The Shulbasutras of Baudhayana, Apastamba, Katyayana and Manava: With Text, English Translation and Commentary c5.s1: Place and Time of the Authors of the Śulbasūtras
The Śulbasūtras of Baudhāyana, Āpastamba, Kātyāyana and Mānava: With Text, English Translation and Commentary c5.s1
- Language
- English
Place and Time of the Authors of the Śulbasūtras
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There is a good deal of uncertainty and differences of opinion about the place and time of the *śulbakāras*. The *Śrautasūtras* and the *Śulbasūtras* are silent about these questions as are other Vedic and post-Vedic texts. Georg Bühler who considered the question of date and time of Baudhāyana and Āpastamba was inclined to believe that both of them hailed from the Andhra country.a He argued that the followers of Baudhāyana and Āpastamba had lived in south India since early times, that Baudhāyana manuscripts had been found in the south, and that the *Mahārṇava*, an early work mentioned Andhra country as the native place of Āpastamba. Bühler also pointed out that the name of Āpastamba had been found on several land-grants of the south and that both Baudhāyana and Āpastamba referred in their *Dharma-sūtras* to the manners and customs of the people of their times inhabiting the northern parts of India,—a reference rather unusual for authors hailing from the north. Recently Ramgopal has shown that, in their *Śrautasūtras* and *Dharmasūtras*, Baudhāyana gave ample evidence of his close familiarity with *Āryāvarta*, the doab between the Ganges and the Yamuna and its surroundings and Āpastamba with Kurupāñcāla country and its vicinity.a About the places of origin of Kātyāyana, Mānava and other *śulbakāras*, nothing definite can be said.
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a Bühler, *SBE*, 14, pp. xliii; 2, pp. xxx.
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If their native places are open to question so are their dates. Bühler placed Āpastamba around the fifth century B.C. but did not himself consider this date as conclusive or anything more than tentative. He was only definite that both Baudhāyana and Āpastamba had lived before the third century B.C. Between these two *sūtrakāras*, all scholars agree, Baudhāyana is anterior to Āpastamba.
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Instead of working downwards from the high antiquity of Baudhāyana and Āpastamba whatever that antiquity might be, other scholars have preferred to consider the dates of later writers like Pāṇini, Kātyāyana, and Patañjali and work upwards to arrive at the dates of Baudhāyana and Āpastamba. Here again, Pāṇini's date itself is debatable and no better datable than other ancient texts. Nevertheless, scholars are generally agreed that Pāṇini most probably lived in the fourth century B.C. Keith argued that Pāṇini's date depended essentially on the date to be assigned to the *Mahābhāṣya* of Patañjali. Renou and Filliozat and Keith placed Patañjali's date around *c.* 150 B.C. on the ground that the *Mahābhāṣya referred to a sacrifice by Puṣyamitra who reigned around c.* 185 or 178 B.C.b In his *Veda of the Black Yajurveda*, Keith has observed that by 140 B.C. Pāṇini's work attained a commanding position as is evident by the clear proof of the elaborate way in which it was commented upon in Dākṣāyaṇi's *Saṃgraha*, by Kātyāyana and others and concluded that Pāṇini's date could hardly by any chance be later than 300 B.C., nor there could be any reason to deny that he might have lived about 350 B.C.
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This brings us to the date of Kātyāyana who flourished after Pāṇini and before Patañjali. Admitting that there is no direct proof, Keith suggested 250 B.C. as the most probable date for Kātyāyana. Eggeling, on the other hand, placed Kātyāyana in the fourth century B.C. after considering a still earlier date for Pāṇini.c Macdonell, in his *Bṛhaddevatā*d favoured a date *c.* 350 B.C. for Kātyāyana, more or less in agreement with Eggeling.
