Grihya Sutras, Part 2 (SBE30): Introduction to the G<I>ri</I>hya-Sûtras

The Grihya Sutras, Part 2 (SBE30), by Hermann Oldenberg, [1892], at sacred-texts.com

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

GRIHYA-SÛTRAS.

We begin our introductory remarks on the literature of the Grihya-sûtras with the attempt to collect the more important data which throw light on the development of the Grihya ritual during the oldest period of Hindu antiquity.

There are, as it seems, no direct traces of the Grihya ceremonies in the most ancient portion of Vedic literature. It is certain indeed that a number of the most important of those ceremonies are contemporaneous with or even earlier than the most ancient hymns of the Rig-veda, as far as their fundamental elements and character are concerned, whatever their precise arrangement may have been. However, in the literature of the oldest period they play no part. It was another portion of the ritual that attracted the attention of the poets to whom we owe the hymns to Agni, Indra, and the other deities of the Vedic Olympus, viz. the offerings of the Srauta-Ritual with their far superior pomp, or, to state the matter more precisely, among the offerings of the Srauta-Ritual the Soma offering. In the Soma offering centred the thought, the poetry, and we may almost say the life of the Vasishthas, of the Visvâmitras, &c., in whose families the poetry of the Rig-veda had its home. We may assume that the acts of the Grihya worship, being more limited in extent and simpler in their ritual construction than the great Soma offerings, were not yet at that time, so far as they existed at all, decked out with the reciting of the poetic texts, which we find later on connected with them, and which in the case of the Soma offering came early to be used. Probably they were celebrated in simple unadorned fashion;

what the person making the offering had to say was doubtless limited to short, possibly prose formulas, so that these ceremonies remained free from the poetry of the above-mentioned families of priests 1. We think that the character of the verses given in the Grihya-sûtras, which had to be repeated at the performance of the different ceremonies, justifies us in making these conjectures. Some of these verses indeed are old Vedic verses, but we have no proof that they were composed for the purposes of the Grihya ceremonies, and the connection in which we find them in the Rig-veda proves rather the contrary. Another portion of these verses and songs proves to have been composed indeed for the very Grihya ceremonies for which they are prescribed in the texts of the ritual: but these verses are more recent than the old parts of the Rig-veda. Part of them are found in the Rig-veda in a position which speaks for their more recent origin, others are not contained in the Rig-veda at all. Many of these verses are found in the more recent Vedic Samhitâs, especially in the Atharva-veda Samhitâ which may be regarded in the main as a treasure of Grihya verses; others finally have not as yet been traced to any Vedic Samhitâ, and we know them from the Grihya-sûtras only. We may infer that, during the latter part of the Rig-veda period, ceremonies such as marriage and burial began to be decked out with poetry as had long been the case with the Soma offering. The principal collection of marriage sentences 2 and the sentences for the

burial of the dead 1 are found in the tenth Mandala of the Rig-veda, which, for the most part, is known to be of later origin than the preceding portions of the collections 2. If we look into the character of the verses, which these long Grihya songs are composed of, we shall find additional grounds for assuming their early origin. A few remarks about their metrical character will make this clear 3. There is no other metre in which the contrast between the early and later periods of Vedic literature manifests itself so clearly as in the Anushtubh-metre 4. The Anushtubh hemistich consists of sixteen syllables, which are divided by the caesura into two halves of eight syllables each. The second of these halves has as a rule the iambic ending (

), though this rule was not so strictly carried out in the early as in the later period 5. The iambic ending is also the rule in the older parts of the Veda for the close of the first half, i.e. for the four syllables before the caesura 6. We know that the later prosody, as we see it in certain late parts of Vedic literature, in the Pâli Pitakas of the Buddhists, and later in the great epic poems, not only departs from the usage of the older period, but adopts a directly contrary course, i.e. the iambic ending of the first pâda, which was formerly the rule, is not allowed at all later, and instead of it the prevailing ending is the antispast (

) It goes without saying that such a change in metrical usage, as the one just described, cannot have

taken place at one jump. And accordingly a consideration of the Vedic texts reveals a transition period or rather a series of several transition periods between the old and the new standpoints. The first change is that every other ending of the first pâda is allowed by the side of the iambic ending. The two forms of the ending, the one prevailing in the earliest, and the one prevailing in the later period of the prosody, the iambic (

) and the antispastic (

), are those that occur most frequently in the intermediate period, but besides them all other possible forms are allowed 1.

This is precisely the stage of metrical development which the great Grihya songs of the tenth Mandala of the Rig-veda have reached. Let us consider, for instance, the marriage songs and the marriage sayings, X, 85, and see what kind of ending there is at the end of the first pâda. Of the first seventeen verses of this Sûkta sixteen are in Anushtubh metre (verse 14 is Trishtubh); we have therefore thirty-two cases in which the metrical form of these syllables must be investigated. The quantity of the syllable immediately preceding the caesura being a matter of indifference, we have not sixteen but only eight a priori possible combinations for the form of the last four syllables of the pâda; I give each of these forms below, adding each time in how many of the thirty-two cases it is used:

	8
	5
	5
	4
	3
	3
	3
	1
	32

We see that all the possible combinations are actually represented in these thirty-two cases, and accordingly the metrical build of this Sûkta shows that it belongs to a period to which only the latest songs of the Rig-veda collection can be referred, but the peculiarities of which may be often noticed in the Atharva-veda and in the verses scattered throughout the Brâhmana literature 1.

A hasty glance suffices to show that those verses of the Grihya ritual which do not appear in the Samhitâs, but which are quoted at full length in the Grihya-sûtras, are also in the same stage. For instance, the seven Anushtubh verses which are quoted Sâṅkhâyana-Grihya I, 19, 5. 6, give us the following relations, if we investigate them as we did those in Rig-veda X, 85:

	4
	3
	2
	2
	1
	1
	1
	14

Thus even the small number of fourteen hemistichs is enough to give us seven of the eight existing combinations, and no single one occurs at all often enough to allow us to call it predominant.

Or we may take the saying that accompanies the performance of the medhâganana on the new-born child. In the version of Âsvalâyana 2 we have:

Or the saying with which the pupil (brahmakârin) has to lay a log of wood on the fire of the teacher 1:

There would be no object in multiplying the number of examples; those here given are sufficient to prove our proposition, that the development of the Grihya rites in the form in which they are described to us in the Sûtras, that especially their being accompanied with verses, which were to be recited by their performance, is later than the time of the oldest Vedic poetry, and coincides rather with the transition period in the development of the Anushtubh metre, a period which lies between the old Vedic and the later Buddhistic and epic form.

Besides the formulae intended to be recited during the performance of the various sacred acts, the Grihya-sûtras contain a second kind of verses, which differ essentially from the first kind in regard to metre; viz. verses of ritualistic character, which are inserted here and there between the prose Sûtras, and of which the subject-matter is similar to that of the surrounding prose. We shall have to consider these yagñagâthâs, as they are occasionally called, later; at present let us go on looking for traces of the Grihya ritual and for the origin of Grihya literature in the literature which precedes the Sûtras.

