History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s9.6.4

v1.c6.s9.6.4

It is to be noted that the same verse occurs in the dharmasūtra of Viṣṇu (51. 64) which reads ‘nānyatreti kathaṁcana’ for ‘nānyathetyabravīn Manuḥ’. This change appears to have been purposely made to keep up the impression that the Viṣṇu-Dh. S. emanated from Viṣṇu himself and so could not have borrowed from a human author. Vas. 4. 7 is very similar to Manu 5. 48. Bühler (S. B. E. Vol. 25, p. xxxi) is wrong in taking Vas. 4. 8 as a quotation from the Mānava-dharmasūtra. There is nothing to show that it is so taken. It is more probably a quotation from or a summary of a Brāhmaṇa passage (compare a quotation in Aparārka on Yāj. I. 109, which is similar). Vide note 46. Vas. 23.43 (where Manu is referred to as prescribing an easy penance called Śiśukṛcchra for children and old men) corresponds more or less with Manu 11. 211 and 219 and Vas. 26. 8 has evidently Manu 11. 260 in view. There are only two places in Vasiṣṭha where the name of Manu occurs for which it is not possible to point out a corresponding verse in the Manusmṛti. They are Vas. 12. 16 and 19 37. The latter is cited as a Mānavaśloka and is in the Upajāti metre.¹⁰⁶ Because this is not found in our Manu, Bühler and other Western scholars seem to think that the verse is taken from the Mānava-dharmasūtra which once existed in mixed prose and verse and is now lost. But as will be shown elsewhere this hypothesis is based, to say the least, on very slender foundations.