Upload
lram70
View
119
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Translated by Various scholars Edited By FMax Muller Vol.XXV,oxford press 1886
Citation preview
~*
/
r
THE
SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST
[25]
$0tt00tt
HENRY FROWDE
Oxford University Press Warehouse
Amen Corner,
E.C.
THE
SACRED BOOKS OF THE EASTTRANSLATED
BY VARIOUS ORIENTAL SCHOLARS
AND EDITED BY
F.
MAX MULLER
VOL. XXV
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS1886
[All rights reserved]
THE LAWS OF MANUTRANSLATED
WITH EXTRACTS FROM SEVEN COMMENTARIES
BY
g.
bOhler
raw: *rj*Tf^i Mfr^f^] ^nS 1 ^ hthtoi mijcs ^ ^reW ^t *J% "^m^iT^jTn^ft ^^FinnfTrn^ua.
tRnfT^
^
W
11
e.
I
^
wqurII
[^v]
*t^t
fwav.
[tt:]
i
^nng^hr
faiftT srarcn:
tf%-
*Tre*TK
The
fifth
and sixth verses have been transposed by a mistake of
the copyist.2
^rnif^nft fsm(sic)
[^fl]
faro
Hwfw 1 *pwtto1
ttt
ufv
^gSa^Tftjn:
a
xliv
LAWS OF MANU.latter,
and it is not improbable that they may have one of its written works. As, further, the Manu-smrz'ti rests on a Manava Dharma-sutra, and has derived from the latter a number of its verses, the most natural explanation of the partial agreement between the 5raddhakalpa and the Sm^'ti is that both have drawn on the same source, the Manava Dharma-sutra. If that is so, the latter must have been considered as authoritative by the Manavas, and have been their peculiar property. Though several links in this chain of arguments must unfortunately remain hypothetical, it seems to me, especially if taken together with Professor Jolly's and Dr. von Schroder's above-mentioned discoveries regarding the relation of the books of the Kanaka school to those of the MaitrayamyaManavas and of the Vish^u-smr/'ti to the Manu-smrzti, sufficiently strong to show that also this part of Professor Max Miiller's hypothesis is more than an ingenious conjecture. In conclusion, I may mention that two other circumstances a certain agreement between the Maitraya^abrahma^opanishad and the Manu-smrzti, as well as the preference which the latter shows for North-western India in its description of the countries where pure Aryan customs prevail (II, 17-22) may also point to a connexion of the Manu-smnti and of its original with the Manavatheoccurredin
school.
In the Upanishad VI, 37, we find quoted, as a generally known maxim, a verse which occurs Manu
Two other verses, Manu VI, 7677, agree in substance with Maitr. Up. Ill, 4 1 and some of Manu's statements regarding the Atman and the results of the gu?*asIII, 76.,
or qualities closely correspond to the doctrines taught in the Upanishad 2 On a closer examination these resem.
blances lose, however, a good deal of their significance. For the ideas expressed in Manu III, 76 are likewisetraceable in a Vedic passage quoted in Vasish/^a's Dharmasutra. The comparison of the human body to an impure
dwelling
(Manu VI, 76-77) reappears even
in
Buddhistic
works 31
.
The corresponding
philosophical tenets, finally,noteI.2
Sacred Books of the East, vol. xv,
p. 298,
See below,
p. lxxiii.
3
Dhammapada, 147-150; Johanntgen, Das Gesetzbuch
des Manu, p. 93.
INTRODUCTION.
xlv
occur in a portion of the Manu-smrzti which probably is not ancient \ and they are held by several of the specialregards the passages in Manu's second chapter which praise the holiness of the districts between the Drzshadvati and the Sarasvati, and betweenschools of philosophy.
As
Yamuna and the Ganga, they may indicate, as Dr. 2 that the home of the school which Johanntgen thinks produced the Manava Dharma-sutra lies in those districts. If that were certain, it would agree well enough with thethe,
facts
known regarding the ancientlatter are
seats of the
The
a North-western,
sect,
Manavas. and extended, as the
from the Mayura hill to Gujarat. Unfortunately, however, the Dharma-sutras of Vasish^a and Baudhayana contain almost exactly the same statements as Manu, and hence the verses of the latter possibly mean nothing more than that the Manavas, like many other Vedic schools, considered India north of the Vindhyas, andespecially the districts adjoining the sacred rivers, as the true home of Brahmanism and of Aryan purity.
Mahanzava
asserts 3
II.