The Brâhmana texts, which, as a whole, have for their subject-matter the Vaitânika ceremonies celebrated with the three holy fires, furnish evidence that the Grihya fire, together with the holy acts accomplished in connection with it, were also already known. The Aitareya-Brâhmana 2 gives this

fire the most usual name, the same name which is used for it in the Sûtras, grihya agni, and describes a ceremony to be performed over this fire with expressions which agree exactly with the style of the Grihya-sûtras 1. We often find in the Brâhmana texts also mention of the terminus technicus, which the Grihya-sûtras use many times as a comprehensive term for the offerings connected with Grihya ritual, the word pâkayagña 2. For instance, the Satapatha Brâhmana 3, in order to designate the whole body of offerings, uses the expression: all offerings, those that are Pâkayagñas and the others. It is especially common to find the Pâkayagñas mentioned in the Brâhmana texts in connection with the myth of Manu. The Taittirîya Samhitâ 4 opposes the whole body of sacrifices to the Pâkayagñas. The former belonged to the gods, who through it attained to the heavenly world; the latter concerned Manu: thus the goddess Idâ turned to him. Similar remarks, bringing Manu or the goddess Idâ into relation with the Pâkayagñas, are to be found Taittirîya Samhitâ VI, 2, 5, 4; Aitareya-Brâhmana III, 40, 2. However, in this case as in many others, the Satapatha Brâhmana contains the most detailed data, from which we see how the idea of Manu as the performer of Pâkayagñas is connected with the history of the great deluge, out of which Manu alone was left. We read in the Satapatha Brâhmana 5:

'Now the flood had carried away all these creatures, and thus Manu was left there alone. Then Manu went about singing praises and toiling, wishing for offspring. And he sacrificed there also with a Pâka-sacrifice. He poured clarified butter, thickened milk, whey, and curds in the water as a libation.' It is then told how the goddess Idâ arose out of this offering. I presume that the story of the Pâkayagña as the first offering made by Manu after the great flood, stands in a certain correlation to the idea of the introduction of the three sacrificial fires through Purûravas 1. Purûravas is the son of Idâ; the original man Manu, who brings forth Idâ through his offering, cannot have made use of a form of offering which presupposes the existence of Idâ, and which moreover is based on the triad of the sacred fires introduced by Purûravas; hence Manu's offering must have been a Pâkayagña; we read in one of the Grihya-sûtras 2: 'All Pâkayagñas are performed without Idâ.'

There are still other passages in the Brâhmana texts showing that the Grihya offerings were already known; I will mention a saying of Yâgñavalkya's reported in the Satapatha Brâhmana 3: he would not allow that the daily morning and evening offering was a common offering, but said that, in a certain measure, it was a Pâkayagña. Finally I would call attention to the offering prescribed in the last book of the Satapatha Brâhmana 4 for the man 'who wishes that a learned son should be born to him;' it is there stated that the preparation of the Âgya (clarified butter) should be performed 'according to the rule of the Sthâlîpâka (pot-boiling),' and the way in which the offering is to

be performed is described by means of an expression, upaghâtam 1, which often occurs in the Grihya literature in a technical sense.

We thus see that the Brâhmana books are acquainted with the Grihya fire, and know about the Grihya offerings and their permanent technical peculiarities; and it is not merely the later portions of the Brâhmana works such as the fourteenth book of the Satapatha Brâhmana, in which we meet with evidence of this kind; we find it also in portions against the antiquity of which no objections can be raised.

While therefore on the one hand the Brâhmana texts prove the existence of the Grihya ceremonial, we see on the other hand, and first of all by means of the Brâhmana texts themselves, that a literary treatment of this ritualistic subject-matter, as we find it in the Brâhmanas themselves with regard to the Srauta offerings, cannot then have existed. If there had existed texts, similar to the Brâhmana texts preserved to us, which treated of the Grihya ritual, then, even supposing the texts themselves had disappeared, we should still necessarily find traces of them in the Brâhmanas and Sûtras. He who will take the trouble to collect in the Brâhmana texts the scattered references to the then existing literature, will be astonished at the great mass of notices of this kind that are preserved: but nowhere do we find traces of Grihya Brâhmanas. And besides, if such works had ever existed, we should be at a loss to understand the difference which the Hindus make between the Srauta-sûtras based on Sruti (revelation), and the Grihya-sûtras resting on Smriti (tradition) alone 2. The sacred Grihya acts are regarded as 'smârta,' and when the question is raised with what right they can be considered as a duty resting on the sacrificer alongside of the Srauta acts, the answer is given that they too are based on a Sâkhâ of the Veda, but that this Sâkhâ is

But the Brâhmana texts furnish us still in another way the most decisive arguments to prove that there have been no expositions of the Grihya ritual in Brâhmana form: they contain exceptionally and scattered through their mass sections, in which they treat of subjects which according to later custom would have been treated in the Grihya-sûtras. Precisely this sporadic appearance of Grihya chapters in the midst of expositions of a totally different contents leads us to draw the conclusion that literary compositions did not then exist, in which these chapters would have occupied their proper place as integral parts of a whole. Discussions of questions of Grihya ritual are found in the Brâhmana literature, naturally enough in those appendices of various kinds which generally follow the exposition of the principal subject of the Srauta ritual. Accordingly we find in the eleventh book of the Satapatha Brâhmana 2, among the manifold additions to subjects previously treated, which make up the principal contents of this book 3, an exposition of the Upanayana, i.e. the solemn reception of the pupil by the teacher, who is to teach him the Veda. The way in which the chapter on the Upanayana is joined to the preceding one, is eminently characteristic; it shows that it is the merest accident which has brought about in that place the discussion of a subject connected with the Grihya ritual, and that a ceremony such as the Upanayana is properly not in its proper place in the midst of the literature of Brâhmana texts. A dialogue (brahmodya) between Uddâlaka and Saukeya precedes; the two talk of the Agnihotra and of various expiations (prâyaskitta) connected with that sacrifice. At the end Saukeya, filled with astonishment at the wisdom of Uddâlaka, declares that he wishes to come to him as a pupil (upâyâni bhagavantam), and Uddâlaka

accepts him as his pupil. It is the telling of this story and the decisive words upâyâni and upaninye which furnish the occasion for introducing the following section on the Upanayana 1. The subject is there treated in the peculiar style of the Brâhmana texts, a style which we need not characterize here. I shall only mention one point, viz. that into the description and explanation of the Upanayana ceremony has been inserted one of those Slokas, such as we often find in the Grihya-sûtras also, as a sort of ornamental amplification of the prose exposition 2. 'Here a Sloka is also sung,' says the Brâhmana 3:

âkâryo garbhî bhavati hastam âdhâya dakshinam

tritîyasyâm sa gâyate sâvitryâ saha brâhmanah 4.

[paragraph continues] From this passage we see, on the one hand, that the composition of such isolated 5 Slokas explaining certain points of the Grihya ritual goes back to quite an early period; on the other hand, we are compelled to assume that the Slokas of this kind which are quoted in the Grihya-sûtras differ nevertheless from the analogous Slokas of the early period, or at any rate that the old Slokas must have undergone a change which modernized their structure, so as to be received into the Grihya-sûtras; for the metre of the Sloka just quoted, which has the antispast before the caesura in neither of its two halves, and which has even a double iambus before the caesura in one half, is decidedly of an older type than the one peculiar to the Slokas quoted in the Grihya-sûtras 6.

