The citation above by
implication recognises only the wife as preparer of the meal.
implication recognises only the wife as preparer of the meal.
Cambridge History of India - v1
They are intended to satisfy the needs of a system of oral
instruction, so that each step in the exposition of a subject may be learnt
progressively and a convenient analysis of the whole committed to memory
by the student. The earliest Sūtras are in the priestly language and
represent a phase which is transitional between the language of the
Brāhmaṇas and Classical Sanskrit as fixed by the grammarians.
The Epics supply the model both for language and form which
is followed by the Law-books and the Purāņas. Their source is to be traced
to the traditional recitations of bards who were neither priests nor scholars.
Their language is thus naturally more popular in character and less
regular than Classical Sanskrit. In many respects it does not conform to
the laws laid down by the grammarians, and is ignored by them. This
became the conventional language of epic poetry, which was used also
in the Law-books, the subject matter of which was taken to a great extent
from the Sūtras, and in the Purāņas, which, as they stand at present, belong
to a period not earlier than the fourth century a. d. The metres of the Law.
books and the Purāņas are also substantially those of the Epic poems.
1 Wackernagel, Altind. Gram. vol. I, p. xiv.
197
## p. 198 (#232) ############################################
1. 98
[ CA.
THE PERIOD OF SŪTRAS, EPICS, ETC.
The period of the Sūtras, Epics, and Law-books thus overlaps that
of Buddhist India on the one hand, and reaches well into the period of the
extant Purāṇas on the other. The earliest known Purāņa precedes the
later law-books probably by centuries, as the Sūtras precede the earliest
works of Buddhism. Nevertheless it is not only new matter which is
offered by the literature, whether legal or epic, but virtually a new phase,
a fresh point of view, the life of India as it shows itself under the dominion
of the Brāhmans, who have been the real masters of Indian thought for
more than three millenniums. It is in fact the continuation under new con-
ditions of the history depicted above, before Jain and Buddhist had arisen.
As we read the works of these important sects we receive the im-
pression that the world of India was one in which the ancient priestly caste
had lost its authority ; that nobles and wealthy merchants were more
regarded than Brāhmans. But it must be remembered that, despite the
wide reach of Buddhism when in its full power, it influenced at first only
that part of the country where it arose, and that the earlier writings depict-
ing the life and teaching of Buddha represent chiefly the circumstances
found in a very circumscribed area, in fact just the area where Brāhmanism
was weakest. The elements of social life were the same here as elsewhere,
but they were not arranged in the same way. The stronghold of Brahmanism
lay to the West, and there the priest had had his say and built up his power
among clans boasting direct descent from Vedic heroes and more inclined
to bow to the mysterious Vedic word of which the only custodian was the
Brāhman priest. In short, as Brāhmanism exaggerates the power of the
priest, so Buddhism belittles it unduly, not because it sets out to do so but
because each represents a special point of view based more or less upon
gecgraphical position. Owing, however, to a still later interpretation of
caste, our modern ideas on the subject are apt to be peculiarly confused.
To understand the social order into which we enter as we begin the study of
the Sūtras, epics, and law-books, we must renounce altogether the notion of
caste in its strict modern sense, as on the other hand we must free ourselves
from the thought that the whole caste-system is merely a priestly hypothesis
disproved by the conditions revealed in Buddhistic writings.
In point of fact, even the Buddhist writings recognise the formal
castes ; and it is simply impossible that a social structure widely pervading
as that of the so-called castes, a structure revealed not by didactic works
alone but implicitly as well as explicitly presented to us in every body of
writings whether orthodox or heterodox, should have been made out of
whole cloth. What we loosely call by this name to-day are later refine-
ments ; and we do, not need to turn to Buddhist works to show that in
ancient times the castes were merely orders socially distinct but not very
strictly seperated or ramified into such sub-divisional castes as obtain at
the present time.
1
## p. 199 (#233) ############################################
IX]
OUTLINES OF CHRONOLOGY
199
Yet before giving the proof of this in detail, it will be well to con-
sider briefly the chronology of the works to be reviewed in relation to the
general character and history of the states in which they arose. The legal
literature which begins with the Sūtras and is represented in the epics does
not really end at all, as works of this nature continue to be written down to
modern times, chiefly by eminent jurists who comment on older works.
But, after eliminating the modern jurists and confining ourselves to the
law-books which may be called classic, we still find that the terminus falls
well into the middle of the first millennium of our era ; and as the beginning
of this literature in Sūtra style reaches back at least as far as this before
the beginning of our era, the whole period is rather more than a thousand
years, about the middle of which must be set the time to which the epic
poems are to be assigned as works already known and perhaps nearly
completed
The cycle thus designated as a millennium is one of very varied
political fortunes ; and the social, political and religious material of the
legal and epical literature must necessarily be explained in accordance with
the outward changes. What these changes were is described in detail in
other chapters of this work. For our present purpose it is necessary only to
recount them in outline. At the end of the sixth century B. c. , early in
the period to which the Sūtras belong, the Persian Empire held two provin-
ces in N. W. India - Gandhāra, the present districts of Peshāwar and
Rāwalpindi, and the 'Indian' province, that is to say, the country of the
Lower Indus : and the northern part of India generally was dominated by
peoples of the Aryan race who had descended from the Punjab and spread
eastward for centuries, but not so that the recently acquired territory was
thoroughly assimilated to the cults and culture of the invaders, nor so that
any one of these invaders had established an empire. Long before the end
of this same period, Buddha, Mahāvīra, and other reformers had broken
with the cult derived from the Vedic age, and the great empire of Açoka had
made a new epoch in political life. This alteration, however, had been in-
troduced, though adventitiously, through outer rather than inner conditions.
After the short campaign in the Punjab, made by Alexander as the conquer-
or of the Persian Empire, his Indian dominions were, within few years,
absorbed by the growing power of Magadha (S. Bihār) then under the
sway of a usurper, Chandragupta (c. 321-297 B. c. ) the low-born son of
Murā and the founder of the Maurya empire. This empire extended from
Pāțaliputra (Patna) to Herāt and was maintained by an army of approxi-
mately 700,000 men, the first real empire in India. His successors,
Bindusāra and Acoka, enlarged the empire annexing Kalinga on the eastern
coast and ruling as far south as Madras. This dynasty continued in power
till the end of the Sūtra period : and under it, during the reign of Açoka
## p. 200 (#234) ############################################
200
[CH.
THE PERIOD OF SŪTRAS, EPICS, ETC.
>
>
(c. 274-236 B. c. ) Buddhism became the court-religion. Açoka's period is
determined by the mention in his edicts of certain Hellenic princes who were
his contemporaries, but after his reign there comes a period of less chrono-
logical certainty. The different versions of the Purāņas are not in agree-
ment as to the exact number of his successors; but they are unanimous in
asserting that the Maurya dynasty lasted for 137 years : that is to say, it is
supposed to have come to an end c. 184 B. C. For over a century after its
fall the Çunga dynasty, whose founder, Pushyamitra, had slain Bșihadratha
Maurya and usurped his throne, held sway, despite forcible inroads of the
Yavanas (Greeks) and the Andhras; and we learn that both Pushyamitra
and the Andhra King, Çātakarņi, performed the famous horse-sacrifice,' in
accordance with the ancient Vedic rite, thus challenging all opponents of
their authority. The son of this Pushyamitra was Agnimitra, who conquer-
ed Vidarbha, (Berār), then a province of the Andhra Empire of S. India, and
the grandson, who guarded the horse, was Vasumitra. These names, as
also the re-establishment of the ‘horse-sacrifice', are highly significant in that
they show a renascence of the Vedic religion and a consequent decline in
Buddhism. The same thing is indicated by the fact that Khåravela, a king
of Kalinga, who boasts of having invaded the Andhra dominions as well as
Northern India, was a Jain. Sumitra, the son of Agnimitra, was, according
to Bāņa's historical romance, the Harshācharita, miserably slain by
Mitradeva, who may perhaps have been a Brāhman of the Kaņva family
which eventually gained the chief power in the state. The account given
by the Purāņas states that the minister Vasudeva slew the tenth and last of
the Çunga kings and inaugurated a new dynasty, called the Kaņva dynasty,
which lasted for about half a century ; but, since the Kanvas are difinitely
styled 'servants of the Çungas' and for other reasons, it seems more probable
that the later Çunga kings had been reduced to subjection by their Brāhman
ministers, and that the lists of thesecont emporary rulers nominal and actual
were wrongly regarded by some late editor of the Purāņas as successive. It
is further related that one of the Andhra kings' slew Suçarman, the last of
the Kanvas, and thus brought Magadha under the sway of the sovereigns,
whose names and titles, as well as their sacrificial inscriptions, show them to
have been followers of the ancient Vedic religion. But here again it appears
that dynastic lists have been brought together and arranged in an unreal se-
quence. There can be little doubt that the first of the Andhra kings was ear-
lier in date than the first of the Çungas, and not 157 years later as would
appear from the Purāņas. It is indeed doubtful if the Andhras ever ruled
in Magadha : but their sway in Central and Southern India lasted until the
middle of the third century A. D. ?