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Bühler, Keith and other scholars all agreed that the irregular forms persistently used by Baudhāyana and Āpastamba in composing the whole texts of the *Śrauta-*, the *Gṛhya-* and the *Dharma-sūtras* could have hardly been possible after Pāṇini's grammar reached its accepted position. Bühler, therefore, considered Āpastamba anterior to Pāṇini by about 150-200 years, which would place the former in the fifth-sixth century B.C. In his *Āpastamba Śrautasūtra*, Garbe, in general agreement with Bühler, assigned Āpastamba to the fifth century B.C. Keith considered such a high date for Āpastamba improbable from consideration of language and would not take him beyond say 300 or 350 B.C. By Keith's own agreement with Bühler that Āpastamba could be anterior to Pāṇini and his statement that there is absolutely no conclusive evidence of the date of these early *sūtrakāras*, it is somewhat baffling to understand how Āpastamba could be placed around *c.* 350 B.C.
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a Ramgopal, 93-100.
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b Renou and Filliozat, 86-91; Keith (2), 426-28; Keith (1), Preface clxviii to clxxii.
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c *SBE*, 12, xxxix.
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d I, p, xxii
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Regarding Baudhāyana and Mānava, both have been considered definitely older than Āpastamba, as their archaic style of writing would indicate. Mānava whose works were used by Āpastamba wrote more or less in the *Brāhmaṇa* style, and Richard Garbe considered his *sūtra* as the oldest, but that, as Keith points out, was before the text of Baudhāyana was known. Baudhāyana's archaic *Brāhmaṇa* style, is clearly discernible in his *uttarati* as also in all his *sūtra* writings. Considering all this, Keith's conservative estimate for Baudhāyana's date was fifth century B.C. while Caland was prepared to place him in the sixth century B.C. in his *Über das Rituelle Sūtra des Baudhāyana*.a Mānava doubtless should be placed somewhere between Baudhāyana and Āpastamba. P. V. Kane in his *History of Dharmasūtras* dated the *Śrautasūtras* of Baudhāyana, Āpastamba and Kātyāyana between 800 B.C. and 400 B.C. Ramgopal who considered the sequence between Baudhāyana and Āpastamba, Āpastamba and Pāṇini, Pāṇini and Kātyāyana and Kātyāyana and Patañjali, more or less agreed with Kane and concluded that the principal *sūtras* were composed between *c.* 800 B.C. and 500 B.C.
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The foregoing discussion will make it abundantly clear that we are still far from narrowing the date range differing by centuries and putting the early *sūtra* works on a firmer chronological basis. What is generally accepted is this relative chronological position in order of anteriority, e.g. Baudhāyana, Mānava, Āpastamba, Pāṇini, Kātyāyana. Hiraṇyakeśī, Vārāha, Vādhula and so on. This is also somewhat borne out by the tradition of the *Taittirīya* school which would place the early *sūtrakāras* in the following order of age: Baudhāyana, Bharadvāja, Āpastamba, Satyāṣāḍhā, Hiraṇyakeśin and Vaikhānasa. Whatever date one might wish to assign to the *Kalpasūtras*, the *Śrautasūtras* and the *Śulbasūtras*, we must agree with Thibaut that these *sūtras* only give a systematized account of sacrificial rites which had been practised during long preceding ages.b The rules for the sides of the various altars, detailed arrangement of the sacrificial ground, the positioning of the fires, altars, tents and sheds, the shapes of the fire-altars in the form of the falcon and other birds are all mentioned and discussed in various ways and at various places in the *Brāhmaṇas* as we shall see in what follows. The manner in which the measurements and transformations had to be carried out, in other words, the geometry and mensuration involved in their construction, it is true, are not discussed in the *Brāhmaṇas* and cannot be expected either in this class of literature. But there can hardly be any doubt that what Baudhāyana, Āpastamba, Mānava, Kātyāyana and others tried to codify in a systematic manner in their *Śulbasūtra* manuals must have for a long time formed the common property of all *adhvaryus* and priests specialized in the performance of sacrificial rites.
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a pp. 7 ff.
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b Thibaut (1) pt. 1, 270