Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.144

c7.144

The comparison with Gṛhyasūtra and the Śrautasūtra of the Mānavas. As regards the Gṛhyasūtra, it has indeed a rule about begging from relative women common with M. 2, 50, but this law is found also in other Gṛhyasūtras (Pār. 2, 5, 5 ; cf. Āśv. 1, 22, 7) nor is it without further parallels in the Smṛtis (Āp. 1, 3, 26, etc.), so that it may be regarded as a common property of the Sūtra literature. About the time of the Saṃskāras, the orms of marriage, of which the Mānavagṛhya knows two—the Brāhma and the Śaulkadharma, and other decisive points the two works hold wholly divergent views¹. Regarding the important ritual of Śrāddha the same is the case with M. 3, 214 ff. and the corresponding treatment of the same subject in the Śrautasūtra of the Mānava school². Accordingly, there is no chance of an agreement between our M. and the Sūtras of this school as there exists between Vi. and the Gṛhyasūtra of the Kāṭhaka school or between Y. and the chief works of the Vājasaneyins. However, the existence of a work, supposedly the source of our M., is indicated by the scanty fragments of such a work in ancient quotations discussed in §4. The author of the Dharmasūtra of this school need by no means have been the same person as the author of the Gṛhyasūtra; thus the Dharmasūtra of the Hiraṇyakeśas which they have taken from the Āpastambiyas, differs considerably from their Gṛhyasūtra in language and subject matter³. Indirect relations between M. and the Mānava school may still further be traced through Vi. and the Kāṭhaka school⁴. All these arguments, however, yield only a certain degree of probability to the supposed relationship between M. and the Vedic Mānavas, so that it is perhaps most advisable to reserve the final decision on this question till the discovery of decisive manuscript materials.