1 The Purăņas say the founder of the dynasty, Simuka, but the chronological
difficulties which this statement involves seem to be unsurmountablo.
2 See Chapters XIII (the Purāņas); XVIII-XX (the Maurya Empire) ; XXI
(Indian Native States); XXIV (the earlier Andhras).
3
## p. 201 (#235) ############################################
IX]
WIDER POLITICAL OUTLOOK
201
>
In the meantime, on the decline of the Maurya empire which must
have set in soon after the death of the Emperor Açoka (c. 236 B. c. ) the
Punjab passed into the hands of foreign invaders - first, Greeks from the
kingdom of Bactria to the north, and subsequently Scythians (Çakas) and
Parthians (Pahlavas) from the kingdom of Parthia to the west. The
kingdoms established by these new-comers in the Punjab were overwhelm-
ed by still another wave of invasion from the north. The Kushāņas, a people
from the reign of China who had driven the Çakas out of Bactria, began
their Indian conquests with the overthrow of the kingdom of Kābul about
the middle of the first century A. D. , and extended their power until, in the
reign of Kanishka (probably 78 A. D. ), the patron of that branch of the
Buddhist Church which is called the Mahāyāna, the Kushāņa empire was
paramount in N. Indial.
In Western India we can to some extent trace from inscriptions and
coins the varying fortunes in the conflict between the Andhras and the in-
vaders of N. India, and the establishment in Kāthiāwār and Cutch of a
dynasty of Çaka satraps, originally no doubt feudatories of the Kushāņas,
which lasted till c. 390 A. D. when it was overthrown by the Guptas.
The period of the Gupta empire which dates from 319 A. D. is a most
important epoch in the history of Sanskrit literature. It is the golden
age of Classical Sanskrit ; and in it most of the Purāṇas and the works
belonging to the later legal literature appear to have assumed their present
form.
This brief conspectus of the conditions obtaining in India during the
time to which we have to assign the Sūtras, epics, and legal works will show
that other influences than those with which we have been dealing hitherto
are to be expected ; and these are indeed found, but not to such an extent
as might have been anticipated. These influences are indeed to be traced
rather in the general enlargement of vision of the writers than in specific
details. The simple village life with which for the most part the Sūtras
are concerned, the government of a circumscribed district by a local rāja,
are gradually exchanged for the life reflected from large towns and imperial
power. Though this is more noticeable in the epics, it may be detected in
the later Sūtras and again in the still later law-books. During this period
the power of Buddhism increased and then, reaching its culmination, began
to wane, The world of India by the second century before Christ was
already becoming indifferent to the teaching of Buddhism and was being
reabsorbed into the great permanent cults of Vishņu and Çiva, with which
in spirit Buddhism itself began to be amalgamated. The Brāhman priests
reasserted themselves ; animal sacrifices, forbidden by Açoka, were no longer
under the royal ban ; and with this open expression of the older cult the
1 For these foreign invaders of India see Chapters XXII, XXIII.
;
## p. 202 (#236) ############################################
202
(ch.
THE PERIOD OF SŪTRAS, EPICS, ETC.
whole system of Brāhmanism revived, fostered alike by the temple priests
and their ritualism and by the philosophers, who regarded Buddhism as
both a detestable heresy and a false interpretation of life.
But there is little apparent influence from outside, despite, the wider
political outlook ; and where such influence might be looked for with great-
est certainty, namely in the effect of Greek domination, it is practically nil.
Only the Yavanas, literally 'Ionians', a people or peoples of Greek descent
who may be traced in Indian literature and inscriptions from the third
century B. c. to the second century A. D. , and who were manifestly a factor of
no small importance in the political history of Northern and Western India
– they are celebrated as great fighters in the Mahābhārata and other litera-
ture- remain to show that the conquest of Alexander and the Greek
invasion from Bactria had any result. Other indications point rather to
Persia than to Hellas. Thus the title Satrap, which was continued in use
by Alexander, still remains under Çakas and Kushāṇas to testify to the long
Persian dominion in N. W. India. Apart from this, political and social
relations do not appear to be affected at all either by Hellenic or by Persian
influence. The native army remains of the same sort, though greatly
enlarged. The social theory remains practically the same, save that a place
among degraded 'outcastes' is given to Yavanas as to other barbarians.
Architecture and the arts of sculpture, gem-engraving and coinage do indeed
bear witness, especially in the N. W. region of India to the influence of
Persia and Greece during this period, just as at a later date, native astrono-
my was affected, and indeed practically superseded by the system of
Alexandria. But the period with which we are dealing at present does not
make it necessary to inquire into the relation between India and the outer
world in respect to science. The idea that Indian epic poetry itself is due
to Hellenic influence has indeed been suggested ; but as a theory this idea
depends on so nebulous a parallel of plot that it has received no support.
>
## p. 203 (#237) ############################################
CHAPTER X
FAMILY LIFE AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS AS THEY
APPEAR IN THE SŪTRAS
The general period of the Sūtras extends from the sixth or seventh
century before Christ to about the second century. It is evident that the
different Vedic schools had Sūtras which were revised, or replaced by new
Sūtras, at various periods, and that some of these extended into later
centuries than others. Thus it would be a mistake to limit all the Sūtras of
all the schools to certain centuries. The Sūtras are manuals of instruction ;
and those which are of interest historically formed but a part of a large
volume, which was intended primarily for the guidance of religious teachers
and treated mainly of the sacrifice and other religious matters. Except for
students of ceremonial details these sacrificial works (Çrauta Sūtras) are of
no interest. What concerns us at present is that portion of the whole which
goes by the name of Gộihya and Dharma Sūtras, that is, manuals of
conduct in domestic and social relations. In some cases the rules given in
these two divisions are identical; and the two divisions are treated in such a
way as to condense one division for the sake of not repeating directions
given in the other. For our purpose they may be regarded as forming one
body containing rules of life not especially connected with the performance
of the greater sacrifices. · They differ mainly as representing the views of
different schools on minute points or as products of different parts of the
country, and as earlier or later opinions. All of them claim to be based
upon Vedic teaching. Thus the Grihya and Dharma Sūtras of Āpastamba
form but a few chapters of a work called the Kalpa, of which twenty-four
a
chapters teach the proper performance of sacrifice and only two treat of the
sacred law, while one abridged chapter gives the rules for the performance
of domestic ceremonies. Again this special ‘law-book’ is not a law-book
having universal application, but is a product of a Vedic school belonging
to the Andhras in the south-east of India ; and, thirdly, it combats some of
the opinions expressed by writers on the same subject. Somewhat similar
203
## p. 204 (#238) ############################################
204
(CH.
LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SUTRAS
>
conditions prevail in the case of the other Sūtras. They are, in short, local
manuals which form complete wholes only by virtue of their subject-matter,
but which, to their authors, were merely sections of a greater work, the
chief importance of which lay in the handing down of traditional
knowledge in regard to religious practices. They may be regarded, however,
as the first steps in the evolution of legal literature ; for the metrical Çāstras
or law-bocks are only the extension and completion of the rules of the
Dharma Sūtras, with a gradual increase in the part allotted to civil and
criminal law and a relaxation of the bond connecting the Sūtras with
definite Vedic sects. The Dharma Sūtras are more universal ; the Grihya ·
Sūtras reflect individual schools. But even the Gșihyas are not Çrauta
(divinely revealed), but Smärta (sacred tradition).
The content of the Grihya Sūtras as is implied by the name, is narrower
than that of the Dharma Sūtras. The first contain, however, to all students
of folk-lore a store-house of material in regard to rites and superstitions
connected with home life, such as no other body of literature in the world
presents. In the first place, the life of man is traced religiously from boy-
hood to burial. Every important phase of a man's existence is accompanied
with its appropriate rite ; and, incidentally, what to do and what not to do,
injunctions, prohibitions, taboos, are taught as general rules of conduct.
The greater events, birth, marriage, death, are described in their religious
setting, each with minute detail, so that not only are the sacred texts cited
which should be repeated on every occasion, but the physical acts to which
the texts are ancillary are described. For example, such a text must be
repeated while a dead man's bones are being collected. The one who collects
them must pick them up with such and such fingers and place them in just
such a jar. The wedding verses are indicated ; the bride must make just so
many steps and pour out grain with her hands held in just such a position,
etc. Some of the Vedic schools, instead of embracing all the Sūtras in one
work as a Kalpa Sūtra, have apparently laid so much stress on these
domestic rites that the manuals have become independent works, thus fore-
shadowing what happened later in the case of the Çāstras. The complete
work, embracing all kinds of Sūtras, as was to be expected, to the
Yajurveda schools, since the priests of this Veda were from the beginning
particularly concerned with manual exercises, in arranging the altar, etc. ,
and the details of sacrifice ; while the priests of the other Vedas had to do
more with the recitation and chanting of the sacred texts. Nevertheless, the
literature of the Rigveda also contains both Çrauta and Grihya Sūtras, as
does that of the Sāmaveda. Finally, the Atharvaveda possesses not only
a Väitāna Crauta Sūtra but a Kançika Sūtra, which is in part a Gșihya
Sūtra but contains also directions for carrying out the many magic cere-
monies connected with the text of that unique Veda.
a
## p. 205 (#239) ############################################
X].
