History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s77.2

v1.c6.s77.2

The Parāśara-mādhavīya has been published several times, the edition in the B. I. series and in the Bombay Sanskrit series being the best known. In the following the Bombay edition has been used. This work is very extensive and occupies about 2300 printed pages in the Bombay edition. It is not a mere commentary on Parāśara's text, but is in the nature of a digest of civil and religious law. The original smṛti of Parāśara contains no verses on *vyavahāra*, but Mādhavācārya hangs, on the slender peg of a single verse of Parāśara calling upon the king to rule his subjects with righteousness, his treatise on *vyavahāra* that covers a little over a fourth part of the whole commentary (vide note 341 above an Parāśara). The Parāśara-mādhavīya is a work of authority on modern Hindu Law in southern India.⁸⁹⁶ His style is lucid and he generally avoids lengthy and abstruse discussions. Besides numerous smṛtikāras and purāṇas he names the following authors and works—Aparārka, Devasvāmin, Purāṇasāra, Prapañcasāra, Medhātithi, Vivaraṇakāra (on the Vedāntasūtra), Viśvarūpācārya, Śambhu, Śivasvāmin, Smṛticandrikā. The Parāśara-mādhavīya was amongst his earliest works. He tells us that there was no commentary on Parāśara before him.⁸⁹⁷