JOURNAL OF THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE M.S. UNIVERSITY OF BARODA, BARODA Vol 3] September, 1953 | Vo3) 0 EEE THE QUOTATIONS FROM THE DHARMASOTRAS AND ‘DHARMASASTRAS IN THE DHARMANIBANDHAS By Da. Lupo RocuEn esate foto in he Belgian National Feundation for Stet Reserch(Ghnt Universi) In the Tagore Law Lectures 1863 Professor J. Jolly wrote os follows: teak of understanding a whole fabric of ancient law such as the Sans- dt Law of India, cannot be accomplished in a day, and much more patient Absorrtion in the habit of mind and expression of the Sansirit NW7Er% and a aeeetar investigation of all their compositions will be required before a full incight into the nature and history of Sanskrit Law can be obtained” ( p-29 )- Meanwhile many years have elapsed, and a considerable number of works on Diarmadastra, which Dr. Jolly could know only through manussripts of ooeser existence he was completely unconscious, bave been printed and edited. cree puediy they have richly enlarged the extent of ovr sourees of informar tion in this field. Nevertheless another considerable number of texts will have to Be found and edited before we wil dispose of the complete materials for adeSinitehistory of Dharmasastra. ‘This state of our present knowledge in the first place shall incite us © iligently collecting and editing the texts which, thus fa, are Men in public fand private libraries in India and all over the world. ‘Bat this enormous and pressing task may not keep us back from equally dinigently studying the material brooght up thus far. And its he aspect of this study, we want to advocate and to put before the students of Dharmasistra,2 DR. Lubo RocrER tite ou saeco on Me shall vara the reader, that what we want to sive, be it Dbrovght toget the result of studying the known texts, is not 0 much intended as such, but rather as an instrument for further research work. Thy ‘ote will be limited to Which e Pleading for another number of separate papers, « specimen of which, however, ically, bat rat wil be joined to this plea as au illustration, f want to reach Fveryhody who has been concerned with Dharmecastra literature is aware but so that for of the texture of the commentaries and the Nibandlas: the Nibandhakara, who identical numb wants to treat some er of Dharmasastra, collects a number of texts the same editic on the subject from the ancient Dharmastitras and Dharmasistras, He arranges different lists a them in & particular order, and round these ancy texts he weaves a quotations. A ceisimantry of bis own, which will differ according to ite ampleness and to its originality, which may no As pointe this plea to be . might be consic : Dharmagistra, all kinds of difi Beh and preparing a First of al ¢ ‘The Nibandhas are as many diferent bridges, longer ot shor ter, and more critical editions or less original according to the mental capacities of the moker, but all of them Tn this res esting on the same pillars, which may be more or less numerous, which may be ut more or less near each other, bat which never Te will be evident, that our definite judgment on a Nibandhakira will depend only on the changeable part, ie., on his ewe contribution to the history ¢ i of Dharmasistra, which after all shall be our ultimate object. simply reproduc in the printed ed variant readings ‘This metho (1) The vary among thei adopted in such ¢ editors will adopt (2) Wher of writing bis tex: ‘texts which have to superhuman au sidered as the only fail, +S a g e : = What We want f0 do in this respect, is to deaw up ists of the quotations in the Nibandhas, and this in a twofold orda (2) LIST A, contain’ smti even the rea Bether. As far as these quotations occur in the i cannot always be sitras and Dharmasistras, th (3) The ot ei and the sitraor Soka they are indicated with in these cain reproducing the te hot, @ question mark is put and eventually the real this holds good no ‘source of the text is added between square brackets, Which are its fram (2) Im a second tis, HIST B, the verses of the same authors will be not of the original.to give, be it Jas such, but 11 be limited to hich, however, erature isaware andhakara, who umber of texts vs, He arranges she weaves a ness and to its bia two different ile element, viz. ngeable portion, vow he explains unity, orter, and more ‘but all of them ‘ous, which may bandhakara will an to the history to take into con 1 just before yve 1, that the study ment on the way of the quotations whieh they occur n are grouped to- s of the Dharma- aber of the chap- ions, If they do ventually the real e authors will be ‘tile QUOTATIONS FROM THE DHARNASUTRAS....DHARMANIBANDIAS 3 Drought logether according to their place in the printed smrli-texts, The rules which may not be found in them will be carefully noted. Which editions of the smrlis wé use will be of less importance theoret- ically, but rather a matter of essentially practical agreement. For, what we want to reach is, to provide as many rules as possible with a particular number, but so that for the different Nibandhas the same rules will be provided with identical numbers, The only thing required