History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s10.4.2

v1.c6.s10.4.2

Therefore the question whether the extant Viṣṇudharmasūtra borrows from Manu or *vice versa* or whether both borrow from a common original assumes very great importance. As the correspondence extends over several hundred verses of the Manusmṛti, the last hypothesis of borrowing from a common original does not recommend itself to me. No such common source is known to have existed and to say that there were hundreds of floating popular verses whose authorship was unknown and which were drawn upon by both works appears to me to be an extremely gratuitous and unsatisfactory assumption. In my opinion it is the extant Viṣṇudharmasūtra that borrowed the verses *ad hoc* or adapted them from the Manusmṛti. There are several lines of reasoning that strengthen this hypothesis. There are some verses that are identical in both, in which the name of Manu occurs, which the Viṣṇudharmasūtra omits by making slight verbal changes. For example, Viṣṇu 23. 50 substitutes 'tat parikīrtitam' for 'Manur-abravīt' in Manu 5. 131 and Viṣṇu 51. 64 reads 'nānyatreti kathaṁcana' for Manu 5. 41 'nānyatretyabravīn-Manuḥ' (this last occurs in Vas. 4. 6). The reason for these changes is obvious. The Viṣṇu-dharmasūtra professes to be a direct revelation from Viṣṇu and it is in keeping with this assumed role that not one human author is mentioned by name in the sūtra. Therefore where the name of Manu occurred in any verse, it was purposely omitted.