Another Grihya section in the Satapatha Brâhmana seems to have found its place there through a similar accidental kind of joining on to a preceding chapter as the above-mentioned passage. In XI, 5, 5 a story of the battle of the gods and Asuras is told: the gods beat the Asuras back by means of constantly larger Sattra celebrations and conquer for themselves the world of heaven. It seems to me that the description of the great Sattras celebrated by the gods is the occasion of the joining on of a section beginning with the words 1: 'There are five great sacrifices (mahâyagñas); they are great Sattras: the offering to Beings, the offering to men, the offering to the Fathers (i.e. the Manes), the offering to the Gods, the offering to the Brahman.' After this introduction follows an account of one of the five great offerings, namely of the Brahmayagña, i.e. of the daily Veda recitation (svâdhyâya). The third Adhyâya of Âsvalâyana's Grihya-sûtra begins in exactly the same way with the sentence: 'Now (follow) the five sacrifices: the sacrifice to the Gods, the sacrifice to the Beings, the sacrifice to the Fathers, the sacrifice to the Brahman, the sacrifice to men,' and then follows here also a discussion of the Brahmayagña, which is entirely analogous to that given in the Satapatha Brâhmana. Âsvalâyana here does not content himself with describing the actual course of ceremonies as is the rule in the Sûtra texts; he undertakes, quite in the way of the Brâhmana texts, to explain their meaning: 'In that he recites the Rikas, he thereby satiates the gods with oblations of milk, in that (he recites) the Yagus, with oblations of ghee,' &c. It is plain that the mode of exposition adopted by Âsvalâyana in this passage, which is different from the usual Sûtra style, finds its explanation in the supposition that exceptionally in this case the author of the Grihya-sûtra had before him a Brâhmana text, which he could take as his model, whether that text was the Satapatha itself or another similar text.

in the last sections of the Satapatha Brâhmana, there is a rather long section, which also really belongs to the Grihya domain. To quote from this section 1: 'If a man wishes that a learned son should be born to him, famous, a public man, a popular speaker, that he should know all the Vedas, and that he should live to his full age, then, after having prepared boiled rice with meat and butter, they should both eat, being fit to have offspring,' &c. Then follows a description of an Âgya offering, after which the marital cohabitation is to be performed with certain formulas. This, however, is not the last of the acts through which the father assures himself of the possession of such a distinguished son; certain rites follow, which are to be performed at birth and after birth, the Âyushya ceremony and the Medhâganana. These rites are here prescribed for the special case where the father has the above-mentioned wishes for the prosperity of his child; but the description agrees essentially with the description of the corresponding acts in the Grihya-sûtras 2, which are inculcated for all cases, without reference to a determined wish of the father. It is a justifiable conjecture that, although this certainly does not apply to the whole of ceremonies described in the Grihya-sûtras, many portions of these ceremonies and verses that were used in connection with them, &c., were first developed, not as a universal rite or duty, but as the special possession of individuals, who hoped to attain special goods and advantages by performing the ceremony in this way.

assumed the character of universality, with which we find them propounded in the Grihya-sûtras.

It is scarcely necessary to go through the sections of the texts of other Vedic schools referring to the Grihya ritual in the same way in which we have done it in the case of the Satapatha Brâhmana. The data which we have produced from the great Brâhmana of the white Yagur-veda, will be sufficient for our purpose, which is to give an idea of the stage in which the literary treatment of the Grihya ritual stood during the Brâhmana period. As we see, there were then properly no Grihya texts; but many of the elements which we find later in the Grihya texts were either already formed or were in the process of formation. Most of the verses which are used for the Grihya acts—in so far as they are not verses composed in the oldest period for the Soma offering and transferred to the Grihya ceremonies—bear the formal imprint of the Brâhmana period; the domestic sacrificial fire and the ritual peculiarities of the Pâkayagñas which were to be performed at it, were known; descriptions of some such Pâkayagñas were given in prose; there were also already Slokas which gave in metrical form explanations about certain points of the Grihya ritual, just as we find in the Brâhmana texts analogous Slokas referring to subjects connected with the Srauta ritual.

Thus was the next step which the literary development took in the Sûtra period prepared and rendered easy. The more systematic character which the exposition of the ritualistic discipline assumed in this period, necessarily led to the taking of this step: the domain of the Grihya sacrifices was recognised and expounded as a second great principal part of the ritual of sacrifices alongside of the Srauta domain which was alone attended to in the earlier period. The Grihya-sûtras arose which treat, according to the expression of Âsvalâyana in his first sentence, of the grihyâni 1 as distinguished from the vaitânikâni, or, as Sâṅkhâyana says, of the pâkayagñâs, or, as Pâraskara says, of the grihyasthâlîpâkânâm karma. The

[paragraph continues] Grihya-sûtras treat their subject of course in exactly the same style in which the sacrifices of the Srauta ritual had been treated by the Srauta-sûtras, which they constantly assume to be known and which are the works of teachers of the same Vedic schools, and oftentimes even perhaps the works of the same authors. Only certain differences in the character of the two groups of texts are naturally conditioned on the one hand by the greater complexity of the Srauta sacrifices and the comparative simplicity of the Grihya sacrifices, on the other hand by the fact that the Srauta-sûtras are entirely based on Brâhmana texts, in which the same subjects were treated, while the Grihya-sûtras, as we have seen, possessed such a foundation only for a very small portion of their contents.

It goes without saying that the above-mentioned statement that the subjects treated of in the Grihya-sûtras are Pâkayagñas 1 or Grihyasthâlîpâkas should not be pressed with the utmost strictness, as though nothing were treated in the Grihya-sûtras which does not come under these heads. First of all the term Sthâlîpâka is too narrow, since it does not include the offerings of sacrificial butter which constituted a great number of ceremonies. But besides many ceremonies and observances are taught in the Grihya-sûtras, which cannot in any way be characterised as sacrifices at all, only possessing some inner resemblance to the group of sacrifices there treated of, or standing in more or less close connection with them 2.

The Sûtra texts divide the Pâkayagñas in various ways; either four or seven principal forms are taken up. The

commonest division is that into the four classes of the hutas, ahutas, prahutas, prâsitas 1. The division into seven classes is doubtless occasioned by the division of the Haviryagñas and of the Somayagñas, which also each include seven classes 2; for the nature of the sacrifices in question would hardly of itself have led to such a division. The seven classes taken up are either those given by Gautama VIII, 15 3: 'The seven kinds of Pâkayagñas, viz. the Ashtakâ, the Pârvana (Sthâlîpâka, offered on the new and full moon days), the funeral oblations, the Srâvanî, the Âgrahâyanî, the Kaitrî, and the Âsvayugî.' Or else the seven classes are established as follows, the fourfold division being utilised to some extent 4: 'Huta, Prahuta, Âhuta (sic, not Ahuta), the spit-ox sacrifice, the Bali offering, the re-descent (on the Âgrahâyana day), the Ashtakâ sacrifice.' According to the account of Prof. Bühler 5, the exposition of Baudhâyana, who gives this division, keeps closely to the course which it prescribes. For the rest, however, the Grihya texts with which I am acquainted do not follow any of these divisions, and this is easily accounted for, if we consider the artificial character of these classifications, which are undertaken merely for the sake of having a complete scheme of the sacrifices. On the contrary, as a whole the texts give an arrangement which is based on the nature of the ceremonies they describe. In many instances we find considerable variations between the texts of the different schools; often enough, in a given text, the place

which is assigned to a given chapter is not to be explained without assuming a certain arbitrariness on tlfe part of the author. But, as a whole, we cannot fail to recognise in the arrangement of the different texts a certain agreement, which we will here merely try to explain in its main traits; the points of detail, which would complete what we here say, will occur of themselves to any one who looks at the texts themselves.

