History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s21.30

v1.c6.s21.30

The Yājñavalkya-smṛti stands in a very intimate relation to the white Yajurveda and the literature that clusters round it. Most of the *mantras* quoted (in part) or referred to by Yāj. occur in the Ṛgveda as well as in the Vājasaneya-saṁhitā (e. g. in Yāj. I. 22, 24, 229, 230, 238, 239, 247). But there are a few *mantras* that do not occur in the Ṛgveda, but only in the Vājasaneya-saṁhitā or other saṁhitās (e. g. ‘yavosi’ in Yāj. I. 230, which is Vāj. S. 5. 26, ‘ye samānā in Yāj. I. 254 which is Vaj. S. 19. 45, ‘imam deva’ and ‘udbudhyasva’ in Yāj. I. 300 which are Vaj. S. 9. 40 and 15. 54, ‘annāt pariśrutaḥ’ and ‘kāṇḍāt’ in Yāj. I. 301 which are Vāj. S. 19. 75 and 13. 20). Verses (Yāj. III. 191-197) are a paraphrase of certain passages of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, so much so that the very words of the latter are used throughout in the former, as the quotations given below will show.³¹⁸ Then again Yāj. very closely agrees with the Pāraskaragṛhyasūtra as was pointed out by Dr. Stenzler in his introduction to the edition of Yāj. (1849, Berlin) and in the journal of the German Oriental Society (VII. 527). Viśvarūpa points out that Yāj. I. 142-143 are based upon Pāraskara. The mantra ‘ayam me vajraḥ’ in Yāj. I. 135 (Trivandrum ed.) is given in Pāraskara-gṛhya II. 7. 7. In the following also there is close verbal correspondence³²⁰ between Yāj. and the P. Gṛ. S; Yāj. III. 1-2 and P. Gṛ. S. III. 10. 1, 5, 8-9 and 12; Yāj. III. 3 and P. Gṛ. S. III. 10. 16 and 19-20; Yāj. III. 4 and P. Gṛ. S. III. 10. 46-47; Yāj. III. 16 and P. Gṛ. S. III. 10. 26-27. Similarly the verses of Yāj. on śrāddha (I. 217-270) offer many points of contact with the śrāddha-kalpa of Kātyāyana edited by Dr. Caland (pp. 127-130 of his work ‘Ahnencult &c.’ From these facts Dr. Jolly concludes that Yājñavalkya’s work goes back to a dharmasūtra of the White Yajurveda (R. u. S. p. 21). In another place Dr. Jolly hazards another conjecture based on the close correspondence between Yāj. and the Viṣṇudharmasūtra that he probably belonged to the Kaṭhaka school of the Black Yajurveda (Journal of Indian History, 1924, p. 7). Yāj. also shows great similarity to the Kauṭilīya and borrows the Vināyaka-śānti from the Mânavagṛhyasūtra. From these facts one may argue at least with as much logic and force as underlies Dr. Jolly's guess-work that Yāj. probably belonged to the Mānava school of the Black Yajurveda or to the school of Kauṭilya. If Yāj. knew his business as a writer on Dharmaśāstra, he must have consulted the works of his predecessors and his work is bound to show traces of that fact. One may conclude at the most that the author of the Yājñavalkyasmṛti may have possibly been a student of the White Yājurveda and so the *mantras* of the White Yājurveda and the Gṛhyasūtra of Pāraskara were far more familiar to him than the other Vedas, sūtras, smṛtis, and other works. No such conclusions that there was a dharmasūtra of the White Yajurveda and that the Yājñavalkyasmṛti was based thereon are warranted by the facts so far discovered.