History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s23.8.1

v1.c6.s23.8.1

The printed Nārada contains 1028 verses (including 61 on theft in the appendix). About seven hundred of these verses occur in various *nibandhas* as quotations. Up to the 21st verse of the section ‘abhyupetyāśuśrūṣā’ the commentary of Asahāya furnishes a valuable check for the authenticity of the text. For the remaining portion, there are important data as to its authenticity, sequence and readings. Viśvarūpa, who belongs to the first half of the 9th century, quotes about fifty verses of Nārada (generally by name). The text that he had before him was essentially the same as that of the printed edition, except in a very few cases. Out of the seven verses of Nārada on ‘samayasyānapākarma’ Viśvarūpa quotes five (on Yāj. II. 190 and 196) and expressly states that Nārada wound up his chapter on that topic with the verse ‘doṣavat karaṇaṁ &c’. as the printed text does. On Yāj. II. 226 Viśvarūpa distinctly says that the verse ‘yameva hyativarteran’ &c. is followed immediately by ‘malā hyete manuṣyeṣu’. This is the case with the printed text also (dyūtasamāhvaya verses 13-14). On Yāj. III. 252 Viśvarūpa quotes a verse of Nārada about the three kinds of wealth, śukla, śabala and kṛṣṇa, which does not occur in that form in Nārada, though the latter contains similar dicta.³⁵⁵ Viśvarūpa contains no quotation from Nārada on the topics of ācāra or prāyaścitta. The same is the case with Medhātithi and the Mitākṣarā.