Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c12.5

c12.5

**The Sūtras a more suitable Vehicle of Old Knowledge.** These historical facts are, indeed, indicated by the internal evidence, the style, of the *Brāhmaṇas* and *Sūtras* themselves. The deliberately popular style of the *Sūtras* shows that the time was now gone when students would spend ten or twenty years of their lives in fathoming the mysteries and mastering the intricacies of the *Brāhmaṇa* literature. We miss, too, in the *Sūtras* that self-complacent spirit which pervades the *Brāhmaṇas*. It seems as if the authors of the *Sūtras* feel that their reading public will no longer be satisfied with mere endless theological swaggering but will demand something else. There may be deep wisdom in the previous literature but they feel that the people will not appreciate or accept wisdom unless it is clothed in a garb of clear argument and imparted in easier language. Thus their words contain all that is essential in the *Brāhmaṇas*, but they give it in a practical, concise and definite form. They represent in fact the quintessence of all the knowledge previously acquired and accumulated by the study and meditation of centuries. Their language is also firm, though no longer inflated, indicating a spirit of self-confidence that did not quail before the first attacks levelled by a popular religion. Lastly, a part of the *Sūtra* literature (the *Gṛihya-Sūtras* treating of the ceremonies of domestic life such as those relating to birth, death, and marriage) goes by the name of *Smṛiti*, i.e. that which is the subject of *memory*, as distinguished from *Śruti*, i.e. that which is the subject of *hearing*, in so far as the former impresses itself directly on the memory, without special instruction and provision for the purpose. It belongs to all, it is the common possession, the property, of the whole people; it is supported by the consciousness of all and does not therefore need to be specially inculcated. Not so is ritual which, in spite of its origin in the common consciousness, was developed in its details by the speculations of a special class which owned it as its exclusive property and monopoly, while custom and law were thrown open to all as common property. It is for this reason also that we find in these works a rich treasure of ideas and conceptions of extreme antiquity. Domestic manners and customs have been left untouched and handed down in their ancient form; there was no interest in changing them, for they were devoid of all political bearings [Weber, *Ind. Lit.*, p. 19].