A History of Sanskrit Literature c12.38

c12.38

With the above works must be classed the well-preserved law-book of GAUTAMA. Though it does not form part of a Kalpa Sūtra, it must at one time have been connected with a Vedic school; for the Gautamas are mentioned as a subdivision of the Rāṇāyanīya branch of the *Sāmaveda*, and Kumārila's statement that Gautama's treatise originally belonged to that Veda is confirmed by the fact that its twenty-sixth section is taken word for word from the *Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa*. Though entitled a Dharma Çāstra, it is in style and character a regular Dharma Sūtra. It is composed entirely in prose aphorisms, without any admixture of verse, as in the other works of this class. Its varied contents resemble and are treated much in the same way as those of the Dharma Sūtra of Baudhāyana. The latter has indeed been shown to contain passages based on or borrowed from Gautama's work, which is therefore the oldest Dharma Sūtra that has been preserved, or at least published, and can hardly date from later than about 500 B.C.