The domestic life of the Hindus represents, so to speak, a circle, in which it is in a certain measure indifferent what point is selected as the starting-point. Two especially important epochs in this life are: on the one hand, the period of studentship of the young Brahmakârin devoted to the study of the Veda; at the beginning of this period comes the ceremony of the Upanayana, at the end that of the Samâvartana; on the other hand, marriage (vivâha), which besides has a special importance for the Grihya ritual, from the circumstance, that as a rule the cultus of the domestic sacrificial fire begins with marriage. One can just as well imagine an exposition of the Grihya ritual, which proceeds from the description of the studentship to that of the marriage, as one which proceeds from the description of the marriage to that of the studentship. The Samâvartana, which designates the end of the period of studentship, gives the Hindu the right and the duty to found a household 1. On the other hand, if the exposition begins with the marriage, there follows naturally the series of ceremonies which are to be performed up to the birth of a child, and then the ceremonies for the young child, which finally lead up to the Upanayana and a description of the period of studentship. The Hiranyakesi-sûtra alone, of the Sûtras treated of in these translations, follows the first of the two orders mentioned 2; the other texts follow the other order,

which has been already described by Prof. Max Müller almost thirty years ago, and we cannot do better than to give his description 1: 'Then (i.e. after the marriage) follow the Samskâras, the rites to be performed at the conception of a child, at various periods before his birth, at the time of his birth, the ceremony of naming the child, of carrying him out to see the sun, of feeding him, of cutting his hair, and lastly of investing him as a student, and handing him to a Guru, under whose care he is to study the sacred writings, that is to say, to learn them by heart, and 'to perform all the offices of a Brahmakârin, or religious student.'

In this way we find, as a rule, in the foreground in the first part of the Grihya-sûtras this great group of acts which accompany the domestic life from marriage to the studentship and the Samâvartana of the child sprung from wedlock. We find, however, inserted into the description of these ceremonies, in various ways in the different Sûtras, the exposition of a few ritualistic matters which we have not yet mentioned. In the first place a description of the setting up of the sacred domestic fire, i.e. of the ceremony which in the domain of the Grihya ritual corresponds to the agnyâdheya of the Srauta ritual. The setting up of the fire forms the necessary preliminary to all sacred acts; the regular time for it is the wedding 2, so that the fire used for the wedding acts accompanies the young couple to their home, and there forms the centre of their household worship. Accordingly in the Grihya-sûtras the description of the setting up of the fire stands, as a rule, at the beginning of the whole, not far from the description of the wedding.

Next the introductory sections of the Grihya-sûtras have to describe the type of the Grihya sacrifice, which is universally available and recurs at all household ceremonies. This can be done in such a way that this type is described for itself, without direct reference to a particular sacrifice. This is the case in Pâraskara, who in the first chapter of his

[paragraph continues] Sûtra describes the rites recurring at each sacrifice, and then remarks: 'This ritual holds good, whenever a sacrifice is offered 1.' Similarly Âsvalâyana, in one of the first chapters of his work, enumerates the rites which are to be performed 'whenever he intends to sacrifice 2.' Other texts give a general description of the Grihya sacrifice by exemplifying it by one special sacrifice. Sâṅkhâyana 3 chooses for this the sacrifice which the bridegroom has to offer, when a favourable answer has been granted to his wooing; Gobhila 4 gives at least the greater part of the rules in question à propos of the full moon and of the new moon sacrifice; Hiranyakesin 5, who opens his account at the period of the studentship of the young Brâhmana, describes the sacrificial type à propos of the Upanayana rite.

The sacrifices which are to be offered daily at morning and at evening, those which are celebrated monthly on the days of the new moon and of the full moon—the Grihya copies of the Agnihotra and of the Darsapûrnamâsa sacrifices—and, thirdly, the daily distribution of the Bali offerings: these ceremonies are commonly described along with what we have called the first great group of the Grihya acts, immediately preceding or following the Vivâha.

We find, as a second group of sacred acts, a series of celebrations, which, if the man has founded his household, are to be performed regularly at certain times of the year at the household fire. So the Sravâna sacrifice, which is offered to the snakes at the time when, on account of the danger from snakes, a raised couch is necessary at night. At the end of this period the festival of the re-descent is celebrated: the exchanging of the high couch for the low couch on the ground. Between these two festivals comes the Prishâtaka offering on the full-moon day of the month Âsvayuga; it receives in the Grihya texts the place corresponding to that which actually belongs to

it in the series of the festivals. As a rule 1 the acts we have just mentioned are followed, in accordance with the natural series, by the Ashtakâ festivals, which are celebrated during the last months of the year.

Alongside of these acts which are connected with fixed points of the year we find in the various Grihya texts an account of a series of other ceremonies, which, in accordance with their nature, have no such fixed position in the system of the ritual. Thus, for instance, the rites which refer to the choice of a piece of ground to build a house or to the building itself; further, the rites connected with agriculture and cattle raising. In many texts we find together with this group of acts also an account of the ceremonies, related to fixed points in the year, which stand in connection with the annual course of Vedic study: the description of the opening festival and of the closing festival of the school term, as well as a point which generally follows these descriptions, the rules as to the anadhyâya, i.e. as to the occasions which necessitate an intermission in the study of the Veda for a longer or for a shorter period. As a rule, the Grihya-sûtras bring the account of these things into the group of acts which refer to the household life of the Grihastha; for the Adhyâpana, i.e. the teaching of the Veda, held the first place among the rights and duties of the Brâhmana who had completed his time at school. On the other hand these ceremonies can naturally also be considered as connected with the school life of the young Hindu, and accordingly they are placed in that division by Gobhila 2, between the description of the Upanayana and that of the Samâvartana.

The sacred acts connected with the burial and the worship of the dead (the various kinds of Srâddha rites) may be designated as a third group of the ceremonies which are described to us in the Grihya.-sûtras. Finally, a fourth group comprises the acts which are connected with the attainment of particular desires (kâmyâni). Among the

texts here translated we find a somewhat detailed account of these ceremonies in the Gobhila-sûtra and in the Khâdira-Grihya only 1.

These remarks cannot claim to give a complete outline of the contents and arrangement of the Grihya texts; they only aim at giving an idea of the fundamental traits, which in each particular text are modified by manifold variations, but which nevertheless are to these variations as the rule is to the exceptions.