THE GRIHYA SŪTRAS
205
case.
The preponderance of domestic ceremonies in the Gșihya Sūtra results
in Dharma, or social, matter being introduced rather adventitiously, as
when the rules concerning the choice of wives are given, whereas Grinya,
domestic, rules belong as much to the Dharma Sūtras as to the Gșihya
Sūtras themselves. The difference is that the weight in the Dharmas is
laid on the wider relation of man to the state, so that those sections which
deal with the family become condensed and subordinate. Specimens of
southern Gțihya Sutras are also not lacking. Thus as the Dharma of
Āpastamba reflects a South-Indian origin, so also the Gșihya Sūtra of
Khādira belongs to Southern India, and it is an indication that Sutra
literature extends far beyond the time of Buddha that this should be the
Such also may be surmised to be the fact (rather than that Vedic
schools were domiciled in South India at a much earlier period) from the
circumstance that the Sūtra of Khădira is a later and more concise version
of the Sūtra of Gobhila. There are other examples of this endeavour to
revise a Sūtra on lines of economy, each later writer reducing the work
of his predecessor as much as possible or convenient, conciseness being the
test of Sūtra excellence. Gobhila's work is detailed and lengthy ; Khādira's
is virtually the same work in condensed form. Everything that could be
omitted, such as explanatory digressions, smaller details of ceremonies, etc. ,
was left out, solely to make the work easier to remember. But clearness
as well as conciseness was aimed at and attained by a fresh arrangement of
the older matter.
An example of the scope and method of a Gộihya Sūtra may be taken
from the directions of Khădira regarding the little oblations to spirits and
gods required from a wedded pair. After describing the wedding ceremony,
Khādira passes directly to this question of offerings and oblations, describ-
ing first briefly the fire used for the purpose of receiving the oblation, thus :
The domestic (grihua) fire is that at which he has taken her hand (in marriage) or
that on which he has put the last piece of wood (as a student before marriage) or a(fresh)
fire twirled out (of wood), the last being pure but not tending to prosperity ; or he may
get his domestic fire from a frying-pan or from the house of a man who makes many
sacrifices, Cūdras excepted. The service begins with an evening oblation. After (the fire)
has been set in a blaze before sunset or sunrise, the sacrifice (is performed) after sunset
(and) after or before sunrise. He should make an oblation of rice-food fit for sacrifice
after washing it, if raw, with his hand (but) with a brass bowl if it is (not rice but) curds
or milk, or with the rice-pot. With the words 'Hail to Fire' (he makes oblation) in the
middle (of the fire, at eve); secondly in the north-eastern (part of the fire); in the morn.
ing, with the words, 'Hail to Sun' (he makes the first oblation). The wiping round and
other (acts) except sprinkling (of water round the fire) are here left out. Some say 'let
the wife make the oblations,' for this fire is the house-fire and the wife is the house
(home). When (the meal) is prepared, evening and morning, she (the wife) must say
а
## p. 206 (#240) ############################################
206
[сн.
LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SŪTRAS
3
("It is) ready,' (and he) must say aloud 'Om'l, but softly May it not fail ; to thee2 be
reverence. ' Of rice-food fit for sacrifice he should make (oblations) to Prajāpati; and to
(the form of the Fire-god called) Svishțakſit (i. e. good sacrificer) make a bali (offering),
depositing it outside or inside (the fire place) in four places : (one) at the water-barrel;
(another) at the middle door ; (another) at the couch or privy; and (finally, one) at
the heap of sweepings ; sprinkle each (offering on the ground with water) beth (before
and afterwards) and pour out what is left with the water toward the south. Of chaff,
water, and scum of boiled rice (let him make a bali offering) when a donation has been
made. The gods to whom the bali offerings belong are Earth, Wind, Prajāpati, the All-
gods, Water, Herbs, Trees, Space, Love or Wrath, the hosts of Rakshasas, the Fathers
and Rudra. He should make the offering in silence; he should make it of any food
(but) make it only once in case (a meal) is prepared at different times; and if (prepared!
at different places (then he should make the offering of) what belongs to the house.
holder (himself). But of all food he should offer (some) in the fire and give the rest to
a priest : this he si ould do himself. He should offer the offerings himself from rice
(-harvest) to barley (-harvest) or from barley (-harvest) to rice (-harvest); (yea,) he
himself should offer them3.
It will have been observed that the religious ceremony of the bali-
offering implies a cult midway between that of the Vedic sacrifice and the
sectarian sacrifice not countenanced by the orthodox. The bali is a bit of
food cast upon the ground at the places named, the recipients being
supposed to be the Vedic divinities of a lower order, ending with Rudra,
and the hosts of harmful spirits who are thus propitiated. Each divinity
has a bali in his appropriate place and at the right time. Thus the offering
by the couch is for Love; that flung to the north is for Rudra ; that by
the door is for (personified) Space ; and the offering to the harmful spirits
are given at night. The sprinkling of the offering means (probably) the
sprinkling of the ground or place where the offering is cast. The Dharma
Sūtras also take up this question of offerings.
The citation above by
implication recognises only the wife as preparer of the meal. But a rich house-
holder may have his meals prepared by a priest or other member of the
‘reborn' castes or even by a Çūdra. Special rules are necessary in the last
case. The slave cook, being impure, must have his hair and beard and nails
cut daily or at least at stated intervals, and it must be the householder who
places on the fire the food prepared by Çūdras. Then in this case it is
the cook who says (when the meal is prepared), 'It is ready' and the house-
1 Om is the sacred syllable, answering in cases like that above to ‘very goo'd
(Amen). The evening and morning are mentioned in this order because the evening
precedes the day ; and only two meals are mentioned because the Hindus eat but twice
a day.
2 In the Sūtras clarity is often sacrificed to brevity. It is not clear hero whether the
wife or husband speaks or whom the word "Thee' refers. Presumably the husband
addresses the words to the food itself (compare Gobhila's Gșihya Sūtra, 1, 3, 18). The
text and translation (by Prof. Oldenberg) of Khādira are published in S. B. E. vol, XXIX.
3 That is from spring till autumn the householder offers barley, and from rice.
time till barley-harvest time (autumn till spring) he offers rice. The passage quoted is
also translated by Prof. Oldenberg, in S. B. E. vol. XXIX, p. 385.
а
## p. 207 (#241) ############################################
X]
RITES TO AVERT DISASTER AND DISEASE
207
holder who responds (as Āpastamba gives the rule with a slight variation)
'Well-prepared food bestows the splendour; may it never fail. '
The rites involving the goblins of disaster and disease have naturally
a prominent place in the domestic ritual of the Gșihya Sūtras and afford
us glimpses of an otherwise unknown pantheon. The wife herself, who has
so little to do with texts, must go outside her house and offer food to
'the white demon with black teeth, the lord of bad women,' and if she
bears a child the husband must daily, till the wife's confinement ends, offer
rice and mustard in the fire near the door where the wife is confined,
dispersing demons whose names are given : 'Çanda, Marka, Upavīra,
,
Çaundikeya, Ulūkhala, Malimlucha, Droņāsa, Chyavana,' all indicative
of trouble, as are those that follow (apparently a supplementary list),
'Ālikhat, Animisha, Kimvadanta, Upaçruti, Haryaksha, Kumbhiņ, Çatru,
Pātrapāņi, Nșimaņi, Haņtrimukha, Sarsha pāruņa, Chyavana, avaunt. '
But if the child falls ill with epilepsy, the 'dog-disease,' the father cures him
by covering him with a net and murmuring,
Kūrkura, Su-Kūrkura, Kūrkura (it is) who holds ſast the children ; scat (chech
chet ! ), dog, let him go ; reverence to thee, Sisara, barker, bender, true the gods have
given thee a boon, and hast thou chosen my boy ? Scat, dog, let him go (as before).
True, the Bitch of heaven, Saramā, is thy mother, Sisara is thy father, and Yama's
black and speckled dogs thy brothers ; but scat, dog, let him go? .
s
The demon attacking the boy is here called Kumāra, the cult is
obviously demoniac. In general, the Sūtras of this class are concerned not
with the greater sacrifices, which are discussed in the Crauta Sūtra, called
the Havis and Soma sacrifices, but with the so-called great sacrifices of
food cooked (pāka) and offered on special noon-days and at funeral feasts,
or seven in all, including offerings to serpents as well as to demons and
gods.
The last of these domestic 'cooked-food' sacrifices introduces a
feature :
On the full moon day of the month Chaitra he makes (images of) a pair of
animals out of meal ; (he offars) them and jujube leaves (to the gods); to Indra and
Agni a figure with prominent navel ; and balls to Rudra (Cārkhyana, Gpihya Sūtra,
IV. 19)
These images of meal representing living beings are partly due to the
new feeling of pity for animals and the desire not to injure life, which plays
a part in Brāhmanism as well as in Buddhism. It must be admittted,
however, that economy had something to do with the substitution of animals
of meal for real animals, but ostensibly it is a Vishņuite trait. The general
1 Pāraskara. Gyihya Sūtra, I, 16, 23 f.
2 lb. 24.
