{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe29/sbe29002.htm","path":"hin/sbe29/sbe29002.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe29/sbe29002.htm","text":"The Grihya Sutras, Part 1 (SBE29), by Hermann Oldenberg, [1886]\nTHE Grihya-s\u00fbtra ascribed to S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana, which has been edited and translated into German by myself in the XVth volume of the Indische Studien, is based on the first of the four Vedas, the Rig-veda in the B\u00e2shkala recension 1, and among the Br\u00e2hmana texts, on the Kaush\u00eetaka. Its reputed author, whom we ordinarily find called by his family name, S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana, had the proper name Suyag\u00f1a. This we may infer from the lists of Vedic teachers given in different Grihya texts where they describe the Tarpana ceremony. Though in these lists the order of names varies very much, yet the two names Suyag\u00f1a and S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana are constantly placed side by side, so that this fact alone would render it probable that they belonged to the same person. Thus we read in the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana-Grihya IV, 10 = VI, 1:\nKaholam Kaush\u00eetakim, Mah\u00e2kaush\u00eetakim, Suyag\u00f1am S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yanam, \u00c2sval\u00e2yanam, Aitareyam, Mahaitareyam.\nHere we have grouped together the two Br\u00e2hmana authors (with the fictitious doubles, the great Kaush\u00eetaki, the great Aitareya) and the two corresponding S\u00fbtra authors belonging to the two chief branches of the Rig-veda literature; first comes one Br\u00e2hmana author (for Kahola Kaush\u00eetaki is one person) with the S\u00fbtra author connected with him, then the second S\u00fbtra author and the corresponding Br\u00e2hmana teacher.\nIn the S\u00e2mbavya-Grihya (Indische Studien, XV, 154) the corresponding passage runs thus:\nG\u00e2rgya- Gautama- S\u00e2kalya- B\u00e2bhravya- M\u00e2ndattavya\n[paragraph continues] [sic]- M\u00e2nd\u00fbkey\u00e2h Suyag\u00f1a- S\u00e2mkhy\u00e2yana- G\u00e2tukarnyey\u00e2h [sic] Paimga [sic]- S\u00e2mbavy\u2019-Aitarey\u00e2h.\nThe same Grihya still more explicitly bears witness to the name of Suyag\u00f1a S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana, by adding at the end of the list, from which these names are quoted the following words: Suyag\u00f1a S\u00e2kh\u00e2yanas [sic] tri[pya]tu, i.e. 'May Suyag\u00f1a S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana satiate himself (with the water offering).'\nIn the \u00c2sval\u00e2yana-Grihya III, 4, we read:\nKaholam Kaush\u00eetakam Mah\u00e2kaush\u00eetakam Pai\u1e45gyam Mah\u00e2pai\u1e45gyam Suyag\u00f1am S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yanam Aitareyam Mahaitareyam.\nWe may also quote here a K\u00e2rik\u00e2 given by N\u00e2r\u00e2yana 1 in his great commentary on the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana-Grihya (I, 1, 10):\nAtr\u00e2raniprad\u00e2nam yad adhvaryuh kurute kvakit\u00a02\n matam tan na Suyag\u00f1asya, mathitam so \u2019tra nekkhati.\nIt would perhaps be hazardous to claim for the author of this K\u00e2rik\u00e2 the authority of an independent witness, for very likely he may have derived his knowledge from the lists of teachers which we have quoted before. But at all events the concordance of the three Grihya texts furnishes a proof which, I think, cannot be set aside by another testimony which we must mention now. At the end of the Kaush\u00eetaki-\u00c2ranyaka (Adhy\u00e2ya 15) we find a Vamsa or list of the teachers by whom the knowledge contained in that \u00c2ranyaka is supposed to have been handed down. The opening words of this list run thus:\n'Om! Now follows the Vamsa. Adoration to the Brahman! Adoration to the teachers! We have learnt (this text) from Gun\u00e2khya S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana, Gun\u00e2khya S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana from Kahola Kaush\u00eetaki, Kahola Kaush\u00eetaki from Udd\u00e2laka \u00c2runi, &c:\nIt is a very natural supposition that the author of this list intended to begin with the name of the Doctor eponymus, if we may say so, of the S\u00fbtras of his school, and then to proceed to name the Doctor eponymus of the Br\u00e2hmanas, and after him the more ancient teachers and\nsages. But whether the author of this passage really supposed this Gun\u00e2khya S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana to be the author of the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana-s\u00fbtras, or not, we shall be justified in following rather the unanimous statements of the texts previously quoted, and in accepting in accordance with them, as the full name of our S\u00fbtrak\u00e2ra, the name Suyag\u00f1a S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana.\nThe Grihya-s\u00fbtra which has been here translated presupposes, as all Grihya-s\u00fbtras do, the existence of the Srauta-s\u00fbtra, with which it is intimately connected and which is referred to in the Grihya in several instances 1.\nHere the question arises whether the Grihya-s\u00fbtra was composed by the same author to whom the authorship of the Srauta-s\u00fbtra belongs, so that the two texts form together, and would, in the conception of their author, be intended to form, one great body of S\u00fbtras, or, on the other hand, whether the Grihya-s\u00fbtra is a later addition to the Srauta-s\u00fbtra. On this question I have ventured, in the preface to my German edition of S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana 2, to offer a few remarks which, however, I feel bound to say do not seem to myself quite decisive. I there pointed out that the Grihya-s\u00fbtra contains a few aphorisms which we should rather expect would have found their place in the Srauta-s\u00fbtra, if the two texts were composed by the same author and on a common plan 3. But, apart from the possibility that in a work of such considerable extent as that collection of S\u00fbtras would be, such trifling incongruences or irregularities might very easily escape the attention even of a very careful author, there is still another objection that may be urged against the inference drawn by me from such passages. It can be shown 4 that the Grihya texts which we possess are based to some extent on one common original, from which they have taken verbatim, or nearly verbatim, a certain number of aphorisms. Thus if we were to suppose that S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana,\nor whosoever the author of this Grihya-s\u00fbtra may have been, found the aphorisms on which I once based my argument, in that original text, this would explain the occurrence of those passages in a portion of the great body of S\u00fbtras different from that in which we should expect to meet them. Now several of the passages in question recur identically in other Grihya texts, so that we may infer indeed that they are taken from that lost original, and we have no means to judge whether the other similar passages are not taken from it also. I believe, therefore, that the opinion which I once pronounced regarding the relation in which the two S\u00fbtra texts stand to each other, cannot be vindicated, and that it is better to leave that question unanswered until perhaps further discoveries throw a new light on it.\nFor the reconstruction of the correct text of the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana-Grihya, and occasionally also for its interpretation, it is of considerable importance that we possess, besides the Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee MSS. of the text and of the commentaries, a South Indian MS. written in the Grantha character (MS. Whish 78 in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, London) which contains a Grihya based on that of S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana and following it, during the greater part of the work, nearly word for word 1. It is designated in the MS., at the end of the single Adhy\u00e2yas, as 'Kaush\u00eetaka-Grihya.' It therefore professes to follow the teaching of the same Br\u00e2hmana which is adhered to also by the S\u00fbtra school of S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana. A metrical commentary, which in the MS. follows after the text, names in its opening Sloka a teacher S\u00e2mbavya as the author of this S\u00fbtra. The Sloka runs thus:\nNatv\u00e2 Kaush\u00eetak\u00e2k\u00e2ryam S\u00e2mbavyam s\u00fbtrakrittamam\n grihyam tad\u00eeyam samkshipya vy\u00e2khy\u00e2sye bahuvismritam.\n('Having bowed to the most excellent author of S\u00fbtras, to S\u00e2mbavya, the \u00c2k\u00e2rya belonging to the Kaush\u00eetaka school, I shall compose a short commentary on his Grihya, which has been forgotten by many.')\nThe name of this S\u00e2mbavya does not occur among the\nteachers enumerated in the description of the Tarpana ceremony, neither in S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana IV, 10, nor in \u00c2sval\u00e2yana III, 4; but in the list of the S\u00e2mbavya-Grihya itself it is found (see above, p. 4); and besides it seems to me also to be mentioned in \u00c2sval\u00e2yana-Grihya IV, 8, 24, in which passage it will scarcely be considered too bold to conjecture S\u00e2mbavya instead of S\u00e2mvatya.