{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe29/sbe29207.htm","path":"hin/sbe29/sbe29207.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe29/sbe29207.htm","text":"The Grihya Sutras, Part 1 (SBE29), by Hermann Oldenberg, [1886]\nAMONG the Grantha MSS. collected by the late Dr. Burnell and now belonging to the India Office Library, there are some MSS. (numbers CLXXII and following of the Catalogue) of a Grihya-s\u00fbtra hitherto unpublished, which is ascribed to Kh\u00e2dir\u00e2k\u00e2rya. It belongs to the Dr\u00e2hy\u00e2yana school of the S\u00e2ma-veda, which prevails in the south of the Indian peninsula 1, and it is based on the Gobhil\u00eeya-s\u00fbtra, from which it has taken the greater number of its aphorisms, just as the Dr\u00e2hy\u00e2yana-Srauta-s\u00fbtra, as far as we can judge at present, is nothing but a slightly altered redaction of L\u00e2ty\u00e2yana 2. Like the Gobhila-Grihya it very seldom gives the Mantras in their full extent, but quotes them only with their Prat\u00eekas, and it is easy to identify these quotations in the Mantrabr\u00e2hmana (published at Calcutta, 1873), which contains the texts prescribed by Gobhila for the Grihya ceremonies.\nThe Kh\u00e2dira-Grihya has evidently been composed with the intention of abridging Gobhila's very detailed and somewhat lengthy treatise on the domestic rites. Digressions, such as, for instance, that introduced by the words tatraihad \u00e2huh, Gobhila I, 2, 10-27, or such as Gobhila's explication of the terms paurnam\u00e2s\u00ee and am\u00e2v\u00e2sy\u00e2, I, 5, 7 seqq., or most of the regulations concerning the Sakvaryas, III, 3, or the Slokas, IV, 7, are invariably left\nout, and in the descriptions of the single ceremonies throughout the principal points only are given, with the omission of all words and of all matter that it seemed possible to dispense with. On the other hand, the arrangement of the S\u00fbtras has undergone frequent changes, in which the compiler clearly shows his intention of grouping together, more carefully than was done in the original text, the S\u00fbtras which naturally belong to each other. Of the S\u00fbtras of the Kh\u00e2dira-Grihya which cannot be identified in Gobhila, several are to be traced back to L\u00e2ty\u00e2yana, or we should perhaps rather say, to Dr\u00e2hy\u00e2yana. Thus Kh\u00e2d. I, 1, 14 mantr\u00e2ntam avyaktam parasy\u00e2digrahanena vidy\u00e2t evidently corresponds to L\u00e2ty\u00e2yana I, 1, 3, uttar\u00e2dih p\u00fbrv\u00e2ntalakshanam, and Kh\u00e2d. I, 1, 24 avy\u00e2vrittim yag\u00f1\u00e2\u1e45gair avyav\u00e2yam kekhet is identical with L\u00e2ty. I, 2, 15, avyav\u00e2yo\u093dvy\u00e2vrittis ka yag\u00f1\u00e2\u1e45gaih.\nUpon the whole, though certainly the Kh\u00e2dira-Grihya does not contain much matter which is not known to us from other sources, it notwithstanding possesses a certain interest, since it shows by a very clear example how a S\u00fbtrak\u00e2ra of the later time would remodel the work of a more ancient author, trying to surpass him by a more correct arrangement, and especially by what became more and more appreciated as the chief accomplishment of S\u00fbtra composition, the greatest possible succinctness and economising of words. To an interpreter of Gobhila the comparison of the Kh\u00e2dira-Grihya no doubt will suggest in many instances a more correct understanding of his text than he would have been likely to arrive at without that aid, and perhaps even readings of Gobhila which seemed hitherto subject to no doubt, will have to give way to readings supplied by the Grantha MSS. of the Kh\u00e2dira-Grihya. Thus, Gobhila III, 8, 16, I do not hesitate to correct asamsv\u00e2dam, on the authority of Kh\u00e2d. III, 3, 13, into asamkh\u00e2dam or asamkh\u00e2dan 1.\nAs the text of the Kh\u00e2dira-Grihya is very short and has not yet been published, it has been printed at the foot of the page, together with references to the parallel passages of Gobhila. For further explanations of the single S\u00fbtras, I refer to my translation of Gobhila which will form part of the second volume of the Grihya-s\u00fbtras, where I shall also hope to give some extracts from Rudraskanda's commentary on the Kh\u00e2dira-Grihya.\n371:1 See Dr. Burnell's Catalogue, p. 56.\n371:2 Weber, Vorlesungen \u00fcber indische Literaturgeschichte (2nd edition), p. 87: 'Almost the entire difference between this S\u00fbtra and that of L\u00e2ty\u00e2yana lies in the arrangement of the matter treated of, which is in itself very nearly the same in both texts, and is expressed in the same words.' Comp. Anandakandra Ved\u00e2ntav\u00e2g\u00eesa's Introduction to his edition of L\u00e2ty\u00e2yana (in the Bibliotheca Indica), pp. 2, 3, and his statements on Dr\u00e2hy\u00e2yana in the notes of that edition.\n372:1 Comp. P\u00e2raskara II, so, 15, and the quotations given by B\u00f6htlingk-Roth s. v. sam-kh\u00e2d. Forms derived from the two roots, kh\u00e2d and svad, are frequently interchanged in the MSS.; see the two articles in the Dictionary.","title":"Grihya Sutras, Part 1 (SBE29): Kh\u00e2dira-Grihya-S\u00fbtra: Introduction","type":"page"}