Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.73

c7.73

Our H. is perhaps the oldest Smṛti in existence. H. does not refer to older works on law, and when he quotes Prajāpati, M. (manur abravīt is the probable reading for munir abravīt in about 19 cases) and Ācāryāḥ and if it often agrees almost word for word with all the other Smṛtis, such analogies do not indicate borrowing, but are derived from the common tradition of the Vedic schools. Unfortunately, the Ms. is throughout so full of mistakes that an edition of the important work on the basis of the same is inconceivable. We should hope, therefore, that other Mss. may be discovered and particularly the ancient commentary referred to by Hemādri 3, 1, 559³.