We must now speak of the relations of the Grihya-sûtras to the two other kinds of Sûtra texts, with which they have so many points of contact in the Srauta-sûtras and the Dharma-sûtras.

Prof. Bühler, in several places of the excellent introductions which he has prefixed to his translations of the Dharma-sûtras, has called attention to the fact that the relation in which the Sûtra texts of the same school stand to each other is very different in different schools. Many schools possess a great corpus of Sûtras, the parts of which are the Srauta-sûtra, the Grihya-sûtra, &c. This is, for instance, the case with the Âpastambîya school 2; its Sûtra is divided into thirty Prasnas, the contents of which are divided as follows:

I-XXIV: Srauta-sûtra.

XXV: Paribhâshâs, &c.

XXVI: Mantras for the Grihya-sûtra.

XXVII: Grihya-sûtra.

XXVIII-XXIX: Dharma-sûtra.

XXX: Sulva-sûtra.

In other cases the single Sûtra texts stand more independently side by side; they are not considered as parts of one and the same great work, but as different works. Of course it is the Dharma-sûtras above all which could be freed from the connection with the other Sûtra texts to such an extent, that even their belonging to a distinct Vedic school may be doubtful. The contents

of this class of Sûtras indeed have hardly any connection with the subdivisions and differences of the Vedic texts handed down in the various schools; there was no reason why Brahmans, who studied various Sâkhâs of the Veda, should not learn the ordinances concerning law and morals given in these Sûtras as they were formulated in the same texts. The Grihya-sûtras are not so independent of the differences of the Vedic schools. The close analogy between the sacrificial ritual of the Grihya acts and that of the Srauta acts, and the consequent necessity of taking into account the Srauta ritual in the exposition of the Grihya ritual, necessarily brought the Grihya-sûtras into closer connection with and into greater dependence on the Srauta-sûtras than in the case of the Dharma-sûtras 1. But above all, the Grihya ceremonies demanded the knowledge of numerous Mantras, and accordingly as these Mantras were borrowed from the one or the ether Mantra Sâkhâ 2, there followed in the case of the Grihya text in question an intimate connection with the corresponding Mantra school 3. We find accordingly as a general rule, that each Grihya-sûtra presupposes a Vedic Samhitâ, whose Mantras it quotes only in their Pratîkas 4, and that besides each Grihya-sûtra presupposes a previous

knowledge of the ritual which is acquired through the study of the proper Srauta-sûtra 1. It is not necessary to quote the numerous places where the Grihya-sûtras either expressly refer to the Srauta-sûtras, or point to them by repeating the same phrases or often even whole Sûtras. It will be sufficient to quote one out of many places, the opening words of the Âsvalâyana-Grihya, which in a way characterise this work as a second part of the Srauta-sûtra: 'The rites based on the spreading (of the three sacred fires) have been declared; we shall declare the Grihya rites 2.'

Thus it is not difficult to perceive the dependence of the Grihya-sûtras on the Srauta-sûtras; but there remains the much more difficult question whether in each particular case both texts are to be regarded as by the same author, or whether the Grihya-sûtra is an appendix to the Srauta-sûtra composed by another author. Tradition accepts the one alternative for some Sûtras; for other Sûtras it accepts the other; thus in the domain of the Rig-Veda literature Âsvalâyana and Sâṅkhâyana are credited with the authorship of a Srauta-sûtra as well as of a Grihya-sûtra; the same is true of Âpastamba, Hiranyakesin, and other authors. On the other hand, the authorship of the Grihya-sûtras which follow the Srauta-sûtras of Kâtyâyana, Lâtyâyana, Drâhyâyana, is not ascribed to Kâtyâyana, Lâtyâyana, Drâhyâyana, but to Pâraskara, Gobhila, and Khâdirâkârya.

It seems to me that we should consider the testimony of tradition as entirely trustworthy in the second class of cases. Tradition is very much inclined to ascribe to celebrated masters and heads of schools the origin of works which are acknowledged authorities in their schools, even though they are not the authors. But it is not likely that tradition should have made a mistake in the opposite

direction, that e.g. it should designate Pâraskara as author when Kâtyâyana himself was the author.

We shall not be able to trust so implicitly to tradition where it puts down the same author for the Grihya-sûtra as for the corresponding Srauta-sûtra; the possibility that such data are false is so large that we have to treat them as doubtful so long as we have not discovered certain proofs of their correctness. At present, so far as I can see, we are just as little justified in considering that such a proof has been made as we are able to prove the opposite state of things. It is easy to find the many agreements in contents and expression which exist, for instance, between the Srauta-sûtra and Grihya-sûtra of Sâṅkhâyana, or between the Srauta-sûtra and the Grihya-sûtra of Âsvalâyana 1. But these agreements cannot be considered as sufficient proof that in each case the Grihya-sûtra and the Srauta-sûtra are by the same author. Even if the author of the Grihya-sûtra was not Âsvalâyana or Sâṅkhâyana in person, still he must have been at all events perfectly familiar with the works of those teachers, and must have intended to fit his work to theirs as closely as possible, so that agreements of this kind can in no way astonish us 2. On the other hand, if the Srauta-sûtras and Grihya-sûtras are read together, it is easy to discover small irregularities in the exposition, repetitions and such like, which might seem to indicate different authors. But the irregularities of this kind which have been detected up to the present are scarcely of such

a character as not to be easily ascribable to mistakes and carelessness such as even a careful author may be guilty of in the course of a large work 1. It seems to me then that until the discovery of further circumstances throwing light on the question of the identity of the authors of the Srautas and of the Grihyas, it would be premature if we were to venture on a decision of this question in one direction or the other.

Prof. Bühler's investigations have made perfectly clear the relation in which the Grihya-sûtras and the Dharma-sûtras stand to each other in those cases, where we have texts of both kinds by the same school. In the case of the Grihya-sûtra and the Dharma-sûtra of the Âpastambîyas he has proved 2 that both texts were the work of the same author according to a common plan, so that the Grihya-sûtra is as short and terse as possible, because Âpastamba had reserved for the Dharma-sûtra a portion of the subject-matter generally treated of in the Grihya-sûtras. Besides there are references in each of the two texts to the other which strengthen the proof of their being written by the same author. In the Sûtra collection of Hiranyakesin the state of things is different. Here, as Prof. Bühler has also shown 3, we find numerous discrepancies between the Grihya and the Dharma-sûtra, which are owing to the fact, that while this teacher took as Dharma-sûtra that of Âpastamba with some unessential changes, he composed a Grihya-sûtra of his own. Of the two Sûtras of Baudhâyana, the same distinguished scholar, to whom we owe the remarks we have just mentioned, has treated in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv, p. xxxi.

