Grihya Sutras

SR No.: 007685
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1886
Total Pages: 2642
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 533

INTRODUCTION,
XXXV
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-sútras, 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? A second kind of verses which are quoted in the Grihya-sâtras must be carefully distinguished from these. It is doubtful whether there are any to be found among them which the authors of the Satras have themselves composed; but they were composed at a period decidedly more recent than those Mantras", 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 ahuh'here they say also,' or tad api slokah here there are also Slokas,' and other similar phrases
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 Brahmana, in a metre corresponding to the peculiarities of the older literary style. On the other hand, the verses appearing in the Grihya-sätras differ only in a few cases from the standard of the later Sloka prosody, as we have it, e. g. in the Mahabharata 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 Sankhayana-Grihya, and these tables show that the characteristic ending of the first
* 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 Manava-Gríhya II, 14, 34 (Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländ. Gesellschaft, vol. xxxvi, p. 429).
Let me here refer to the fact that one of these verses (Asval@yana-Gribya IV, 7, 16) concludes with the words, thus said Saunaka.' • Asvaldyana-Grihya 1, 3, 10 designates such a verse as yagtagathi.
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