to this end is, that once for all the same editions should be used. In this way the same numbers occurring in different lists at once indicate, that the different Nibandhakaras used the sam quotations. A list of the editions will be added below. ‘As pointed out above, this paper is to be nothing but a plea. We thought this plea to be necessary indeed, because the irksome enumeration of numbers might be considered as worthless with regard to the study of the history of Dharmasisira. As a matter of fact, these lists have grown in order to encounter all kinds of dificulties which we met with when studying the Dharmanibandhas and preparing a critical edition of one among them, First of all the lists will be as many resources for them who prepare new critical editions of the Nibandhas. In this respect we cannot agree with those editors of the Nibandhas, who simply reproduce the quotations from the Smrlis in the form in which they occur jn the printed editions of the ancient works theraselves, rejecting thereby all variant readings which are given in the handwritten tradition of the Nibandha, ‘This method is to be rejected for several reasons. (x) The printed editions themselves are based on manuscripts which vary among them. Jn doubtful cases (and they are many!) the readings adopted in such editions will depend on the reasoning of the editer and different editors will adopt different readings. (2) Whenever a text has an individual author, it is the author's way of writing his text which is to be taken into account, But if we stand before ‘texts which have grown anonymously from a dim past and which are attributed to superhuman authors, we may put the question, which version is to be con- sidered as the only genuine one. For fixing “the” text of the Vajfavalkya- simjti even the readings of such a famous commentator as, e.g. Vijfi&nesvara cannot always be decisive. (3), The object of the editor of @ nibandha cannot go beyond that of reproducing the text such as it was written by the Nibandhakira himself, And this holds good not oily for the commentary itself but also for the quotations which are its framework, For him the latter are part of the Nibandhavind not of the original Smrli, .4 DR. LUDO ROCHER ‘When the editor feels ascertained, that the author of the Nibandha wrote down a different reading from the printed edition of the Smit, the latter shall be rejected in favour of the former. Two cases may present themselves, (+) The variant reading, as found in the manuscripts of the Nibandha, is readable and gives a good sense: it will be taken up in the edition. This argument might suffice for justifying the editor's work, But if for all predeces- sors of his own Nibandbakara he disposes of such LISTS B as we proposed to Graw up, he probably finds out a concrete proof of the variant reading being used already by some of these predecessors too, (2) The variant reading is evidently erroneous. In this case the editor is supposed to make the text readable. If he wants to surpass a mere hypo thesis, again the LISTS B will be an even more efficient resource than in the preceding case: by means of them he will immediately find out the other ‘Nibandhas in which the same quotation occurs, and among them he will possibly ‘meet with some variant which has given rise to the error in question, ‘The consideration of both these cases leads to another considerable advantage of the LISTS B. Identity of variant readings in the quotations will induce us to detect a particular Nibandbakira’s sources. In this way the Nibandhas may be fitted into small number of pedigrees. Of course, there are other criteria for attaining this result, ¢. g., explicit. quotation of one Nibandha by the other, But experience teaches us, that this means often fails. Not only the variant readings may help us to fix this interdependence : another means to the same effect is the correspondence in grouping the quota- tions, “And this will be apparent from'a comparison of several LISTS A. Similar arrangement of even separate quotations will afford a strong presump. tion of such dependence, A few Smirtis, of which the originals are lost, have been reconstructed, whereas for otlier texts of the kind this work is still to be done. As soon as we dispose of a great number of LISTS B, the content of any Jost Dharmasitra or Dharmasastra can be read from them inimediately without any waste of time by scrutinizing hundceds of pages of text. As to the original order of the separate rules among them, they are the LISTS A which shall show the way. A careful comparison of the several LISTS A will undoubtedly enable us to fix at least the original order of singular rules in large groups of sfitras or verses. With regard to the content of the lost Smplis LISTS A offer another valuable advantage, Undoubtedly many a verse has ever been foating, being attributed now to this author, then to another, But at least some of them will have t particu A ing int ssuch a a8 follo I An old with Y verse t such va Suppos ‘whieh | falsely That is texts, v Bincka (Gaeks ‘Althoug to colles verses ¥ vatnaken 4 the ne Then it waeene C + comm wa a + comm