I believe that every reader who compares the two kinds of texts will notice that the frame within which the exposition of the Dharma-sûtras is inclosed, is an essentially

broader one than in the case of the Grihya-sûtras. We have here, I think, the same phenomenon that may also be observed, for instance, in the domain of the Buddhist Vinaya literature, where the exposition of the life of the community was at first given only in connection with the explanation of the list of sins (Pâtimokkha) which was promulgated every half month at the meetings of the spiritual brethren. It was not till later that a more comprehensive exposition, touching all the sides of the life of the community was attempted 1, an exposition which, on the one hand, no longer limited itself to the points discussed in the Pâtimokkha, and which, on the other hand, necessarily had much in common with what was laid down in the Pâtimokkha. The relation of the Grihya-sûtras and Dharma-sûtras seems to me to be of a similar nature. The Grihya-sûtras begin to treat of the events of the daily life of the household, but they do not yet undertake to exhaust the great mass of this subject-matter; on the contrary they confine themselves principally to the ritual or sacrificial side of household life, as is natural owing to their connection with the older ritualistic literature. Then the Dharma-sûtras take an important step further; their purpose is to describe the whole of the rights and customs which prevail in private, civic, and public life. They naturally among other things touch upon the ceremonies treated in the Grihya-sûtras, but they generally merely mention them and discuss the questions of law and custom which are connected with them, without undertaking to go into the technical ordinances as to the way in which these ceremonies are to be performed 2.

Only in a few cases do portions treated of in the domain of the Dharma-sûtras happen to coincide with portions treated of in the Grihya-sûtras. Thus especially, apart from a few objects of less importance, the detailed rules for the behaviour of the Snâtaka and the rules for the interruptions

of the Veda study (anadhyâya) are generally treated in an exactly similar way in the texts of the one and those of the other category.

We have spoken above of the metrical peculiarities of the Mantras quoted in the Grihya-sûtras, the metre of which clearly proves what is indubitable from other reasons, that most, if not all, of these verses were composed at a perceptibly older period than the descriptions of the sacred acts in the midst of which they are inserted 1. A second kind of verses which are quoted in the Grihya-sûtras must be carefully distinguished from these. It is doubtful whether there are any to be found among them which the authors of the Sûtras have themselves composed; but they were composed at a period decidedly more recent than those Mantras 2, and they therefore exhibit metrical peculiarities which are essentially different. The verses I mean are Slokas of ritual contents, which are quoted to confirm or to complete what is stated in the prose, and which are introduced by such expressions as tad apy âhuh 'here they say also,' or tad api slokâh 'here there are also Slokas,' and other similar phrases 3.

We called attention above (p. xix) to the fact that a verse of this kind occurs in one of the Grihya chapters of the Satapatha Brâhmana, in a metre corresponding to the peculiarities of the older literary style. On the other hand, the verses appearing in the Grihya-sûtras differ only in a few cases from the standard of the later Sloka prosody, as we have it, e. g. in the Mahâbhârata and in the laws of Manu. In the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländ. Gesellschaft, vol. xxxvii, p. 67, I have given tables for the verses in question out of the Sâṅkhâyana-Grihya, and these tables show that the characteristic ending of the first

[paragraph continues] Sloka Pâda for the later period

, which, for instance, in the Nalopâkhyâna of the Mahâbhârata covers precisely five-sixths of all the cases, occurs in Sâṅkhâyana in thirty cases out of thirty-nine, that is in about three quarters of the cases 1; Sâṅkhâyana has still twice the ending

which is the rule in the Rig-veda, but which is forbidden by the later prosody: prahutah pitrikarmanâ, uktvâ mantram sprised apah 2. It may be observed that a similar treatment of the Sloka metre appears also in the Rig-veda Prâtisâkhya of Saunaka. Here too the modern form of the ending of the first pâda dominates, although sometimes the old iambic form is preserved, e. g. II, 5 antahpadamvivrittayah, III, 6 anudâttodaye punah.

It seems evident that we have in this Sloka form of the Sûtra period, the last preparatory stage which the development of this metre had to traverse, before it arrived at the shape which it assumes in epic poetry; and it is to be hoped that more exhaustive observations on this point (account being especially taken of the numerous verses quoted in the Dharma-sûtras) will throw an important light on the chronology of the literature of this period lying between the Vedas and the post-Vedic age.

We add to these remarks on the Slokas quoted in the Grihya-sûtras, that we come upon a number of passages in the midst of the prose of the Sûtras, which without being in any way externally designated as verses, have an unmistakable metrical character, being evidently verses which the authors of the Sûtras found ready made, and which they used for their own aphorisms, either without changing them at all, or with such slight changes that the original form remained clearly recognisable. Thus we read in Âsvalâyana (Grihya I, 6, 8), as a definition of the Râkshasa marriage: hatvâ bhittvâ ka sîrshâni rudatîm rudadbhyo

haret: the approximation of these words to the Sloka metre cannot escape attention, and it is only necessary to make rudadbhyah and rudatîm change places in order to obtain a regular Sloka hemistich. In Gobhila the Sûtras I, 2, 21-27 represent three hemistichs, which with one exception (na ka sopânatkah kvakit) exactly conform to the laws of the Sloka metre. II, 4, 2 gives also a hemistich by slightly changing the order:

Somewhat more remote from the original verses is the wording of the Sûtras I, 6, 8. 9 na pravasann upavased ity âhuh, patnyâ vratam bhavatîti; we have the metrical order in one of the Slokas quoted by Sâṅkhâyana (Grihya II, 17): nopavâsah pravâse syât patnî dhârayate vratam.

The verses which are thus either expressly quoted, or at any rate made use of by the authors of the Grihya-sûtras, do not seem to be taken from connected metrical works any more than the yagñagâthâs quoted in the Brâhmanas; on the contrary in a later period of literature, when texts similar to Manu's Code were composed, they evidently furnished these texts with some of their materials 2.

Leaving out of consideration the Khâdira-Grihya, which is evidently a recast of the Gobhilîya-Grihya, and the Sûtra of Hiranyakesin, which is, at least in part, based on that of Âpastamba 3, we are not in regard to the other Grihya texts in a condition to prove that one of them borrowed from the other. It often happens that single Sûtras or whole rows of Sûtras agree so exactly in different texts that this agreement cannot be ascribed to chance; but this does not—so far at least—enable us to tell which text is to be looked upon as the source of the

I will content myself with mentioning two such cases of agreement, in the one of which we can at least prove that a certain Sûtra cannot originally spring from one of the texts in which we find it, while in the other case we are able by means of a possibly not too uncertain conjecture to reconstruct the opening Sûtras of a lost Grihya-sûtra.

The description of the vrishotsarga (i.e. of the setting a bull at liberty) agrees almost word for word in the Sûtras of Sâṅkhâyana (III, 11), Pâraskara (III, 9), and in the Kâthaka-Grihya. In Sâṅkhâyana we read:

('When the bull is in the midst of the cows, he recites over them the texts "mayobhûh, &c.," down to the end of the Anuvâka.')

('When the bull is in the midst of the cows, he recites over it the texts "mayobhûh, &c.," down to the end of the Anuvâka.')

The quotation mayobhûh is clear, if we refer it to the Rig-veda. Hymn X, 169, which stands about in the middle of an Anuvâka, begins with this word 1. On the other hand in the Vâgasaneyi Samhitâ there is no Mantra beginning with Mayobhûh; we find this word in the middle of the Mantra XVIII, 45, and there follow verses whose use at the vrishotsarga would seem in part extremely strange. There can thus be no doubt that Pâraskara here borrowed from a Sûtra text belonging to the Rig-veda, a Pratîka, which, when referred to the Vâgasaneyi Samhitâ, results in nonsense.