\nThough the MS. of the S\u00e2mbavya-Grihya is very confused, and full of blunders of all sorts, yet it deserves to be attentively studied by all scholars who are accustomed to look, if not in theory yet in practice, on the agreement of a few Vedic text MSS., or of a few Indian commentaries, as if it had a claim to an unassailable authority to which European Orientalists would have no right to deny their faith. In the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana-Grihya a number of passages are found in which corrupt readings or perverse explanations are supported by all the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana MSS. and by all the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana commentaries, and if, by a rare and fortunate chance, the S\u00e2mbavya Grantha MS., which is unaffected by the blunders of the Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee MSS., had not been discovered in the south of the peninsula, these readings and explanations would seem to rest on the unanimous agreement of tradition. Perhaps it seems unnecessary to dwell on this point, for very few Orientalists, if any, would be prepared to assert that Indian tradition is infallible. But when looking over many of the editions and translations of the Vedic texts; even such as have been published in the last years, one finds plentiful occasion to observe that in hundreds of passages tradition has been practically treated, by scholars of very high merit, as if it had an authority not very far removed from infallibility. A case like that of which we have to speak here, in which a whole set of MSS., and occasionally also of commentaries, can be tested by a MS. of a nearly related text, written in a different character and in a distant part of India, will strengthen our belief that we are right in judging for ourselves, even if that judgment should oppose itself to such authorities as N\u00e2r\u00e2yana or R\u00e2makandra or Gayar\u00e2ma.\nPerhaps it will not be out of place to add here, as an\nillustration of these remarks, a few observations on one of the passages in which the rejection of the traditional S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana reading, together with the traditional S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana explanation, is confirmed by the S\u00e2mbavya MS., though no doubt, even without the aid of that MS., we ought to have formed the right conclusions for ourselves. At S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana II, 4, 1. 2 the traditional reading is:\nMama vrate hridayam te dadh\u00e2mi mama kittam anu kittam to astu | mama v\u00e2kam ekaman\u00e2 gushasva Brihaspatish tv\u00e2 niyunaktu mahyam iti | k\u00e2masya brahmakaryasy\u00e2s\u00e2v iti.\nS\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana is treating here of the Upanayana, or the initiation of the student who is received by a teacher and intends to study the Veda with him. The teacher on that occasion is to pronounce the Mantra which we have just transcribed, and which translated into English would run thus:\n'Under my will I take thy heart; after my mind shall thy mind follow; in my word thou shalt rejoice with all thy heart; may Brihaspati join thee to me.' 'Of the Brahmakarya of K\u00e2ma (or lust), N.N.!'\nThe MSS. give the end of the passage as we have printed it above, k\u00e2masya brahmakaryasy\u00e2s\u00e2v iti. This N\u00e2r\u00e2yana explains in the following way. Brahmakarya here means the observances which the student has to keep through certain periods of time before the different texts which he has to learn can be taught him. First comes the S\u00e2vitr\u00ee verse, for which he prepares himself by observing the s\u00e2vitra vrata; this lasts either one year, or three days, or the S\u00e2vitr\u00ee can also be taught him immediately (see chap. 5, 1-3). Then follows the sukriya vrata, of three days, or twelve days, or one year, or any other period of time according to the teacher's pleasure (chap. 11, 10); by this vrata the student is enabled to study the main portion of the Veda. Finally come the s\u00e2kvara, vr\u00e2tika, aupanishada observances, each of which has to last one year, and which refer to the different parts of the \u00c2ranyaka (see chap. 11, 11 seq., and the sixth book). Now the formula of which we treat here refers principally to the s\u00e2vitra\nvrata. The teacher announces to the student how long he has to keep that vrata. He says (S\u00fbtra 1), 'May Brihaspati join thee to me (S\u00fbtra 2) for a brahmakarya (i.e. a vrata) of such and such (k\u00e2masya) a time (one year, three days, &c.); N.N.!' K\u00e2ma (the pleasure) would thus stand here as an expletive which was to be replaced in each single case by the indication of the real space of time that depended on the teacher's pleasure ('. . . niyunaktu mahyam s\u00e2mvatsarikasya trair\u00e2trikasya v\u00e2nvakshikasya v\u00e2 s\u00e2vitrasya brahmakaryasy\u00e2muk\u00e2mukasarmann iti v\u00e2kyasamyogo g\u00f1eyah'). The same should take place at the corresponding forms of Upanayana which had to precede the entrance of the student upon the sukriya, s\u00e2kvara, &c. observances. This is the explanation of N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, with which R\u00e2makandra and all the other commentaries agree. It will scarcely be necessary to observe that the singular use of k \u00e2 ma, on which this traditional explanation rests, is neither in accordance with the meaning of the word, nor supported by any parallel texts. So, even before I had the opportunity of collating the S\u00e2mbavya MS., I had no doubt that the system of the Vratas has nothing at all to do with our S\u00fbtra, and that its text should be made intelligible by a slight alteration touching only the quantity of the a in two syllables, by writing, K\u00e2masya brahmak\u00e2ry asy as\u00e2v iti (thou art the Brahmak\u00e2rin of K\u00e2ma, N.N.!), as we read in \u00c2sval\u00e2yana I, 20, 8, kasya brahmak\u00e2ryasi, pr\u00e2nasya brahmak\u00e2ry asi. Afterwards I found that the Grantha MS. of S\u00e2mbavya gives the very reading which I had conjectured.