Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.48

c7.48

The Dharmaśāstra of Vasiṣṭha³ unfortunately has been preserved only in wretched uncommentaried and often incomplete manuscripts. Führer was able to use four complete Mss. for his edition, but other Mss. contain, instead of 30 Adhy. only 6 or 10, or 21¼ such as the Calcutta edition, or 28½ or 29½ Adhy.⁴ Internal evidences too indicate that Adhy. 25-30 are mostly appendages to a work—the torso—probably of an earlier date, although isolated passages from Adhy. 28 are quoted already in the Mit. Even in the earlier portions some Sūtras are hopelessly corrupt.⁵ Nevertheless we should never fail to understand that this work consisting of a mixture of prose and verses and in many comparable passages still showing the archaic Triṣṭubh instead of the later Anuṣṭubh of M. and other authors, is directly to be reckoned among the proper Dharmasūtras, and in a quotation it is even called "Vasiṣṭhasūtra".⁶ The passage 5, 6 f. which of course is derived from the TS is quite Vedic.