Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c9.t2: C. The Orthodox Twice-born and their Literature.

An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c9.t2

Language
English

C. The Orthodox Twice-born and their Literature.

c9.t2.1

Śrauta became the term for the man who still keeps up several or all of the Śrauta rites. The word Smārta occurs first of all in this sense in the Pariśiṣṭas to Baudhāyana’s Gṛihya-sūtra. Smārta comes from Smṛiti; and the idea is that the Smārta’s worship depends upon smṛiti, i. e. the sūtras, and in particular on the Gṛihya-sūtra of the school to which he belongs.

c9.t2.2

For the whole group of orthodox twice-born men the final exposition of the Karma Mīmāṃsā, the Nyāya, and the Vaiśeṣika in sūtras—all three being systems which orthodox householders favoured—and the codification of the ancient dharma in the lawbooks during those centuries must have been of signal importance; while the writing of the Pariśiṣṭas now attached to the Baudhāyana Gṛihya-sūtras seems to have arisen directly from the emergence of the Smārtas.

c9.t2.3

The chief works on the sacred law belonging to this period are the Viṣṇusmṛiti, the Vaikhānasa Gṛihya and Dharma-sūtras, the Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra and certain Pariśiṣṭas or appendices tacked on to the Baudhāyana Gṛihya-sūtra. The earliest of these works is the Viṣṇusmṛiti, which is later than the Harivaṃśa, and the latest is the Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra, which borrows passages from the Viṣṇusmṛiti and speaks of Gaṇeśa. The Baudhāyana Gṛihya-sūtra is of peculiar interest for the history of the Smārta community; for it is sometimes called the Smārta-sūtra in MSS.;¹ and its Pariśiṣṭas contain rules for their cult.² It would be well if they could be critically edited. The Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra stands in close relationship to Manu and is also an orthodox work.

c9.t2.4

¹ Bühler, SBE. XIV. xxx.

c9.t2.5

² I am informed that the worship of the five gods is dealt with in them; see § 207.

c9.t2.6

The legal material of the Viṣṇusmṛiti is in prose sūtras, and seems to have been taken over almost unchanged from the Dharma-sūtra belonging to the Chārāyaṇīya-Kāṭhakas, one of the ancient schools of the Black Yajurveda; but some rules have been altered and a few new ones added. The reviser has also introduced a short chapter at the beginning, in which we are told that the goddess of the earth received this whole body of law from the lips of the supreme Vishnu, and added two at the end in praise of Vishnu and his consort Śrī. Krishna receives no special mention. The code is thus a Vaishnava work arranged for the use of some Vaishnava community, most probably the Bhāgavata, as is suggested at many points by the commentator Nandapaṇḍita.¹ The Vaikhānasa Sūtras are also Vaishnava, and as there are found in the Tamil south to-day Vaishnava temples in which Vaikhānasa, as distinct from Pāñcharātra, Saṁhitās² are used for the ritual, it is probable that this also was prepared for a special Vaishnava community.

c9.t2.7

¹ SBE. VII. pp. 155 n.; 208 n. 2; 268.

c9.t2.8

² See § 211 and § 212.

c9.t2.9

§ 161. It was seemingly during this period that the worship of Vishnu and Śiva as equal, or as one, was instituted; for the fullest exposition of the theory on which the cult rests occurs in the Harivaṁśa.³ One might think that the worship of Śiva and Vishnu as one was a compromise meant to reconcile warring sectaries, but facts suggest another explanation.

c9.t2.10

³ Chap. 184, lines 10660 ff. Cf. Muir, OST. IV.; also Winternitz, I. 386. For the Harivaṁśa, see § 159 and § 162.

c9.t2.11

The word Bhāgavata has two meanings in modern Hinduism. It is first an epithet used of Vaishnavas generally, as those who use the Bhagavat-śāstra, or body of works which revere Vishnu as Bhagavān. It is used, in the second place, of a special community of Vaishnavas, found to-day in most parts of South India, who really adore Vishnu, but recognize the equality of the two gods and keep up the use of Vedic rites. They are therefore recognized as Smārtas. It is of great importance to distinguish this community of Vaishnava Smārtas from the sectarian Vaishnavas called Pāñcharātras. We may be sure that the passage in the Harivaṁśa, which reflects the double worship, comes from the Bhāgavatas. An Upanishad was written later to establish the doctrine of the identity of Vishnu and Śiva, the *Skanda U.*¹ The godhead conceived in this way is designated *Harihara*, Preserver-Destroyer. An inscription dating from A.D. 528-9² shows that the Bhāgavata community was already in existence during this period; for it not only uses the word Bhāgavata but quotes their famous mantra, *Oṃ namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya*.

c9.t2.12

¹ See § 210.

c9.t2.13

² The Khoh copper plates of Mahārāja Saṃkshobha, belonging to the year 209 of the Gupta era.

c9.t2.14

The presence in the *Harivaṃśa* of the classical text on the metaphysical equality of Viṣṇu and Śiva, and of several other passages which fit in with the theory,³ naturally suggests the question whether the *Harivaṃśa* may not be a Bhāgavata Purāṇa corresponding to the *Viṣṇu P.*, which clearly belongs to the Pāñcharātra Vaiṣṇavas. The emergence about the same time of two Purāṇas so similar in their attitude to Kṛṣṇa would thereby find an explanation. The contents and significance of the *Harivaṃśa* are dealt with below.

c9.t2.15

³ cxxxi. 741 ff.; cxlv. 8199 ff.; cclxvi-cclxxxi; cccxxiv. See Winternitz, I. 384 ff.

Cites (10)