{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/sbe30/sbe30118.htm","path":"hin/sbe30/sbe30118.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe30/sbe30118.htm","text":"The Grihya Sutras, Part 2 (SBE30), by Hermann Oldenberg, [1892]\nAs Professor Oldenberg was unable to find any other texts connected with the Grihya-s\u00fbtras, I have tried to bring this volume to its proper size by adding a translation of \u00c2pastamba's Yag\u00f1a-Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2-s\u00fbtras. These S\u00fbtras give some general information about the performance of sacrifices, and may prove useful to the students both of the Srauta and the Grihya sacrifices. Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2 is defined as a general rule or definition applicable throughout a whole system, and more binding than any particular rule. How well this sense of paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2 was understood in India, we may see from a passage in the Sisup\u00e2lavadha XVI, 80:\n[paragraph continues] 'Whose (the king's) command, though brief, having reached the whole kingdom round about and obtained authority, is never defeated, being of the highest weight, like a Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2.'\nThese Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2s are a very characteristic invention of ancient Indian authors, particularly during the S\u00fbtra period. We find them as early as the Anukraman\u00ees, and even at that early time they had been elaborated with many purely technical contrivances. Thus we are told in the Index to the Rig-veda that, as a general rule, if no deity is mentioned in the index of the hymns, Indra must be supposed to be the deity addressed; when no metre is mentioned, the metre must be understood to be the Trishtubh; at the beginning of each Mandala the hymns must be taken to be addressed to Agni, till we come to hymns distinctly addressed to Indra. Now it is clear that in this case these Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2s or general instructions must have been laid down\nbefore the whole work was carried out. The same applies to other Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2s, such as those of the metrical S\u00fbtras, but I feel more doubtful as to the Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2s in the grammatical S\u00fbtras of P\u00e2nini. To judge from the Paribh\u00e2shendusekhara, it would seem that the Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2-s\u00fbtras to P\u00e2nini's grammar also had been settled before a single S\u00fbtra of P\u00e2nini was composed, and yet it seems almost incredible that this gigantic web of S\u00fbtras should have been woven on so complicated a warp. This question ought to be settled once for all, as it would throw considerable light on the workmanship of P\u00e2nini's S\u00fbtras, and there is no one better qualified to settle it for us than the learned editor of the Paribh\u00e2shendusekhara. It is different with our Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2s. There is no necessity to suppose that they were worked out first, before the S\u00fbtras were composed. They look more like useful generalisations than like indispensable preliminary instructions. They give us a general idea of the sacrifice, and inculcate rules that ought to be observed throughout. But I doubt whether they are as essential for enabling the priest to carry out the instructions of the S\u00fbtras in performing a sacrifice as the grammatical paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2s are in carrying out the grammatical rules of P\u00e2nini.\nThe \u00c2pastamba-s\u00fbtras for which our Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2s are intended are said to have comprised thirty Prasnas (see Burnell, Catalogue, p. 19, and p. xxix in Professor Oldenberg's Introduction). Burnell mentions that sometimes two Prasnas, treating of the Paitrimedhika rites, were counted as the thirty-first and thirty-second of the whole work. Of these thirty Prasnas fifteen have been edited with Rudradatta's commentary by Professor Garbe in the Bibliotheca Indica, 1882-1885. Rudradatta's commentary does not seem to have extended beyond the fifteenth Prasna; some authorities, however, suppose that Haradatta, to whom commentaries on the later Prasnas are ascribed, was only another name for Rudradatta. According to Kaundappa's Prayogaratnam\u00e2l\u00e2 (see Burnell, Classified Index, I, p. 17 a), the Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2-s\u00fbtras formed part of the twenty-fourth Prasna (katurvimse tatah prasne ny\u00e2yapr\u00e2varahautrakam).\n[paragraph continues] Here Ny\u00e2ya in the sense of method, way, plan, seems to stand for Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2. Another name is S\u00e2m\u00e2nya-s\u00fbtra (see Burnell, Classified Index, p. 15 b, where it is mentioned as \u00a7 4 of Prasna XXIV). Kaundapp\u00e2k\u00e2rya himself, who is said to have been minister of V\u00eerabh\u00fbpati, the son of the famous king Bukka of Vigayanagara, begins his work with a paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2-parikkheda.\nI published a German translation of these S\u00fbtras with notes many years ago, in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl\u00e4ndischen Gesellschaft, 1855. I here give the same translation, but I have shortened the notes and compared the translation once more with the MSS.\nThe principal MSS. used are MS. I.O.L. 1676 b, 259, and 1127. MS. 1676 b, now 308, is described in Professor Eggeling's Catalogue of the Sanskrit MSS. in the Library of the India Office, vol. i, p. 58 b. It is written in Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee, contains thirty leaves, and is called at the end iti Srikapardin\u00e2 bh\u00e2shye uddhritas\u00e2ram paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2patalam. MS. 259, now 309, contains twenty-seven leaves in Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee, and is called at the end iti Kapardisv\u00e2mi-bh\u00e2shye paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2patalam. MS. 1127, now 307, in Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee, is dated Samvat 1691, S\u00e2ka 1556, and contains on 220 leaves portions of T\u00e2lavrindaniv\u00e2sin's manual, the \u00c2pastambas\u00fbtra-prayoga-vritti, and on pp. 75 a-116 a Kapardisv\u00e2min's commentary on \u00c2pastamba's Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2patalam. Burnell mentions another copy of this work in his Classified Index, I, p. 17 b, and he states (Catalogue, p. 24) that, according to tradition, the author was a native of Southern India, called Andappillai, and that t\u00e2lavrinda or t\u00e2lavrinta is a translation of the Tamil panai-kk\u00e2tu, a very common name for villages among palmyra trees (panai = palmyra, k\u00e2tu = forest).\nWhile preparing my new translation for the Press, I received a printed edition of the text and commentary published by Sri Satyavratas\u00e2masramibhatt\u00e2k\u00e2rya in his valuable Journal, the Ush\u00e2, beginning in the eighth fasciculus. He gives also a Bengali translation, and some commentaries in the same language, which have proved useful in certain difficult passages.","title":"Grihya Sutras, Part 2 (SBE30): \u00c2pastamba's Yag\u00f1a-Paribh\u00e2sh\u00e2-S\u00fbtras: Introduction","type":"page"}