\nPassages like this are not very rare in the Grihya-s\u00fbtras. In the other S\u00fbtras we are not in the same favourable position of possessing a MS. which enables us, as the Grantha MS. of S\u00e2mbavya does, to test their text.\nWe cannot conclude these introductory remarks without speaking of the later additions tacked on at the end of the original body of the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana-Grihya-s\u00fbtras 1. There are unmistakable indications that the fifth and sixth books are later additions. The fifth book is\ndesignated as a parisishta in a K\u00e2rik\u00e2 quoted by N\u00e2r\u00e2yana:\n('According to the Parisishta, if one of the half-monthly sacrifices has been omitted, a mess of rice should be offered on the sacred domestic fire to Agni Vaisv\u00e2nara and to Agni Tantumat.')\nThe passages of the Parisishta here referred to are the two first aphorisms of V, 4:\n'Now if a half-monthly sacrifice has not been performed, one or the other of them, then a mess of rice (is to be offered)\u2014\n'With (the words), \"To Agni Vaisv\u00e2nara sv\u00e2h\u00e2! To Agni Tantumat sv\u00e2h\u00e2!'\"\nThere are, besides, several passages in which N\u00e2r\u00e2yana himself mentions the fifth book under the designation of Parisesh\u00e2dhy\u00e2ya 2. And even if we had not the authority of the K\u00e2rik\u00e2 and of N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, the contents alone of the fifth book would raise our suspicion against its genuineness. The matter ordinarily treated of in the Grihya texts is brought to an end in Adhy\u00e2yas I-IV; in the fifth book we find diverse supplementary additions on points discussed before; rules, which no doubt would have been given at their proper place, had the fifth book been composed at the same time, and by the same author, as the preceding books 3. Besides, we find different pr\u00e2yaskitta oblations treated of, and a description of two ceremonies which are mentioned, as far as I know, in no other Grihya-s\u00fbtra, but belong to the rites frequently described in such works as Pur\u00e2nas, Parisishtas, and later Dharma texts: the consecration of ponds or wells (chap. 2), and the consecration of gardens (chap. 3).\nThere can thus be little doubt as to the secondary character of the fifth book. And this alone suffices to\nfurnish an important argument in favour of the same view with regard to the sixth book also. This view is furthermore supported by the opening invocation in that book, addressed to Brahman and to a number of mythological beings and Vedic sages and teachers. It is evident that by such an invocation this book is characterised as a separate treatise, presupposing of course the main body of the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana-s\u00fbtras, but not forming part of it in the same sense in which, for instance, the second or the third Adhy\u00e2ya does. The object of that treatise is the exposition of the ritual connected with the study of the Rahasya texts. The sixth book, composed no doubt by a later adherent of the S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana school, returns, in fact, to, and enlarges on, matters that have already found their proper place in the original Grihya-s\u00fbtra at II, 12, and partly also at IV, 7.\n3:1 See IV, 5, 9.\n4:1 Manuscr. Chambers 712 (Berlin Royal Library), fol. 12 b.\n4:2 Comp. P\u00e2raskara-Grihya I, 2, 5: araniprad\u00e2nam eke.\n5:1 See, for instance, Grihya I, 16, 1 (Srauta IV, 16, 2).\n5:2 Indische Studien, vol. xv, pp. 11, 12.\n5:3 The S\u00fbtras with reference to which I made that observation are I, 8, 14; 14, 13-15; II, 15, 10. Comp. Srauta-s\u00fbtra II, 7, 12; IV, 21.\n5:4 I intend to give some proofs of this in the General Introduction to the Grihya-s\u00fbtras which will be given in the second volume of these translations.\n6:1 Comp. the statements given with regard to that text in my German edition of S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana, Indische Studien, XV, 4 seq.\n9:1 Comp. the remarks in my German edition of S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana, Ind. Studien. XV, 7.\n10:1 v\u00e2gnaye the MS.\n10:2 N\u00e2r\u00e2yana on I, 9, 3; 10, 2.\n10:3 The Paddhati inserts the paraphrase of several of these rules into the explanation of the first Adhy\u00e2ya.","title":"Grihya Sutras, Part 1 (SBE29): S\u00e2\u1e45kh\u00e2yana-Grihya-S\u00fbtra: Introduction","type":"page"}