A History of Sanskrit Literature c20.s1.1.2

c20.s1.1.2

its third section resembles the *Pāraskara Gṛihya Sūtra*, but it is unmistakably connected with the *Mānava Gṛihya Sūtra* of the *Black Yajurveda*. Its approximate date seems to be about 350 A.D. Its author probably belonged to Mithilā, capital of Videha (Tirhut). *Yājñavalkya*, ed. and trans. by Stenzler, Berlin, 1849; with comm. *Mitāksharā*, 3rd ed., Bombay, 1892. The *Nārada Smṛiti* is the first to limit *dharma* to law in the strict sense. It contains more than 12,000 *çlokas*, and appears to have been founded chiefly on *Manu*. Bāṇa mentions a *Nāradīya Dharma Çāstra*, and Nārada was annotated by one of the earliest legal commentators in the eighth century. His date is probably about 500 A.D. *Nārada*, ed. by Jolly, Calcutta, 1885, trans. by him in *Sacred Books*, vol. xxxiii. 1889. A late lawbook is the *Parāçara Smṛiti* (anterior to 1300 A.D.), ed. in Bombay Sansk. Series, 1893; trans. *Bibl. Ind.*, 1887. The second stage of post-Vedic legal literature is formed by the commentaries. The oldest one preserved is that of Medhātithi on *Manu*; he dates from about 900 A.D. The most famous comm. on *Manu* is that of Kullūka-bhaṭṭa, composed at Benares in the fifteenth century, but it is nothing more than a plagiarism of Govindarāja, a commentator of the twelfth century. The most celebrated comm. on *Yājñavalkya* is the *Mitāksharā* of Vijnāneçvara, composed about 1100 A.D.