While the preceding discussion has shown that our is based on a Manava Dharma-sutra which probably was the exclusive property of the Maitrayawiya- Manava school, we have now to consider some
Manava Dharma^astra
questions connected with the conversion of the locally authoritative Sutra into a law-book claiming the allegiance of all Aryans and generally acknowledged by them. The
problems which now have to be solved, or at least to beattempted, are the following: I. what circumstances led to the substitution of a universally binding Manava Dharma.yastra for the manual of the Vedic school ? 2. why was so
prominent a position allotted to the remodelled Smrttl?1 2
3
See below, p. lxix. Loc. cit. pp. 109-110. Sacred Books of the East, vol.I,
ii,
p. xxxi
;
and L. von Schroder, Maitrayawi
Sawh.
pp.xxiv-xxviii. The ancient inscriptions name Maitrayawa Brahmaas The Manava school still as donees in the Central India Agency and Gujarat.exists in the latter
country and
in
Khandesh.
xlvi
LAWS OF MANU.the conversion effected? and?
3.
how was
4.
when did
it
probably take place Though the absence of all historical information, and even of a trustworthy tradition, makes it impossible togiveit is
full
and precise
details in answering the first question,
yet, I think, possible to recognise the general cause
which led to the production of that class of secondary Smrztis to which the Manava Dharmajastra belongs *. This cause lies, it seems to me, in the establishment of special law schools which were independent of any particular .Sakha of the Veda, and which supplanted the Vedic Karanas as far as the teaching of the sacred law is concerned. Evident as it is that the Vedic schools first systematised and cultivated the six sciences which, on account of their close connexion with the Veda, are called its Angas or limbs, it is no less apparent that, as the materials for each of these subjects accumulated and the method of their treatment was perfected, the enormous quantity of the matter to be learnt, and the difficulty of its acquisition depressed the Vedic schools from their high position as centres of the intellectual life of the Aryas, andcaused the establishment of new special schools of science, which, while they restricted the range of their teaching, taught their curriculum thoroughly and intelligently. In the Vedic schools a full and accurate knowledge of thesacred texts was, of course, always the primary object. In order to gain that the pupils had to learn not only the
Sawhita text of the Mantras and Brahma^as, but also their Pada, Krama, and perhaps still more difficult pa/^as or modes of recitation. This task no doubt required a considerable time, and must have fully occupied the twelve terms of four and a half or five and a half months whichthe Smrztis give as the average duration of the studentship 2 for the acquisition of one Veda As long as the Ahgas.
consisted of short simple treatises,1
it
was
also possible to.
Regarding the various classes of secondary Smr/tis, see West andSee
Biihler,
Digest, p. 32, third edition.2
Manu
III, 1,
and IV, 95, as well as the
parallel passages quoted in the
notes.
INTRODUCTION.commit themto
xlvil
memory and
to master their contents in
the twelve terms, consisting of the seven or eight dark 1 But fortnights from the month Pausha to Vafcakha.
when the Kalpathe
or ritual alone reached dimensions as in
the Sutras of the Baudhayaniyas and Apastambiyas, while grammar developed into as artificial a system as thatof Pa/zini,
man
to
it became a matter of sheer impossibility for one commit to memory and to fully understand the
sacred texts together with the auxiliary sciences, especially as the number of the latter was increased in early times by
the addition of the
Nyaya
or Purva Mima.7/zsa, the art of.
2 The members of the interpreting the rules of the Veda Vedic schools were then placed before two alternatives.
They mightof their
either commit to memory all the Vedic texts Sakhas together with the Angas, renouncing the attempt at understanding what they learnt, or they had to restrict the number of the treatises which they learnt by heart, while they thoroughly mastered those which they Those who adhered to the former course beacquired. came living libraries, but were unable to make any real use of their learning. Those who adopted the second alternative might become great scholars in the science of the sacrifice, grammar, law or astronomy, but they could notrival
of the sacred books.
with the others in the extent of the verbal knowledge Thus the Vedic schools ceased to be
the centres of intellectual, and were supplanted special, schools of science.
by the
The
present state of learning in India proves beyond
doubt that this change actually took place in the manner described, and direct statements in the ancient text-books,as well as their condition, allow us to recognise the various The true modern representastages which led up to it. tives of the ancient Karanas are the so-called Vaidiks, men
who, mostly living on charity, devote their energy exclusively to the acquisition of a verbal knowledge of thesome98, and the parallel passages quoted in the note. According to Angas might be studied at any time out of term (Vas. XIII, 7). 2 Regarding the early existence of the Purva Mfmawsa, see Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, p. xxvii and the verse on the constitution of a Parishad,1
See
Manu IV,
Smrz'tis the
;
quoted Baudh.
I, 1,
8
j
Vas. Ill, 20.
