History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c73.122

v5.c73.122

The literature on śrāddha is enormous in extent. From the Vedic Saṃhitās several thousand years ago up to medieval and modern commentaries and digests the various matters connected with śrāddha have been dealt with in more or less detail. The Purāṇas contain thousands of verses on śrāddha. An adequate and thorough treatment of all this vast mass would fill a separate volume, but considerations of space forbid such an attempt here. All that can be attempted here at the most (and that too not in all cases) is to present matters chronologically i. e. describe how śrāddha was dealt with in the Saṁhitās and Brāhmaṇa texts, then in the comparatively older Gṛhya and Dharma sūtras, then in such early smṛtis as those of Manu and Yāj., then in some representative Purāṇas, then in the early commentaries of Medhātithi, Vijñāneśvara and Aparārka, and then in the medieval digests. Even in this way only a skeleton of the ceremonies described in some representative work of each class can be exhibited. Many differences of detail which arose owing to lapse of time, the locality, the *śākhā* and usages of each writer, his individual inclination and his ability, will have to be passed over altogether. In the days of the Purāṇas the differences in detail in the several śākhās have been adverted to.829a Apart from the smṛtis and passages of the Mahābhārata (such as Anuśāsana chap. 87-92) and commentaries on the Sūtras, on Manu, Yāj. and other smṛtis, the digests on śrāddha are legion. Only the following digests (arranged in chronological order) have been laid under contribution in this volume: Kalpataru on śrāddha; the Hāralatā and Pitṛdayitā of Aniruddha; the Smṛtyarthasāra; the Smṛticandrikā; the Caturvargacintāmaṇi (section on śrāddha) of Hemādri (which in the B. I. edition covers 1716 pages); the Śrāddhaviveka of Rudradhara; the Madanapārijāta; the Śrāddhasāra (a part of Nṛsiṁhaprasāda); Śrāddhakriyā-kaumudī of Govindānanda; the Śrāddhatattva of Raghunandana; the Śrāddhasaukhya (part of Ṭoḍarānanda); the Śrāddhakalpalatā of Vināyaka *alias* Nandapaṇḍita; the Nirṇayasindhu; the Śrāddhamayūkha of Nīlakaṇṭha; the Śrāddhaprakāśa (part of Vīramitrodaya); the Śrāddhacandrikā of Divākarabhaṭṭa; the Smṛtimuktāphala (on śrāddha); the Dharmasindhu; the Bālambhaṭṭī, a commentary on the Mitākṣarā. While presenting this exhaustive and heterogeneous material, some generalisations, when called for, will be made here and there. It will be seen later on how several minor matters such as whether food should be offered to gods before śrāddha, definitions of words like parivitti, vṛṣalīpati increased the extent of treatises on śrāddha.