extant only in fragments, but its character is clear; it is almost a Vārttika on Manu whom it supplements. But it is distinctly more advanced in legal view even than Nārada; it develops further the treatment of records, and it approves, quite out of harmony with Manu, the practice of widow burning; its date may be assigned to the sixth or seventh century.

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¹ Trans. J. Jolly, SBE. xxxiii.; cf. WZKM. i. 275 ff.

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These texts are of minor importance compared with the *Yājñavalkya Smṛti*,² whose title recalls the great authority of the *White Yajurveda*; in point of fact some similarity has been traced to the *Pāraskara Gṛhyasūtra* of that Veda, though also to the *Mānava Gṛhyasūtra*. The Smṛti refers to the *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad*, so that the connexion may be accepted as valid. There can be no doubt of its importance or of its posteriority to Manu. It adds written documents to his means of proof, recognizes five in lieu of two ordeals, fire and water, it also knows Greek astrology, and has the term *nāṇaka* for coined gold, suggesting a date not before A.D. 300. The arrangement is better than in Manu; three chapters of about the same length handle rules of conduct, Ācāra, law, Vyavahāra, and penances; the eighteen topics of Manu which are not formally enumerated are in effect adhered to with the addition of one of relations of service and another on miscellaneous topics. Yājñavalkya shows many of the traits of Manu; his outlook is largely similar, and he indulges in philosophical remarks on the fate of the soul in much the same strain of Vedānta-Yoga-Sāṁkhya as appears in Manu. New is an embryology taken from some medical treatise.³ In style there is much resemblance to Manu, but there is less elaboration. The whole duty of man is thus set forth:

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² Ed. and trans. A. F. Stenzler, Berlin, 1849; with *Mitākṣarā*, Bombay, 1882; trans. SBH. 2, 1909.

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³ For his anatomy cf. Hoernle, *Osteology*, pp. 37 ff.

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*satyam asteyam akrodho hrīḥ çaucaṁ dhīr dhṛtir damaḥ*
*saṁyatendriyatā vidyā dharmaḥ sarva udāhṛtaḥ.*

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'Truth, honesty, mildness, modesty, purity, wisdom, firmness, self-control, the restraint of the senses, learning, these make up the whole of righteousness.' Release is won by the knowledge of self: in the midst of the veins is a circle:

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*maṇḍalaṁ tasya madhyastha ātmā dīpa ivācalaḥ*
*sa jñeyas taṁ viditveha punar ājāyate na tu.*

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'In the midst of that circle abides the self as if a motionless light; it must be known, and knowing it no man is born again to life.' But a very much simpler duty is preached for kings:

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*nātaḥ parataro dharmo nṛpāṇāṁ yad raṇārjitam*
*viprebhyo dīyate dravyaṁ prajābhyaç cābhayaṁ sadā.*

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'No higher duty is there than this for kings, to give to Brahmins wealth won in battle and ever to afford protection to their people.' In language and metre Yājñavalkya conforms closely to the style of Manu.

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Yājñavalkya formed the subject of a very large number of important commentaries; the best known, the *Mitākṣarā* of Vijñāneçvara, was written in the south in the eleventh century, and constitutes an important treatise on law, which won acceptance in the Deccan and also in Benares and north India; Colebrooke's version¹ of the section on inheritance gave it currency in the English courts in India. The author used the work of Viçvarūpa;² Aparārka³ wrote on the Smṛti in the twelfth century, while Bālambhaṭṭa Vaidyanātha and his wife Lakṣmīdevī⁴ commented on the *Mitākṣarā* in an interesting manner, emphasizing the claims of women to property rights.

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¹ *Two Treatises on the Hindu Law of Inheritance* (1810).

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² Jolly, GN. 1904, pp. 402 ff.; ed. TSS. 74 and 81.

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³ Ed. ĀnSS. 46, 1903–4.

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⁴ Ed. BI. 1904 ff.

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Other Smṛtis exist in indefinite numbers⁵—one list mentions 152; in many cases we have *Laghu*, *Bṛhat*, or *Vṛddha* forms of the same text, or the same name is given to quite different texts. A Parāçara appears as an authority in Yājñavalkya and is cited by Medhātithi, but the *Parāçara Smṛti*⁶ on which Mādhava wrote in the fourteenth century an elaborate comment, adding a chapter on law to those on custom and penance of the original, is doubtless later than either of these authors. A *Bṛhat* version of this text is five times as long. We have various texts ascribed to Atri, Uçanas, Āpastamba, Dakṣa, Çañkha, Likhita, Saṁvarta, and so on, but more interesting than these which hardly touch on law proper are certain authors of whom we have but fragments; Pitāmaha¹ appears already in Bṛhaspati as an authority on ordeals; Kātyāyana and Vyāsa agree often with Nārada and Bṛhaspati, and juristic verses by Hārīta are found which are not in the Dharmaçāstra preserved. The number of Smṛtis can be augmented from the epic and the Purāṇas which contain long sections which might as well be Smṛtis; thus in a manuscript of the epic is found a *Bṛhad Gautamasmṛti* which is quite different from the old text of Gautama.

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⁵ 28 ed. Bombay, 1883; 27 in ĀnSS. 48. Cf. IOC. i. 372 ff.; ii. 367 ff.

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⁶ Ed. BI. 1890–2; BSS. 1893–1919; trans. BI. 1887.

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¹ K. Scriba, *Die Fragmente des Pitāmaha* (1902).

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