Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.101

c7.101

See §3 for the ancient quotations from Hārīta. The metrical quotations from Yama in Vas. 11, 20; 14, 30; 18, 13-16; 19, 48 need not have been derived from a Dharmasūtra of the mythical "King of Dharma." Of the Sūtra texts quoted in the mediaeval and modern Dharmanibandhas, I shall first mention a prose text, of course a solitary one, of Vṛddha or Bṛhan-Manu, about the penance for a Brahman who has stolen gold ¹. The "Old" or "Great" M. is moreover considered to be the author of Ślokas whose recent origin is betrayed by the reference to the signs Aja and Kanyā of the Zodiac, the right of inheritance of the widows, and other points. Compare § 8. Long prose texts mixed with metrical ones, about all the features of the Dharma are ascribed to the two brothers Śaṅkha and Likhita¹ whose names have become proverbial for their righteousness, and who are already pointed out by Parāśara 1, 24 as the standard authority for the Dvāpara age. According to Kumārila² the work of Śaṅkha-Likhita was in his time followed (parigṛhīta) mostly by the school of the Vājasaneyins, although, as is the case with all the books of the Vedic schools, it was at the same time considered as binding on everybody in general. Independent of it, Caland has proved that the texts of these two brothers about Śrāddha, collected by him, accurately agree both in the Mantras and in the ceremonies, with the rites of the Vājasaneyins³.