8 From the full moon of the month Crāvana, offerings to soakes have to be made
daily till it is safe to sleep on the ground again. This is called the Pratyavarohaņı
and occurs on the full moon day called Agrahāyaņi, when one may 'descend again' (from
the high couch).
new
## p. 208 (#242) ############################################
208
[Ch.
LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SUTRAS
a cow.
rule in this regard is that attributed to Manu : ‘Animals may be killed
(so said Manu) at the Madhuparka and Soma sacrifice and at the rites for
Manes and gods. ' But it is an old rite of hospitality to kill a cow for a
guest! ; and, as a matter of form, each honoured guest is actually offered
The host says to the guest, holding the knife ready to slay the
cow, that he has the cow for him ; but the guest is then directed to say :
Mother of Rudras, daughter of the Vasus, sister of the Adityas navel
of immortality (is she). Do not kill the guiltless cowr; she is (Earth itself),
Aditi, the goddess. I speak to them that understand. ' He adds, My
sin has been killed and that of so-and-so ; let her go and eat grass. But
if he really wants to have her eaten, he says, 'I kill my sin and the sin of
so-and-so' (in killing her), and though in many cases the offer of the cow is
thus plainly a formal piece of etiquette, yet the offering to the guest was not
complete without flesh of some sort ; and it is clear from the formulas that
any of the worthiest guests might demand the cow's death, though as
the 'six worthy guests' are teacher, priest, father-in-law, king, friend,
and Āryan ‘reborn' man, and all of these were doubtless well grounded in
that veneration for the cow which is expressed above by identifying her
with Earth (as Aditi), there was probably seldom any occasion to harrow
the feelings of the cow-revering hosta. Pāraskara mentions only the cow
but Çānkhāyana (G. S. II, 15, 1) already substitutes a goat as a possible
alternative ; he also mentions the gods to which this animal is sacred,
that is, he seeks to make the animal offered to the guest a sacrifice to a god.
Thus he
says that if the animal is offered to the teacher and killed it is 'sacred
to the Fire. god'; if it is offered to a king, it is sacred to Indra, and if to a
friend (mitra) it is sacred to Mitra. Similar additions may be traced in
many particulars, sometimes found by comparing one text with another,
sometimes clearly interpolated.
The Sūtras, while they do not recognise the sects of later days, yet
point to the different conception of deity embodied in the two great modern
sects worshipping Rudra-Çiva and Vishņu. Thus, as above, Rudra and the
Rakshasas are also associated in the rule : When one repeats a text sacred
to Rudra, to the Rakshasas, to the Manes, to the Asuras, or one that con-
tains an imprecation, one shall touch water' (Çankh. G. S. , I, 10,9). On
the other hand, when the bridegroom leads the bride to take the seven steps,
which form part of the wedding ceremony, he murmurs a blessing at every
step: 'One for sap, two for juice, three for prosperity, four for comfort, five
for cattle, six for the seasons, Friend ! be with seven steps (mine) ; be thou
devoted to me'. And after each clause he says 'may Vishņu lead thee. '
Similarly, the fact that Vaiçravana (Kubera and Içāna (Rudra-Çiva) are
1 Chipter IV', p. 101.
2 Pāraskara, Gțihya Sülra, 1, 3, 26.
## p. 209 (#243) ############################################
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MARRIAGE CEREMONIES
209
>
>
9
worshipped ‘for the bridegroom' point to the phallic nature of these cognate
spirits (Pār. , G. S. , I, 8, 2 ; Çānkh. , G. S. , I, 11, 7).
The Gșihya Sūtras show that there was no one rite of universal accep-
tation in those ceremonies most intimately connected with domestic felicity.
Indeed, the author of the Āçvalāyana Grihya Sūtra (I, 7, 1) says expressly
that in the matter of weddings, 'customs are diverse,' and he gives only that
which is common usage. Thus he tells how the bride is to go about the
fire, mount the stone, pour out grain, gaze at the pole-star, etc. , but does
not mention other rites which other Gțihya Sūtras enjoin. Some of these,
however, are of universal interest ; and a comparison of the Hindu cere-
monies with those of other Aryan-speaking peoples shows that in all pro-
bability the Indian ritual has preserved elements reaching far back into
prehistoric times? .
Thus in the ceremony it is universal usage to walk the seven steps to.
gether and for the bridegroom to murmur, as he takes the bride's hand :
“This am I, that art thou, that art thou, this am I ; Heaven am I and Earth
art thou ; the (feminine) Rich (Rigveda verse) art thou, the Saman am I.
Be thou devoted to me,' and to make the bride mount a stone as an emblem
of firmness. But special rules are that women shall come to the bride's
house and eat and drink brandy and dance four times ; and that merry girls
shall escort the bridegroom to the bride's house, and that he must do all
the foolish (? ) things they tell him to d (except when taboo is con-
cerned). (Çārkh. , G. 8. , I, 12, 2). Some measure of values may perhaps
be obtained from the statement that the fee to the priest who performs the
marriage-ceremony is a cow, given by the bridegroom, if the groom is of
the same caste as the priest, but a village if the groom is 'royal', Rājanya,
that is a nobleman of 'kingly order, and a horse if the groom is of the third
estate (farmer, trader). Obviously the succeeding rule, which is not unique,
countenances a sort of sale in that it adds : “(The bridegroom must give)
to the one who has the daughter one hundred (cows) together with a
chariot. ' The same rule is found in the Dharma Sūtras (Āpastamba, II,
13, 12) with the explanation that the gift must be returned, as a sale is not
allowed –which only points back to an earlier period when the sale of
daughters was allowed.
1 On this point, cf. Haas and Weber, Indische Studien, vol. v ; L. von Schroeder,
Die Hochzeitsgebrä'lche der Esten und etniger anderer finnisch-ugrischer Volkerschaften
in Vergleichung mit denen der indogermanischen Volker (1888) ; M. Winternitz, Das
altindische Hochzeitsrituell. . . mit Vergleichung der Hochzeitsgebräuche bei den übrigen
indogermanischen Volkern (1892); also a paper by the last writer on the same subject
in the Transactions of the National Folk-lore Society (Congress, 1891-2), and one by Th.
Zachariae, ‘Zum altindischen Hochzeitsrituell' (Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Mor.
genlandes, vol. XVII, pp. 135 f. , and 211 f. ).
## p. 210 (#244) ############################################
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LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SUTRAS
The distinction among the orders mentioned in the gifts above is only
one of innumerable passages in which, as a matter of course and without
thought of any other social order, the castes are named as priest, noble or
warrior, and 'people', the last terms embracing all those ‘reborn', who are
not priests or warriors or slaves. The slaves, Çūdras and lower orders, are
recognised as part of the social structure. The name itself suggests that the
Çūdras were originally a conquered people, as Karian became synony-
mous with slave at Athens. Yet the Çūdras were not Pariahs but members
of the household, who took part in some of the domestic rites.
The test of caste is not marriage alone but defilement by eating and
touching what is unclean. In this regard the Sūtras show only the begin.
ning of that formal theory of defilement which results in a pure man of the
upper castes being defiled by the shadow of an impure man, and in the taboo
of all contact with the impure. According to Gautama (Dharma Sūtra, XVII,
I f. ), Brāhman may eat food given by any of the 'reborn' who are worthy
members of their caste, and if in need of food to support life he may take
food and other things even from a Çūdra. Food forbidden is that defiled
naturally by hairs or insects falling into it and that touched by woman dur-
ing her courses, by a black bird (crow), or by a foot, etc. , or given by an
outcast, a woman of bad character, a person accused, an hermaphrodite, a
police-officer (dandika), a carpenter, a miser, a jailer, a physician, a man who
hunts without using the bow (i. e. a non-Aryan snarer of animals), a man who
eats refuse or the food of a multitude, of an enemy, etc. The list continues
with the taboo of food offered disrespectfully and of certain animals,
Āpastamba (Dharma S. , I 6, 18, 1 f. ) allows the acceptance of gifts, includ-
ing a house and land, even from an Ugra (low caste or mixed caste), though,
like the later law-books, his code states that a priest may not eat in the
house of anyone of the three orders (varņas) belong him ; but he may
eat the food of any other priest, and according to 'some' he may eat the
food of people of any caste except Çūdras and even their food in times of
distress. Forbidden by him is the food of an artisan, of people who let
houses or land, a spy, an unauthorised hermit (Buddhist ? ), besides that of
surgeon, usurer, and others. Caste is varņa or jāti, 'colour' and 'kin,' the
former embracing the latter, as a social order including clans or families.
