History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c53.s2.19

v3.c53.s2.19

Though the sūtras speak of sattras for a hundred or a thousand years, there were writers even in ancient India who thought that such sattras did not exist in fact, at least in historical times. Patañjali states in his Mahābhāṣya that the sattras of a hundred or a thousand years were never attempted in times near to his day and that Yājñikas prescribe rules for them following the tradition of sages.²⁶⁸³ Jaimini also boldly asserts that when the texts²⁶⁸⁴ speak of Viśvasṛjāmayana for a thousand saṁvatsaras the word saṁvatsara means only a day (Jai. VI. 7. 31–40).