A History of Sanskrit Literature c12.34

c12.34

The second branch of the Sūtra literature, based on tradition or *Smṛiti*, are the Dharma Sūtras, which deal with the customs of everyday life (*sāmayāchārika*). They are the earliest Indian works on law, treating fully of its religious, but only partially and briefly of its secular, aspect. The term Dharma Sūtra is, strictly speaking, applied to those collections of legal aphorisms which form part of the body of Sūtras belonging to a particular branch (*çākhā*) of the Veda. In this sense only three have been preserved, all of them attached to the Taittirīya division of the *Black Yajurveda*. But there is good reason to suppose that other works of the same kind which have been preserved, or are known to have existed, were originally also attached to individual Vedic schools. That Sūtras on Dharma were composed at a very early period is shown by the fact that Yāska, who dates from near the beginning of the Sūtra age, quotes legal rules in the Sūtra style. Indeed, one or two of those extant must go back to about his time.