History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s39: 52. Vyāsa
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s39
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52. Vyāsa
v1.c6.s39.1
In Jivananda (part II pp. 321-342) and in the Ānandāśrama collection of smṛtis there is a smṛti ascribed to Vyāsa. The two texts are the same with a few variations. It is in four chapters and contains about 250 verses. Vyāsa is said to have declared the smṛti in Benares. The contents briefly are:— the dharmas herein laid down prevail only in that region where the black deer roam about; the authoritativeness of śruti, smṛti and purāṇas; mixed castes; sixteen saṁskāras; duties of Brahmacārī; marriage; Brāhmaṇa may marry Kṣatriya or Vaiśya girl but not Śūdra; duties of a wife; the nitya, naimittika and kāmya acts of householders, eulogy of the house-holder stage and of gifts.
v1.c6.s39.2
Viśvarūpa quotes a few verses of Vyāsa. They are mostly taken from the Mahābhārata and are concerned with topics of marriage, daily duties (such as washing the teeth and bathing), śrāddha and prāyaścitta. Similarly Medhātithi quotes several verses from the Mahābhārata as Vyāsa’s. In Aparārka, the Smṛticandrikā and other works about two hundred verses of Vyāsa are cited on vyavahāra. From these it appears that Vyāsa dealt with rules of procedure and the several titles of law (vyavahāra-padas) and that his doctrines closely agreed in most respects with those of Nārada, Kātyāyana and Bṛhaspati. He gives rules on the four kinds of uttara (mithyā, sampratipatti, kāraṇa and prāṅ-nyāya), divides documents in three varieties (svahasta, jānapada, rājaśāsana), divides laukika documents into eight sub-varieties (just as Kātyāyana seems to have done); he closely follows Bṛhaspati in his requirements about royal grants and two of his verses about grants (ṣaṣṭiṁ varṣa &c. and sāmānyoyaṁ dharmasetur nṛpāṇām) occur very frequently in inscriptions (vide Aparārka on Yāj. I. 318). Vyāsa lays down that if a stranger enjoy a person’s land for twenty years when the king is there (i. e. when there is no revolution or anarchy) and when the owner is able (to resist) the latter loses his property.⁴⁷⁰ He speaks of adverse possession as having five characteristics.⁴⁷¹ He mentions seven kinds of sureties, while Hārīta and Kātyāyana speak of only five and Bṛhaspati of four. He speaks of only five kinds of ordeals. He defines a *niṣka* as equal to 14 suvarṇas, a suvarṇa being equal to eight palas.⁴⁷² Vyāsa seems to represent a middle stage in the evolution of the rights of the widow to succeed to her deceased husband. He says that a woman was to get a maximum of two thousand (kārṣāpaṇas) from the estate of her deceased husband⁴⁷³ (besides what he gave her when living). Vyāsa gave to the father and sons equal shares in ancestral property and allowed partition even against the wish of the father.⁴⁷⁴ From these important characteristics of Vyāsa it may safely be concluded that Vyāsa flourished about the same time as Yājñavalkya and Bṛhaspati, i. e. between the second and the fifth century.
v1.c6.s39.3
⁴⁷⁰ वर्षाणि विंशतिर्यस्य भूर्भुक्ताथ परैरिह । सति राज्ञि समर्थस्य तस्य सेह न सिध्यति ॥ अपरार्क p. 632.
v1.c6.s39.4
⁴⁷¹ सागमॊ दीर्घकालश्च छेदोपाधिविवर्जितः । प्रत्यर्थिसंनिधानश्च पञ्चाङ्गो भोग उच्यते ॥ अपरार्क p. 635.
v1.c6.s39.5
⁴⁷² पलान्यष्टौ सुवर्णस्य सुवर्णाश्च चतुर्दश । एतन्निष्क्रप्रमाणं तु व्यासेन परिकीर्तितम् ॥ स्मृतिच०.
v1.c6.s39.6
⁴⁷³ द्विसाहस्रः परो दायः स्त्रियै देयो धनस्य च । यच्च भर्त्रा धनं दत्तं सा यथाकाममाप्नुयात् ॥ अपरार्क p. 752.
v1.c6.s39.7
⁴⁷⁴ क्रमागते गृहे क्षेत्रे पितृपुत्राः समांशिनः । पैतृकेण विभागाहः पुत्राः पितुरनिच्छतः ॥ अपरार्क p. 728.
v1.c6.s39.8
In Aparārka and other works there are numerous verses attributed to Vyāsa which are certainly not taken from the Mahābhārata or from the Vyāsasmṛti in the Ānandāśrama collection (pp. 357-371). For example, on Yāj. I. 12 he cites a verse of Vyāsa in the Vasantatilakā metre about the auspicious asterism for *caula* and another verse laying down Saturday, Sunday and Friday as unsuitable for *caula*. Similarly Vyāsa's verses dealing with the merit of bathing on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in conjunction with certain *tithis* are cited by Aparārka (p. 213). Vyāsa speaks of śrāddhas when the Sun is in the sign of Virgo (Aparārka p. 424). These indications are sufficient to assign Vyāsa to a comparatively later date. But as Aparārka evidently makes no distinction between Vyāsa the jurist, Vyāsa the reputed compiler of the Mahābhārata (e. g. he quotes on p. 961 six verses of the Bhagavatgītā as Vyāsa's) and Vyāsa who wrote on the saṁskāras, śrāddha and other topics, it appears that the jurist and the writer on other topics of dharma were separated from him by several centuries. Whether the jurist and the writer on other topics of dharma are identical is a difficult problem. All that can be said is that the two may probably be identical. The Smṛticandrikā quotes a Gadya-Vyāsa and about 450 verses of Vyāsa on āhnika, vyavahāra and prāyaścitta.
v1.c6.s39.9
Aparārka quotes a verse of Vṛddha-Vyāsa on Saudāyika, a kind of strīdhana. The Mit., the Prāyaścitta-mayūkha and other works cite verses of a Bṛhad-Vyāsa. Ballālasena in his Dānasāgara quotes Mahā-Vyāsa and Laghu-Vyāsa as authorities and also Dāna-Vyāsa, which probably means the dāna-dharma portions of the Mahābhārata.
Linked texts (2)
- Yājñavalkyasmṛti — Yājñavalkya, Sanskrit
- Bhagavadgītā — Vyāsa, Sanskrit