History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c90.14.2

v7.c90.14.2

Among the officials ¹³³⁴ to be maintained by the king with salaries are mentioned astrologers, persons conversant with portents and auspicious times, Paurāṇika, Sūta and Māgadha, who were to be paid 1000 (paṇas) as salary. The Dakṣasmṛti, ¹³³⁵ which is comparatively an early smṛti prescribes the reading of Itihāsa and Purāṇa for all *dvija* house-holders in the 6th and 7th parts of the day (divided into eight parts). The Auśanasa-smṛti prescribes that the Vedāṅgas and Purāṇas should be studied in the dark half of the months after Utsarjana (vide Jīv. part I p 515). When the Manusmṛti¹³³⁶ provides that in a śrāddha rite the brāhmaṇas invited for dinner should recite the Vedas, the Dharmaśāstras, stories, Itihāsas, Purāṇas and khila hymns (such as Śrīsūkta), it should be taken as referring to Purāṇa works closely resembling the extant ones. The Yājñavalkya¹³³⁷ smṛti enumerates the fourteen Vidyāsthānas (branches of knowledge) and sources of dharma as Purāṇa, Nyāya (logic), Mīmāṁsā (rules of Vedic interpretation), Dharmaśāstras, the aṅgas of the Veda and the (four) Vedas These fourteen are probably arranged in the order of importance and authoritativeness at the time of the Yājñavalkya-smṛti. Yāj. refers to sages that expounded or promulgated the Vedas, Purāṇas, the vidyās (six aṅgas), the Upaniṣads, the ślokas (itihāsa?), aphoristic works (like those of Jaimini or on nyāya), the *bhāṣyas* and whatever other literature exists. In another place Yāj.