Even in the all-important matter of marriage, caste is not so important as
family. The only test, when one seeks a wife, according to Çānkhāyana, is
that of the family : ‘They ask the girl in marriage, reciting the clan-names. '
The text of Āçvalāyana expressly mentions as a form of marriage that in
which the bridegroom kills the relatives and rapes the weeping girl, evident-
ly a form once countenanced as well as enumerated among possible forms;
at any rate it bars out all examination of the bride's social position. Indeed
the marriage rules permit the marriage of a Çūdra woman, though as the
:
1
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CASTE AND FAMILY
211
>
>
>
last of four wives, with a member of the highest caste (e. g. Pār. , G. S. , 1, 4,
11), whose offspring, of course, being ‘mixed' or impure, is not a member of
the Āryan 'reborn,' but nevertheless is recognised legally. And what shall
we say of those who are not ‘reborn' although Āryans ? The rule in this
case is universal that, if priest, warrior, or member of the third estate fail to
be ‘reborn in the Veda,' i. e. if such a one is not duly initiated into his
social order at the proper time, he loses his prerogatives and becomes an
‘outcast'. 'No one should initiate such men, nor teach them, nor perform
sacrifice for them, nor have intercourse with them, and further, 'A person
whose ancestors through three generations have been thus outcast is exclud-
ed from the sacrament of initiation and from being taught the Veda,' that
is, they become Vrātyas or entirely outcast persons with whom one may not
even have intercourse unless they perform special ritest.
In general the Gșihya Sūtras may be said to be the later scholastic
codification of rules, formulas, and rites long practised, concerned chiefly
with the orderly progress of an individual ideal life, and incidentally with
such ceremonies as naturally occur in such a life, that is, besides rites from
babyhood to marriage, fixed moon-rites etc. , those concerned with building,
holidays, burial, etc. That they are not of Vedic age in their present form,
though in substance reverting in part to Brāhmaṇa beginnings, may be con-
cluded from their obvious posteriority in respect of language and metre
(where verses are cited) to the Brāhmaṇas, not to speak of earlier Vedic
texts, as well as from the fact that several Sūtras emanate from districts
scarcely known even by name to the Brāhmaṇas. The general order of
arrangement in the Gșihya Sūtras is one conditioned by the subject matter
which is to reveal the whole duty of man as a householder. Most of them
begin with the marriage and continue with the birth of a child, the
ceremonies at conception and at various stages before birth, at the birth it.
self, at the naming of the child, when he sees the sun, when he is fed, when
his hair is cut, when he becomes a student, and when he returns home from
his Guru (tutor) and becomes a householder. Then the child, now grown to
a man, marries and the circle begins again. Finally the rite for the burial
is described. A few texts take up the round of life at another point, that
where the student-life begins. This is the procedure in the case of some of
the Black Yajurveda texts (for example, the Mānava and Kāțhaka Sūtras),
but it makes no difference where one begins; each Sūtra follows out the life
to the end, and the general uniformity shows that, whatever be the minor
discrepancies and divergences of opinion (of which the authors are
themselves well aware), the Gșihya Sūtras as a whole are based upon one
model, and that, whether in the northern or southern districts, the lives of
1 See Paraskara, Grihya Sülra, II, 5, 40 f. , and Weber Ind. Literaturgesch. p. 73 f. ,
Eng. trans. p. 67.
a
## p. 212 (#246) ############################################
212
[ch.
LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SUTRAS
9
3
orthodox Āryans were governed by a remarkable conformity of ritual. It is
not improbable that, as has been suggested by Professor Oldenberg, many
of the rites prescribed as general rules were nothing more than formulas of
secret magic owned at first by certain families and afterwards become unis
versal property?
The specimen given above will suffice to show the artless style of
these didactic Sūtras. They have in fact no style save that attained
by scrupulous brevity. In the following paragraphs we shall seek rather
to illustrate certain phases of the Gșihya Sūtras as indicative of religious and
magical beliefs and of the social environment in which they were produced,
or at least for which they were intended.
We may begin with reverting to the cure of epilepsy already mentioned.
In the course of childhood the boy may be attacked by the dog-demon
(epilepsy). What is the father to do? The names of the canine demons
have been mentioned above with a parallel passage containing more of
the same sort. These are to be averted by a sort of honorific propitiation.
They are lauded ; but their objectionable behaviour in this special case is
deprecated. The author of our Sūtra contents himself with this. But
a rival author or two (Hiraṇyakeçin, G. S. , II, 2, 7, 1 f. ; Āpastamba,
2
Grihya Sūtra, VII, 18, 1) are not content with the method here advocated.
According to them, the father must make a hole in the roof of the royal
gaming-hall and pull the boy through it, lay him on his back on dice strewn
about, and then, while a gong is sounded, recite the deprecatory words
to the dog-demons and pour curds and salt over the boy. Several items of
this recipe are of interest, the avoidance of the door, the use of salt
and curds to frighten demons, the gong for the same purpose to be beaten
on the south side of the hall. These may be said to be universal antidotes;
peculiar is the use of the dice, which has no parallel in the similar situations
offered by the Sūtra. Finally the fact that the father makes a hole in
the roof of the gaming-hall shows that it is made of thatch (easily repaired)
and leads to the question what sort of architecture is normally to be
found implied in the Sutras. The gaming-hall is the public gambling-
place which a king is directed to build for the use of his subjects, and
curiously enough, with the exception of the house-holder's own dwelling, it
is almost the only reference to edifices found in the Sūtras. On the other
hand, all the dicta of the Sūtras show that such life as is depicted is
supposed to be country life ; the district and the village are the geographical
entities. Cities are not ignored but are despised”. Thus there are no
1 Compare the admirable discussion of the position of the Gșihya Sūtras by
Prof. Oldenburg in S. B. E. vol. XXX.
2 Apastamba, Dharma Sūtra, I, 32, 21, let him avoid going into towns', and
Baudhāyana, Dharma Sūtra, II, 3, 6, 33, 'It is impossible for one to obtain salvation,
who lives in a town, covered with dust,'
## p. 213 (#247) ############################################
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RELIGIOUS AND MAGICAL BELIEFS
213
a
>
>
ceremonies for urban life. But there is a rite for ploughing, when sacrifice
is made to Açani (the thunder-bolt) and to Sītā (the furrow), as well
as to other bucolic deities, Aradā, Anaghā, etc. , as to the greater bucolic
gods, Parjanya and Indra and Bhaga, with similar offerings on the occasion
of the 'furrow sacrifice,' the 'threshing-floor sacrifice,' when one sows,
reaps, or takes in the harvest, all indicating that the life portrayed is that
of the village agriculturist, who must even 'offer a sacrifice at mole-heaps
to Akhurāja, the king of moles' (Gobhila, Gșihya Sūtra, IV, 4, 28 f. ;
ibid. 30 f. ).
instruction, so that each step in the exposition of a subject may be learnt
progressively and a convenient analysis of the whole committed to memory
by the student. The earliest Sūtras are in the priestly language and
represent a phase which is transitional between the language of the
Brāhmaṇas and Classical Sanskrit as fixed by the grammarians.
The Epics supply the model both for language and form which
is followed by the Law-books and the Purāņas. Their source is to be traced
to the traditional recitations of bards who were neither priests nor scholars.
Their language is thus naturally more popular in character and less
regular than Classical Sanskrit. In many respects it does not conform to
the laws laid down by the grammarians, and is ignored by them. This
became the conventional language of epic poetry, which was used also
in the Law-books, the subject matter of which was taken to a great extent
from the Sūtras, and in the Purāņas, which, as they stand at present, belong
to a period not earlier than the fourth century a. d. The metres of the Law.
books and the Purāņas are also substantially those of the Epic poems.
1 Wackernagel, Altind. Gram. vol. I, p. xiv.
197
## p. 198 (#232) ############################################
1. 98
[ CA.
THE PERIOD OF SŪTRAS, EPICS, ETC.
The period of the Sūtras, Epics, and Law-books thus overlaps that
of Buddhist India on the one hand, and reaches well into the period of the
extant Purāṇas on the other. The earliest known Purāņa precedes the
later law-books probably by centuries, as the Sūtras precede the earliest
works of Buddhism. Nevertheless it is not only new matter which is
offered by the literature, whether legal or epic, but virtually a new phase,
a fresh point of view, the life of India as it shows itself under the dominion
of the Brāhmans, who have been the real masters of Indian thought for
more than three millenniums. It is in fact the continuation under new con-
ditions of the history depicted above, before Jain and Buddhist had arisen.
As we read the works of these important sects we receive the im-
pression that the world of India was one in which the ancient priestly caste
had lost its authority ; that nobles and wealthy merchants were more
regarded than Brāhmans. But it must be remembered that, despite the
wide reach of Buddhism when in its full power, it influenced at first only
that part of the country where it arose, and that the earlier writings depict-
ing the life and teaching of Buddha represent chiefly the circumstances
found in a very circumscribed area, in fact just the area where Brāhmanism
was weakest. The elements of social life were the same here as elsewhere,
but they were not arranged in the same way. The stronghold of Brahmanism
lay to the West, and there the priest had had his say and built up his power
among clans boasting direct descent from Vedic heroes and more inclined
to bow to the mysterious Vedic word of which the only custodian was the
Brāhman priest. In short, as Brāhmanism exaggerates the power of the
priest, so Buddhism belittles it unduly, not because it sets out to do so but
because each represents a special point of view based more or less upon
gecgraphical position. Owing, however, to a still later interpretation of
caste, our modern ideas on the subject are apt to be peculiarly confused.