[paragraph continues] I, 4,1-5. Pâraskara, being just on the point of describing the marriage ritual, prefixes a few sentences, the position of which here it is not very easy to understand. A general division of all Pâkayagñas—general remarks on the nature of the place for sacrificing: this looks very strange between a discussion of the Arghya and marriage ceremonies. Now these same sentences are found almost word for word and with the same passing on to the marriage ritual in Sâṅkhâyana also (Grihya I, 5, 1-5). Here, as in other cases, we have the borrowing word for word of such portions of text from an older text, and, closely related to this phenomenon, the fact that the sentences in question are awkwardly woven into the context of the Grihya where we read them, and are poorly connected with the surrounding parts. Unless we are much deceived, we have here a fragment from an older source inserted without connection and without change. It would seem that this fragment was the beginning of the original work; for the style and contents of these Sûtras are peculiarly appropriate for the beginning. Thus, if this conjecture is right, that old lost Grihya began with the main division of all the Pâkayagñas into four classes, and then proceeded at once to the marriage ritual. Later, when the texts which we have, came into existence, the feeling evidently arose, that in this way an important part of the matter had been overlooked. The supplementary matter was then inserted before the old beginning, which then naturally, as is to be seen in our texts, joins on rather strangely and abruptly to these newly-added portions.

Footnotes

x:1 It is doubtful whether at the time of the Rig-veda the custom was established for the sacrificer to keep burning constantly a sacred Grihya fire besides the three Srauta fires. There is, as far as I know, no express mention of the Grihya fire in the Rig-veda; but that is no proof that it had then not yet come into use. Of the Srauta fires the gârhapatya is the only one that is mentioned, though all three were known beyond a doubt. (Ludwig, Rig-veda, vol. iii, p. 355; in some of the passages cited the word gârhapatya does not refer to the gâ hapatya fire.)

x:2 Rig-veda X, 85. It is clear that what we have here is not a hymn intended to be recited all at once, but that, as in a number of other cases in the Rig-veda, the single verses or groups of verses were to be used at different points in the performance of a rite (or, in other cases, in the telling of a story). Compare my paper, 'Âkhyâna-Hymnen im Rig-veda,' Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. xxxix, p. 83.—Many verses of Rig-veda X, 85 occur again in the fourteenth book of the Atharva-veda.

xi:1 Rig-veda X, 14-16, and several other hymns of the tenth book. Compare the note at Âsvalâyana-Grihya IV, 4. 6.

xi:3 Compare the account of the historical development of some of the Vedic metres which I have given in my paper, 'Das altindische Âkhyâna,' Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. xxxvii, and my Hymnen des Rig-veda, vol. i, pp. 26 seqq.

xi:4 The Trishtubh and Gagatî offer a much less promising material for investigation, because, so far as can now be made out, the departures from the old type begin at a later period than in the case of the Anushtubh.

xi:5 Compare Max Müller's introduction to his English translation of the Rig-veda, vol. i, pp. cxiv seq.

xi:6 To demonstrate this, I have given in my last-quoted paper, p. 62, statistics with regard to the two hymns, Rig-veda I, 10 and VIII, 8; in the former the iambic ending of the first pâda obtains in twenty out of twenty-four cases, in the latter in forty-two out of forty-six cases.

xii:1 Compare the statistics as to the frequency of the different metrical forms at the ending of the first pâda, p. 63 of my above-quoted paper, and Hymnen des Rig-veda, vol. i, p. 28. I have endeavoured in the same paper, p. 65 seq., to make it seem probable that this was the stage of prosody prevailing during the government of the two Kuru kings Parikshit and Ganamegaya.

xiii:1 For instance, in the verses which occur in the well-known story of Sunahsepa (Aitareya-Brâhmana VII, 13 seq.).

xiv:1 Âsvalâyana-Grihya I, 21, 1. In Pâraskara and in the Mantra-Brâhmana only the first hemistich has the Anushtubh form.

xiv:2 Aitareya-Brâhmana VIII, 10, 9: etya grihân paskâd grihyasyâgner upavishtâyânvârabdhâya p. xv ritvig antatah kamsena katurgrihîtâs tisra âgyâhutîr aindrîh prapadam guhoti, &c.

xv:1 Some of the places in which the St. Petersburg dictionary sees names of the Grihya fire in Brâhmana texts are erroneous or doubtful. Taittirîya Samhitâ V, 5, 9, 2, not grihya but gahya is to be read. Aupâsana, Satapatha Brâhmana XII, 3, 5, 5, seems not to refer to a sacrificial fire. Following the identity of aupâsana and sabhya maintained in the dictionary under the heading aupâsana, one might be tempted in a place like Satapatha Brâhmana II, 3, 2, 3 to refer the words ya esha sabhâyâm agnih to the domestic fire. A different fire is however really meant (Kâtyâyana-Srauta-sûtra IV, 9, 20).

xv:2 Sâṅkhâyana I, 1, 1: pâkayagñân vyâkhyâsyâmah; I, 5, 1 =Pâraskara I, 4, 1: katvârah pâkayagñâ huto^ऽhutah prahutah prâsita iti.

xv:4 I, 7, 1, 3: sarvena vai yagñena devâh suvargam lokam âyan, pâkayagñena Manur asrâmyat, &c.

xv:5 I, 8, 1, 6 seq. The translation is that of Prof. Max Müller (India, what can it teach us? p. 135 seq.).

xvi:1 It is true that, as far as I know, passages expressly stating this with regard to Purûravas have not yet been pointed out in the Brâhmana texts; but the words in Satapatha Brâhmana XI, 5, 1, 14-17, and even in Rig-veda X, 95, 18 stand in close connection to this prominent characteristic of Purûravas in the later texts.

xvi:4 XIV, 9, 4, 18 = Brihadâranyaka VI, 4, 19 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xv, p. 220). Cf. Grihya-samgraha I, 114 for the expression sthâlîpâkâvritâ which is here used, and which has a technical force in the Grihya literature.

xvii:2 The Grihya-sûtra of Baudhâyana is called Smârta-sûtra in the best known MS. of this work (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv, p. xxx).

xix:1 This is also the way in which Sâyana understands the matter; he makes the following remark: tam hopaninya ity upanayanasya prastutatvât taddharmâ asmin brâhmane nirûpyante.

xix:4 'The teacher becomes pregnant by laying his right hand (on the pupil for the Upanayana); on the third day he (i.e. the pupil) is born as a Brâhmana along with the Sâvitrî (which is repeated to him on that day).'

xix:5 It is not likely that verses of this kind are taken from more comprehensive and connected metrical texts.

xxi:1 Satapatha Brâhmana XIV, 9, 4, 17 = Brihad Âranyaka VI, 4, 18 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xv, p. 219 seq.).