Xlviii
LAWS OF MANU.
sacred texts and of the Aiigas of their Sakhas as well as of some other works, more or less closely connected with the
Veda.
A perfect Vaidik
of the A^valayana school
knows
the Rig-veda according to the Sawhita, Pada, Krama, Ca/a and Ghana Pa/^as, the Aitareya Brahma/za and Ara^yaka,
the
ritualistic Sutras of Awalayana, Saunaka's Pratuakhya and the Siksha, Yaska's Nirukta, the grammar of Pa/zini, the Vedic calendar or (Syotisha, the metrical treatise called
the TT^andas, Ya^avalkya's Dharma^astra, portions of the Mahabharata, and the philosophical Sutras of Ka^ada,
and Badaraya^a. Similarly the Vaidiks of the Ya^us, Saman, and Atharvan schools are able to recite, more or less perfectly, the whole of the works of their 1 respective 5akhas as well as some other non-Vedic books But it would be in vain to expect from such men an exIt planation of the literary treasures which they possess.(^aimini,.
is
sacrifices
not the professional Vaidik who can perform the great according to the 5rauta-sutras, interpret the intri-
cate system of Pacini's grammar, or decide a knotty point of law according to the Dharma-sutra or the secondary Smriti which he knows by heart. For these purposes one
must go
to quite different classes of
of the great Srauta sacrifices lies in or Srauti, who unites with a thoroughly verbal knowledge of the sacred texts of his ^akha a full acquaintance with the
men. The performance the hands of the 5rotriya
meaning of the Srauta-sutras and with the actual kriya or manual work, described in the Prayogas. The vSrauti, as well as his humbler fellow- worker, the so-called Ya^ika or Bha#a-i, who knows the Grzhya-sutras and performs theprescribed for domestic occurrences, likewise both belong to the representatives of the Vedic schools. Theyrites
make, however, no pretence to a knowledge of the whole range of the Angas, but content themselves with studying 2 Real the Kalpa, or parts of it, and perhaps the 5iksha.
1
Regarding the necessity6.
for a
Vaidik to learn non-Vedic books, see Vas.
XXVIL2
Regarding the present condition of the Vedic schools and of Vedic learning, Haug, Brahma und die Brahmanen, p. 47 and R. G. BhaWarkar's careful paper, 'The Veda in India' (Ind. Ant. Ill, 132 sqq.) P'rom personal observasee;
INTRODUCTION.
xlix
proficiency in the other still surviving Aiigas, grammar, law, and astronomy is to be found only with those Vandits who fulfil their duty of studying the Veda by committingto
memory
a few particularly important sections, such as
the Pavamani-hymns of the Rig-veda or the 5atarudriya of the Ya^*ur-veda, or by confining themselves to the fewverses which occur in the Brahmaya^a and the Samdhya.Their chief aim is to be perfect in one or more vandana 1 of the special sciences which they study, without reference to a particular Vedic school. Thus, though a Vand'it who devotes himself to the sacred law may belong to the chiefly Vedic school of Baudhayana or Apastamba, he will not make Baudhayana's or Apastamba's Dharma-sutra the.
On the contrary, it will frestarting-point of his studies. quently happen that he possesses no knowledge of theDharma-sutra of his school, except a few passages quoted commentaries and digests. If he has read the whole work, he will consult it only as one of the many utterancesin the
of the ancient sages. He will not attribute to it a higher than to other Smrztis, but interpret it in accordauthority
ance with the rules of the secondary Dharma.s-astras ofor Ya^lavalkya. good illustration of this state of things is furnished by Saya;za-Madhava's treatment of Baudhayana in hisVyavaharamadhava, a treatise on civil andSmrz'ti.
Manu
A
criminal law supplementing his commentary on Para^ara's Though he himself tells us, in the introduction to,
the Parlyara-smrzti-vyakhya 2 that he belonged to the school of Baudhayana, and though he seems to have written
a commentary on Baudhayana's Sutras, he relies, e. g. for the law of Inheritance, not on Baudhayana's Dharma-
but on Viv7&ne.svara's exposition of Ya^vzavalkya. 3 As far as quotes Baudhayana only in three places the law is concerned, Saya^a follows the theories of thesutra,
He
.
tion I can
Ya^r-veda
add to Professor BhaWarkar's statements that Vaidiks of the White I have also heard of Vaidiks of are found also in Northern India. the Safna-veda among the Parvatiyas in the Panjab, and of the Atharva-vedain the Central India1 2 3
Bhaj^te^ftf^ ir^ngfTitrifH *ftr*n^ *3tiNh(n *pr*r**ro^TOTrafH