To understand the social order into which we enter as we begin the study of
the Sūtras, epics, and law-books, we must renounce altogether the notion of
caste in its strict modern sense, as on the other hand we must free ourselves
from the thought that the whole caste-system is merely a priestly hypothesis
disproved by the conditions revealed in Buddhistic writings.
In point of fact, even the Buddhist writings recognise the formal
castes ; and it is simply impossible that a social structure widely pervading
as that of the so-called castes, a structure revealed not by didactic works
alone but implicitly as well as explicitly presented to us in every body of
writings whether orthodox or heterodox, should have been made out of
whole cloth. What we loosely call by this name to-day are later refine-
ments ; and we do, not need to turn to Buddhist works to show that in
ancient times the castes were merely orders socially distinct but not very
strictly seperated or ramified into such sub-divisional castes as obtain at
the present time.
1
## p. 199 (#233) ############################################
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OUTLINES OF CHRONOLOGY
199
Yet before giving the proof of this in detail, it will be well to con-
sider briefly the chronology of the works to be reviewed in relation to the
general character and history of the states in which they arose. The legal
literature which begins with the Sūtras and is represented in the epics does
not really end at all, as works of this nature continue to be written down to
modern times, chiefly by eminent jurists who comment on older works.
But, after eliminating the modern jurists and confining ourselves to the
law-books which may be called classic, we still find that the terminus falls
well into the middle of the first millennium of our era ; and as the beginning
of this literature in Sūtra style reaches back at least as far as this before
the beginning of our era, the whole period is rather more than a thousand
years, about the middle of which must be set the time to which the epic
poems are to be assigned as works already known and perhaps nearly
completed
The cycle thus designated as a millennium is one of very varied
political fortunes ; and the social, political and religious material of the
legal and epical literature must necessarily be explained in accordance with
the outward changes. What these changes were is described in detail in
other chapters of this work. For our present purpose it is necessary only to
recount them in outline. At the end of the sixth century B. c. , early in
the period to which the Sūtras belong, the Persian Empire held two provin-
ces in N. W. India - Gandhāra, the present districts of Peshāwar and
Rāwalpindi, and the 'Indian' province, that is to say, the country of the
Lower Indus : and the northern part of India generally was dominated by
peoples of the Aryan race who had descended from the Punjab and spread
eastward for centuries, but not so that the recently acquired territory was
thoroughly assimilated to the cults and culture of the invaders, nor so that
any one of these invaders had established an empire. Long before the end
of this same period, Buddha, Mahāvīra, and other reformers had broken
with the cult derived from the Vedic age, and the great empire of Açoka had
made a new epoch in political life. This alteration, however, had been in-
troduced, though adventitiously, through outer rather than inner conditions.
After the short campaign in the Punjab, made by Alexander as the conquer-
or of the Persian Empire, his Indian dominions were, within few years,
absorbed by the growing power of Magadha (S. Bihār) then under the
sway of a usurper, Chandragupta (c. 321-297 B. c. ) the low-born son of
Murā and the founder of the Maurya empire. This empire extended from
Pāțaliputra (Patna) to Herāt and was maintained by an army of approxi-
mately 700,000 men, the first real empire in India. His successors,
Bindusāra and Acoka, enlarged the empire annexing Kalinga on the eastern
coast and ruling as far south as Madras. This dynasty continued in power
till the end of the Sūtra period : and under it, during the reign of Açoka
## p. 200 (#234) ############################################
200
[CH.
THE PERIOD OF SŪTRAS, EPICS, ETC.
>
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(c. 274-236 B. c. ) Buddhism became the court-religion. Açoka's period is
determined by the mention in his edicts of certain Hellenic princes who were
his contemporaries, but after his reign there comes a period of less chrono-
logical certainty. The different versions of the Purāņas are not in agree-
ment as to the exact number of his successors; but they are unanimous in
asserting that the Maurya dynasty lasted for 137 years : that is to say, it is
supposed to have come to an end c. 184 B. C. For over a century after its
fall the Çunga dynasty, whose founder, Pushyamitra, had slain Bșihadratha
Maurya and usurped his throne, held sway, despite forcible inroads of the
Yavanas (Greeks) and the Andhras; and we learn that both Pushyamitra
and the Andhra King, Çātakarņi, performed the famous horse-sacrifice,' in
accordance with the ancient Vedic rite, thus challenging all opponents of
their authority. The son of this Pushyamitra was Agnimitra, who conquer-
ed Vidarbha, (Berār), then a province of the Andhra Empire of S. India, and
the grandson, who guarded the horse, was Vasumitra. These names, as
also the re-establishment of the ‘horse-sacrifice', are highly significant in that
they show a renascence of the Vedic religion and a consequent decline in
Buddhism. The same thing is indicated by the fact that Khåravela, a king
of Kalinga, who boasts of having invaded the Andhra dominions as well as
Northern India, was a Jain. Sumitra, the son of Agnimitra, was, according
to Bāņa's historical romance, the Harshācharita, miserably slain by
Mitradeva, who may perhaps have been a Brāhman of the Kaņva family
which eventually gained the chief power in the state. The account given
by the Purāņas states that the minister Vasudeva slew the tenth and last of
the Çunga kings and inaugurated a new dynasty, called the Kaņva dynasty,
which lasted for about half a century ; but, since the Kanvas are difinitely
styled 'servants of the Çungas' and for other reasons, it seems more probable
that the later Çunga kings had been reduced to subjection by their Brāhman
ministers, and that the lists of thesecont emporary rulers nominal and actual
were wrongly regarded by some late editor of the Purāņas as successive. It
is further related that one of the Andhra kings' slew Suçarman, the last of
the Kanvas, and thus brought Magadha under the sway of the sovereigns,
whose names and titles, as well as their sacrificial inscriptions, show them to
have been followers of the ancient Vedic religion. But here again it appears
that dynastic lists have been brought together and arranged in an unreal se-
quence. There can be little doubt that the first of the Andhra kings was ear-
lier in date than the first of the Çungas, and not 157 years later as would
appear from the Purāņas. It is indeed doubtful if the Andhras ever ruled
in Magadha : but their sway in Central and Southern India lasted until the
middle of the third century A. D. ?
1 The Purăņas say the founder of the dynasty, Simuka, but the chronological
difficulties which this statement involves seem to be unsurmountablo.
2 See Chapters XIII (the Purāņas); XVIII-XX (the Maurya Empire) ; XXI
(Indian Native States); XXIV (the earlier Andhras).
3
## p. 201 (#235) ############################################
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WIDER POLITICAL OUTLOOK
201
>
In the meantime, on the decline of the Maurya empire which must
have set in soon after the death of the Emperor Açoka (c. 236 B. c. ) the
Punjab passed into the hands of foreign invaders - first, Greeks from the
kingdom of Bactria to the north, and subsequently Scythians (Çakas) and
Parthians (Pahlavas) from the kingdom of Parthia to the west. The
kingdoms established by these new-comers in the Punjab were overwhelm-
ed by still another wave of invasion from the north. The Kushāņas, a people
from the reign of China who had driven the Çakas out of Bactria, began
their Indian conquests with the overthrow of the kingdom of Kābul about
the middle of the first century A. D. , and extended their power until, in the
reign of Kanishka (probably 78 A. D. ), the patron of that branch of the
Buddhist Church which is called the Mahāyāna, the Kushāņa empire was
paramount in N. Indial.
In Western India we can to some extent trace from inscriptions and
coins the varying fortunes in the conflict between the Andhras and the in-
vaders of N. India, and the establishment in Kāthiāwār and Cutch of a
dynasty of Çaka satraps, originally no doubt feudatories of the Kushāņas,
which lasted till c. 390 A. D. when it was overthrown by the Guptas.
The period of the Gupta empire which dates from 319 A. D. is a most
important epoch in the history of Sanskrit literature. It is the golden
age of Classical Sanskrit ; and in it most of the Purāṇas and the works
belonging to the later legal literature appear to have assumed their present
form.
This brief conspectus of the conditions obtaining in India during the
time to which we have to assign the Sūtras, epics, and legal works will show
that other influences than those with which we have been dealing hitherto
are to be expected ; and these are indeed found, but not to such an extent
as might have been anticipated. These influences are indeed to be traced
rather in the general enlargement of vision of the writers than in specific
details. The simple village life with which for the most part the Sūtras
are concerned, the government of a circumscribed district by a local rāja,
are gradually exchanged for the life reflected from large towns and imperial
power. Though this is more noticeable in the epics, it may be detected in
the later Sūtras and again in the still later law-books. During this period
the power of Buddhism increased and then, reaching its culmination, began
to wane, The world of India by the second century before Christ was
already becoming indifferent to the teaching of Buddhism and was being
reabsorbed into the great permanent cults of Vishņu and Çiva, with which
in spirit Buddhism itself began to be amalgamated. The Brāhman priests
reasserted themselves ; animal sacrifices, forbidden by Açoka, were no longer
under the royal ban ; and with this open expression of the older cult the
1 For these foreign invaders of India see Chapters XXII, XXIII.
;
## p. 202 (#236) ############################################
202
(ch.
