History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s10.3

v1.c6.s10.3

The Viṣṇudharma-sūtra somewhat resembles the Dharma-sūtra of Vasiṣṭha. Like the latter it is full of verses. But one feature which is peculiar to the Viṣṇu-dharmasūtra is that it professes to be a revelation by the supreme Being. None of the other dharmasūtras so far described assumes this role. The style of the Viṣṇudharmasūtra is easy and somewhat diffuse. It presents hardly any ungrammatical forms. The printed text is corrupt only in a few cases; the verses occur generally at the end of chapters. Sometimes the number of verses in a chapter is very large e. g. in chapter 20 there are 21 sūtras and 32 verses, in chapter 23 there are 24 verses, in chap. 43 there are 14, in chap. 51 there are are 20 verses. Some of the verses are in the classical Indravajrā (19. 23-24) and the Upajāti metres (23.61 and 59. 30) and a few are Triṣṭubhs (29. 9-10, 30. 47, 72. 77). The three Triṣṭubhs (29. 9-10, 30. 41) are three out of the four verses of the Vidyā-sūkta occurring in the Nirukta (II. 4). There is one verse (72. 6) which has eleven letters in the first *pada* and twelve in the remaining three.