xxi:2 Cf. Prof. Max Müller's notes to the passage quoted from the Brihad Âranyaka. I must mention in this connection a point touched upon by Prof. Müller, loc. cit. p. 222, note 1, viz. that Âsvalâyana, Grihya I, 13, 1, expressly calls 'the Upanishad' the text in which the Pumsavana and similar ceremonies are treated. It is probable that the Upanishad which Âsvalâyana had in mind treated these rites not as a duty to which all were bound, but as a secret that assured the realisation of certain wishes. This follows from the character of the Upanishads, which did not form a part of the Vedic course which all had to study, but rather contained a secret doctrine intended for the few.

xxiii:1 I believe with Stenzler (see his translation of Âsvalâyana, pp. 2 seq.) that pâkayagña means 'boiled offering.' It seems to me that the expression pâka in this connection cannot be otherwise taken than in the word sthâlîpâka ('pot-boiling'). Prof. Max Müller (History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 203), following Hindu authorities, explains Pâkayagña as 'a small sacrifice,' or, more probably, 'a good sacrifice.' The definition of Lâtyâyana may be also here quoted (IV, 9, 2): pâkayagñâ ity âkakshata ekâgnau yagñân.

xxiii:2 Compare, for instance, the account of the ceremonies which are to be performed for the journey of the newly-married pair to their new home, Sâṅkhâyana-Grihya I, 15, or the observances to which the Snâtaka is bound, Gobhila III, 5, &c. According to the rule Sâṅkhâyana I, 12, 13 we are, however, to suppose a sacrifice in many ceremonies where there does not seem to be any.

xxiv:1 Sâṅkhâyana I, 5, 1; 10, 7; Pâraskara I, 4, 1. Doubtless Prof. Bühler is right in finding the same division mentioned also Vasishtha XXVI, 10 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv, p. 128). Âsvalâyana (I, 1, s) mentions only three of the four classes.

xxiv:2 In Lâtyâyana (V, 4, 22-24) all the sacrifices are divided into seven Haviryagña-samsthâs and into seven Soma-samsthâs, so that the Pâkayagñas do not form a class of their own; they are strangely brought in as the last of the Haviryagñas. Cf. Indische Studien, X, 325.

xxiv:4 Baudhâyana Grihya-sûtra, quoted by Bühler, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv, p. xxxi; cf. Sâyana's Commentary on Aitareya-Brâhmana III, 40, 2 (p. 296 of Aufrecht's edition).

xxv:1 Hiranyakesin says: samâvritta âkâryakulân mâtâpitarau bibhriyât, tâbhyâm anugñâto bhâryâm upayakkhet.

xxv:2 The same may be said with regard to two other Grihya texts which also belong to the black Yagur-veda, the Mânava and the Kâthaka. See Jolly, Das Dharmasûtra des Vishnu and das Kâthakagrihyasûtra, p. 75; Von Bradke, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländ. Gesellschaft, vol. xxxvi, p. 445.

xxviii:1 Not in Sâṅkhâyana, who describes the Ashtakâs before these sacrifices.

xxx:1 Professor Jolly in his article on the Dharma-sûtra of Vishnu, p. 71, note 1, points out that in the eyes of Hindu commentators also the Dharma-sûtras differ from the Grihya-sûtras in that the former contain rather the universal rules, while the latter contain the rules peculiar to individual schools. Cf. Weber, Indische Literaturgeschichte, 2. Aufl., S. 296.

xxx:2 It seems as though the choice of the Mantras which were to be prescribed for the Grihya ceremonies had often been intentionally made so as to comprise as many Mantras as possible occurring in the Mantra-Sâkhâ, which served as foundation to the Grihya texts in question.

xxx:3 When Govindasvâmin (quoted by Bühler, Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv, p. xiii) designates the Grihyasâstrâni as sarvâdhikârâni, this should not be understood literally. In general it is true the Grihya acts are the same for the disciples of all the Vedic schools, but the Mantras to be used in connection with them differ.

xxx:4 In the introduction to Gobhila I have treated of the special case where a Grihya-sûtra, besides being connected with one of the great Samhitâs, is connected also with a Grihya-samhitâ of its own, so to speak, with a collection of the Mantras to be used at the Grihya acts.

xxxi:1 In the domain of the Atharva-veda literature alone we find this relation reversed; here the Srauta-sûtra (the Vaitâna-sûtra) presupposes the Grihya-sûtra (the Kausika-sûtra). Cf. Prof. Garbe's preface to his edition of the Vaitâna-sûtra, p. vii. This relation is not extraordinary, considering the secondary character of the Vaitâna-sûtra.

xxxii:1 The parallel passages from the Srauta-sûtra and the Grihya-sûtra of the Mânavas are brought together in Dr. Von Bradke's interesting paper, 'Ueber das Mânava-Grihya-sûtra,' Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländ. Gesellschaft, vol. xxxvi, p. 451.

xxxii:2 For this reason I cannot accept the reasoning through which Prof. Bühler (Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, p. xiv) attempts to prove the identity of the author of the Srauta-sûtra and of the Dharma-sûtra of the Âpastambîya school. Bühler seems to assume that the repetition of the same Sûtra, and of the same irregular grammatical form in the Srauta-sûtra and in the Dharma-sûtra, must either be purely accidental, or, if this is impossible, that it proves the identity of the authors. But there remains a third possible explanation, that the two texts are by different authors, one of whom knows and imitates the style of the other.

xxxiii:1 Cf. my remarks in the introduction to the Sâṅkhâyana-Grihya, vol. xxix, pp. 5, 6.

xxxiv:1 In the work which has Khandhakâ as its general title and which has been transmitted to us in two parts, Mahâvagga and Kullavagga.

xxxiv:2 Compare, for instance, the explanations concerning the Upanayana in the Dharma-sûtras (Âpastamba I, 1; Gautama I) with the corresponding sections of the Grihya-sûtras.

xxxv:1 We do not mean to deny that among these verses too a few of especially modern appearance are to be found; e.g. this is true of the verses which Dr. Von Bradke has quoted from the Mânava-Grihya II, 24, 34 (Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländ. Gesellschaft, vol. xxxvi, p. 429).

xxxv:2 Let me here refer to the fact that one of these verses (Âsvalâyana-Grihya IV, 7, 16) concludes with the words, 'thus said Saunaka.'

xxxvi:1 The few verses which are found in Gobhila preserve the same metrical standard as those quoted in Sâṅkhâyana; it follows that in Gobhila IV, 7, 23, asvatthâd agnibhayam brûyât, we cannot change brûyât in ka, as Prof. Knauer proposes. The supernumerary syllable of the first foot is unobjectionable, but the form

of the second foot should not be touched.

xxxvii:2 Cf. Indische Studien, XV, 11. We do not mean to imply anything as to the metrical portions of other Sûtra texts than the Grihya-sûtras. As regards some verses quoted in the Baudhâyana-Dharma-sûtra, Prof. Bühler (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv, p. xli) has shown that they are actually borrowed from a metrical treatise on the Sacred Law.

xxxvii:3 Cf. Prof. Bühler's remarks, Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, p. xxiii.

xxxviii:1 In the Taittirîya Samhitâ (VII, 4, 17) mayobhûh is the beginning of an Anuvâka; the expression anuvâkaseshena would have no meaning if referred to this text.