Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.162

c7.162

Y., on the whole, is later than the Dharmasūtras and M., though, e. g., the documentary evidence is already referred to in Vas. 16, 10, 14 f. The analogies between Y. and Vi. are remarkable, even in such cases where both differ from M.,¹ for example, regarding copperplate grants, deeds of debt and all documents in general, regarding the five chief divine judgments and their applications, regarding inheritance, distinction between inherited and self-earned property, recognition of the right of representation, funeral ceremonies, and moreover, regarding the composition of the human body and Yoga—topics dealt with also in the medical works¹. At the same time it is, however, remarkable that in the passage Y. 2, 240 f. which is otherwise closely comparable with Vi. 5, 122 f. the word *nānaka*, a designation for minted coin, is found,² which is rightly interpreted as a proof of the comparatively later origin of our Y.³ It can well be inferred from this that in other cases too Vi. has retained the older version and Y. has drawn upon Vi. or rather upon the Sutra-work lying at the root of this work. Yājñavalkya is unmistakably related to another work belonging to the Black Yajurveda, namely, the Mānavagṛhyasūtra, with which it has in common a passage about the symptoms and cure of one possessed by Vināyaka (Gaṇeśa) (1, 270-292) which has wrongly been considered as a proof of the later origin of this work⁴. The language, the metre, the concise form, the reduction of the four Vināyakas to one Gaṇeśa, all this proves that here too Y. represents the later tradition⁵. A Vināyakaśānti is besides described in another Sutra-work of the Black Yajurveda—in Baudh⁶.