THE PERIOD OF SŪTRAS, EPICS, ETC.
whole system of Brāhmanism revived, fostered alike by the temple priests
and their ritualism and by the philosophers, who regarded Buddhism as
both a detestable heresy and a false interpretation of life.
But there is little apparent influence from outside, despite, the wider
political outlook ; and where such influence might be looked for with great-
est certainty, namely in the effect of Greek domination, it is practically nil.
Only the Yavanas, literally 'Ionians', a people or peoples of Greek descent
who may be traced in Indian literature and inscriptions from the third
century B. c. to the second century A. D. , and who were manifestly a factor of
no small importance in the political history of Northern and Western India
– they are celebrated as great fighters in the Mahābhārata and other litera-
ture- remain to show that the conquest of Alexander and the Greek
invasion from Bactria had any result. Other indications point rather to
Persia than to Hellas. Thus the title Satrap, which was continued in use
by Alexander, still remains under Çakas and Kushāṇas to testify to the long
Persian dominion in N. W. India. Apart from this, political and social
relations do not appear to be affected at all either by Hellenic or by Persian
influence. The native army remains of the same sort, though greatly
enlarged. The social theory remains practically the same, save that a place
among degraded 'outcastes' is given to Yavanas as to other barbarians.
Architecture and the arts of sculpture, gem-engraving and coinage do indeed
bear witness, especially in the N. W. region of India to the influence of
Persia and Greece during this period, just as at a later date, native astrono-
my was affected, and indeed practically superseded by the system of
Alexandria. But the period with which we are dealing at present does not
make it necessary to inquire into the relation between India and the outer
world in respect to science. The idea that Indian epic poetry itself is due
to Hellenic influence has indeed been suggested ; but as a theory this idea
depends on so nebulous a parallel of plot that it has received no support.
>
## p. 203 (#237) ############################################
CHAPTER X
FAMILY LIFE AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS AS THEY
APPEAR IN THE SŪTRAS
The general period of the Sūtras extends from the sixth or seventh
century before Christ to about the second century. It is evident that the
different Vedic schools had Sūtras which were revised, or replaced by new
Sūtras, at various periods, and that some of these extended into later
centuries than others. Thus it would be a mistake to limit all the Sūtras of
all the schools to certain centuries. The Sūtras are manuals of instruction ;
and those which are of interest historically formed but a part of a large
volume, which was intended primarily for the guidance of religious teachers
and treated mainly of the sacrifice and other religious matters. Except for
students of ceremonial details these sacrificial works (Çrauta Sūtras) are of
no interest. What concerns us at present is that portion of the whole which
goes by the name of Gộihya and Dharma Sūtras, that is, manuals of
conduct in domestic and social relations. In some cases the rules given in
these two divisions are identical; and the two divisions are treated in such a
way as to condense one division for the sake of not repeating directions
given in the other. For our purpose they may be regarded as forming one
body containing rules of life not especially connected with the performance
of the greater sacrifices. · They differ mainly as representing the views of
different schools on minute points or as products of different parts of the
country, and as earlier or later opinions. All of them claim to be based
upon Vedic teaching. Thus the Grihya and Dharma Sūtras of Āpastamba
form but a few chapters of a work called the Kalpa, of which twenty-four
a
chapters teach the proper performance of sacrifice and only two treat of the
sacred law, while one abridged chapter gives the rules for the performance
of domestic ceremonies. Again this special ‘law-book’ is not a law-book
having universal application, but is a product of a Vedic school belonging
to the Andhras in the south-east of India ; and, thirdly, it combats some of
the opinions expressed by writers on the same subject. Somewhat similar
203
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204
(CH.
LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SUTRAS
>
conditions prevail in the case of the other Sūtras. They are, in short, local
manuals which form complete wholes only by virtue of their subject-matter,
but which, to their authors, were merely sections of a greater work, the
chief importance of which lay in the handing down of traditional
knowledge in regard to religious practices. They may be regarded, however,
as the first steps in the evolution of legal literature ; for the metrical Çāstras
or law-bocks are only the extension and completion of the rules of the
Dharma Sūtras, with a gradual increase in the part allotted to civil and
criminal law and a relaxation of the bond connecting the Sūtras with
definite Vedic sects. The Dharma Sūtras are more universal ; the Grihya ·
Sūtras reflect individual schools. But even the Gșihyas are not Çrauta
(divinely revealed), but Smärta (sacred tradition).
The content of the Grihya Sūtras as is implied by the name, is narrower
than that of the Dharma Sūtras. The first contain, however, to all students
of folk-lore a store-house of material in regard to rites and superstitions
connected with home life, such as no other body of literature in the world
presents. In the first place, the life of man is traced religiously from boy-
hood to burial. Every important phase of a man's existence is accompanied
with its appropriate rite ; and, incidentally, what to do and what not to do,
injunctions, prohibitions, taboos, are taught as general rules of conduct.
The greater events, birth, marriage, death, are described in their religious
setting, each with minute detail, so that not only are the sacred texts cited
which should be repeated on every occasion, but the physical acts to which
the texts are ancillary are described. For example, such a text must be
repeated while a dead man's bones are being collected. The one who collects
them must pick them up with such and such fingers and place them in just
such a jar. The wedding verses are indicated ; the bride must make just so
many steps and pour out grain with her hands held in just such a position,
etc. Some of the Vedic schools, instead of embracing all the Sūtras in one
work as a Kalpa Sūtra, have apparently laid so much stress on these
domestic rites that the manuals have become independent works, thus fore-
shadowing what happened later in the case of the Çāstras. The complete
work, embracing all kinds of Sūtras, as was to be expected, to the
Yajurveda schools, since the priests of this Veda were from the beginning
particularly concerned with manual exercises, in arranging the altar, etc. ,
and the details of sacrifice ; while the priests of the other Vedas had to do
more with the recitation and chanting of the sacred texts. Nevertheless, the
literature of the Rigveda also contains both Çrauta and Grihya Sūtras, as
does that of the Sāmaveda. Finally, the Atharvaveda possesses not only
a Väitāna Crauta Sūtra but a Kançika Sūtra, which is in part a Gșihya
Sūtra but contains also directions for carrying out the many magic cere-
monies connected with the text of that unique Veda.
a
## p. 205 (#239) ############################################
X].
THE GRIHYA SŪTRAS
205
case.
The preponderance of domestic ceremonies in the Gșihya Sūtra results
in Dharma, or social, matter being introduced rather adventitiously, as
when the rules concerning the choice of wives are given, whereas Grinya,
domestic, rules belong as much to the Dharma Sūtras as to the Gșihya
Sūtras themselves. The difference is that the weight in the Dharmas is
laid on the wider relation of man to the state, so that those sections which
deal with the family become condensed and subordinate. Specimens of
southern Gțihya Sutras are also not lacking. Thus as the Dharma of
Āpastamba reflects a South-Indian origin, so also the Gșihya Sūtra of
Khādira belongs to Southern India, and it is an indication that Sutra
literature extends far beyond the time of Buddha that this should be the
Such also may be surmised to be the fact (rather than that Vedic
schools were domiciled in South India at a much earlier period) from the
circumstance that the Sūtra of Khădira is a later and more concise version
of the Sūtra of Gobhila. There are other examples of this endeavour to
revise a Sūtra on lines of economy, each later writer reducing the work
of his predecessor as much as possible or convenient, conciseness being the
test of Sūtra excellence. Gobhila's work is detailed and lengthy ; Khādira's
is virtually the same work in condensed form. Everything that could be
omitted, such as explanatory digressions, smaller details of ceremonies, etc. ,
was left out, solely to make the work easier to remember. But clearness
as well as conciseness was aimed at and attained by a fresh arrangement of
the older matter.
An example of the scope and method of a Gộihya Sūtra may be taken
from the directions of Khădira regarding the little oblations to spirits and
gods required from a wedded pair. After describing the wedding ceremony,
Khādira passes directly to this question of offerings and oblations, describ-
ing first briefly the fire used for the purpose of receiving the oblation, thus :
The domestic (grihua) fire is that at which he has taken her hand (in marriage) or
that on which he has put the last piece of wood (as a student before marriage) or a(fresh)
fire twirled out (of wood), the last being pure but not tending to prosperity ; or he may
get his domestic fire from a frying-pan or from the house of a man who makes many
sacrifices, Cūdras excepted. The service begins with an evening oblation. After (the fire)
has been set in a blaze before sunset or sunrise, the sacrifice (is performed) after sunset
(and) after or before sunrise. He should make an oblation of rice-food fit for sacrifice
after washing it, if raw, with his hand (but) with a brass bowl if it is (not rice but) curds
or milk, or with the rice-pot. With the words 'Hail to Fire' (he makes oblation) in the
middle (of the fire, at eve); secondly in the north-eastern (part of the fire); in the morn.
ing, with the words, 'Hail to Sun' (he makes the first oblation). The wiping round and
other (acts) except sprinkling (of water round the fire) are here left out. Some say 'let
the wife make the oblations,' for this fire is the house-fire and the wife is the house
(home). When (the meal) is prepared, evening and morning, she (the wife) must say
а
## p. 206 (#240) ############################################
206
[сн.
LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SŪTRAS
3
("It is) ready,' (and he) must say aloud 'Om'l, but softly May it not fail ; to thee2 be
reverence. ' Of rice-food fit for sacrifice he should make (oblations) to Prajāpati; and to
(the form of the Fire-god called) Svishțakſit (i. e. good sacrificer) make a bali (offering),
depositing it outside or inside (the fire place) in four places : (one) at the water-barrel;
(another) at the middle door ; (another) at the couch or privy; and (finally, one) at
the heap of sweepings ; sprinkle each (offering on the ground with water) beth (before
and afterwards) and pour out what is left with the water toward the south. Of chaff,
water, and scum of boiled rice (let him make a bali offering) when a donation has been
made. The gods to whom the bali offerings belong are Earth, Wind, Prajāpati, the All-
gods, Water, Herbs, Trees, Space, Love or Wrath, the hosts of Rakshasas, the Fathers
and Rudra. He should make the offering in silence; he should make it of any food
(but) make it only once in case (a meal) is prepared at different times; and if (prepared!
at different places (then he should make the offering of) what belongs to the house.
holder (himself). But of all food he should offer (some) in the fire and give the rest to
a priest : this he si ould do himself. He should offer the offerings himself from rice
(-harvest) to barley (-harvest) or from barley (-harvest) to rice (-harvest); (yea,) he
himself should offer them3.
It will have been observed that the religious ceremony of the bali-
offering implies a cult midway between that of the Vedic sacrifice and the
sectarian sacrifice not countenanced by the orthodox. The bali is a bit of
food cast upon the ground at the places named, the recipients being
supposed to be the Vedic divinities of a lower order, ending with Rudra,
and the hosts of harmful spirits who are thus propitiated. Each divinity
has a bali in his appropriate place and at the right time. Thus the offering
by the couch is for Love; that flung to the north is for Rudra ; that by
the door is for (personified) Space ; and the offering to the harmful spirits
are given at night. The sprinkling of the offering means (probably) the
sprinkling of the ground or place where the offering is cast. The Dharma
Sūtras also take up this question of offerings.
The citation above by
implication recognises only the wife as preparer of the meal. But a rich house-
holder may have his meals prepared by a priest or other member of the
‘reborn' castes or even by a Çūdra. Special rules are necessary in the last
case. The slave cook, being impure, must have his hair and beard and nails
cut daily or at least at stated intervals, and it must be the householder who
places on the fire the food prepared by Çūdras. Then in this case it is
the cook who says (when the meal is prepared), 'It is ready' and the house-
1 Om is the sacred syllable, answering in cases like that above to ‘very goo'd
(Amen). The evening and morning are mentioned in this order because the evening
precedes the day ; and only two meals are mentioned because the Hindus eat but twice
a day.
2 In the Sūtras clarity is often sacrificed to brevity. It is not clear hero whether the
wife or husband speaks or whom the word "Thee' refers. Presumably the husband
addresses the words to the food itself (compare Gobhila's Gșihya Sūtra, 1, 3, 18). The
text and translation (by Prof. Oldenberg) of Khādira are published in S. B. E. vol, XXIX.
3 That is from spring till autumn the householder offers barley, and from rice.
time till barley-harvest time (autumn till spring) he offers rice. The passage quoted is
also translated by Prof. Oldenberg, in S. B. E. vol. XXIX, p. 385.
а
## p. 207 (#241) ############################################
X]
RITES TO AVERT DISASTER AND DISEASE
207
holder who responds (as Āpastamba gives the rule with a slight variation)
'Well-prepared food bestows the splendour; may it never fail. '
The rites involving the goblins of disaster and disease have naturally
a prominent place in the domestic ritual of the Gșihya Sūtras and afford
us glimpses of an otherwise unknown pantheon. The wife herself, who has
so little to do with texts, must go outside her house and offer food to
'the white demon with black teeth, the lord of bad women,' and if she
bears a child the husband must daily, till the wife's confinement ends, offer
rice and mustard in the fire near the door where the wife is confined,
dispersing demons whose names are given : 'Çanda, Marka, Upavīra,
,
Çaundikeya, Ulūkhala, Malimlucha, Droņāsa, Chyavana,' all indicative
of trouble, as are those that follow (apparently a supplementary list),
'Ālikhat, Animisha, Kimvadanta, Upaçruti, Haryaksha, Kumbhiņ, Çatru,
Pātrapāņi, Nșimaņi, Haņtrimukha, Sarsha pāruņa, Chyavana, avaunt. '
But if the child falls ill with epilepsy, the 'dog-disease,' the father cures him
by covering him with a net and murmuring,
Kūrkura, Su-Kūrkura, Kūrkura (it is) who holds ſast the children ; scat (chech
chet ! ), dog, let him go ; reverence to thee, Sisara, barker, bender, true the gods have
given thee a boon, and hast thou chosen my boy ? Scat, dog, let him go (as before).
True, the Bitch of heaven, Saramā, is thy mother, Sisara is thy father, and Yama's
black and speckled dogs thy brothers ; but scat, dog, let him go? .
s
The demon attacking the boy is here called Kumāra, the cult is
obviously demoniac. In general, the Sūtras of this class are concerned not
with the greater sacrifices, which are discussed in the Crauta Sūtra, called
the Havis and Soma sacrifices, but with the so-called great sacrifices of
food cooked (pāka) and offered on special noon-days and at funeral feasts,
or seven in all, including offerings to serpents as well as to demons and
gods.
The last of these domestic 'cooked-food' sacrifices introduces a
feature :
On the full moon day of the month Chaitra he makes (images of) a pair of
animals out of meal ; (he offars) them and jujube leaves (to the gods); to Indra and
Agni a figure with prominent navel ; and balls to Rudra (Cārkhyana, Gpihya Sūtra,
IV. 19)
These images of meal representing living beings are partly due to the
new feeling of pity for animals and the desire not to injure life, which plays
a part in Brāhmanism as well as in Buddhism. It must be admittted,
however, that economy had something to do with the substitution of animals
of meal for real animals, but ostensibly it is a Vishņuite trait. The general
1 Pāraskara. Gyihya Sūtra, I, 16, 23 f.
2 lb. 24.
8 From the full moon of the month Crāvana, offerings to soakes have to be made
daily till it is safe to sleep on the ground again. This is called the Pratyavarohaņı
and occurs on the full moon day called Agrahāyaņi, when one may 'descend again' (from
the high couch).
new
## p. 208 (#242) ############################################
208
[Ch.
LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SUTRAS
a cow.
rule in this regard is that attributed to Manu : ‘Animals may be killed
(so said Manu) at the Madhuparka and Soma sacrifice and at the rites for
Manes and gods. ' But it is an old rite of hospitality to kill a cow for a
guest! ; and, as a matter of form, each honoured guest is actually offered
The host says to the guest, holding the knife ready to slay the
cow, that he has the cow for him ; but the guest is then directed to say :
Mother of Rudras, daughter of the Vasus, sister of the Adityas navel
of immortality (is she). Do not kill the guiltless cowr; she is (Earth itself),
Aditi, the goddess. I speak to them that understand. ' He adds, My
sin has been killed and that of so-and-so ; let her go and eat grass. But
if he really wants to have her eaten, he says, 'I kill my sin and the sin of
so-and-so' (in killing her), and though in many cases the offer of the cow is
thus plainly a formal piece of etiquette, yet the offering to the guest was not
complete without flesh of some sort ; and it is clear from the formulas that
any of the worthiest guests might demand the cow's death, though as
the 'six worthy guests' are teacher, priest, father-in-law, king, friend,
and Āryan ‘reborn' man, and all of these were doubtless well grounded in
that veneration for the cow which is expressed above by identifying her
with Earth (as Aditi), there was probably seldom any occasion to harrow
the feelings of the cow-revering hosta. Pāraskara mentions only the cow
but Çānkhāyana (G. S. II, 15, 1) already substitutes a goat as a possible
alternative ; he also mentions the gods to which this animal is sacred,
that is, he seeks to make the animal offered to the guest a sacrifice to a god.
Thus he
says that if the animal is offered to the teacher and killed it is 'sacred
to the Fire. god'; if it is offered to a king, it is sacred to Indra, and if to a
friend (mitra) it is sacred to Mitra. Similar additions may be traced in
many particulars, sometimes found by comparing one text with another,
sometimes clearly interpolated.
The Sūtras, while they do not recognise the sects of later days, yet
point to the different conception of deity embodied in the two great modern
sects worshipping Rudra-Çiva and Vishņu. Thus, as above, Rudra and the
Rakshasas are also associated in the rule : When one repeats a text sacred
to Rudra, to the Rakshasas, to the Manes, to the Asuras, or one that con-
tains an imprecation, one shall touch water' (Çankh. G. S. , I, 10,9). On
the other hand, when the bridegroom leads the bride to take the seven steps,
which form part of the wedding ceremony, he murmurs a blessing at every
step: 'One for sap, two for juice, three for prosperity, four for comfort, five
for cattle, six for the seasons, Friend ! be with seven steps (mine) ; be thou
devoted to me'. And after each clause he says 'may Vishņu lead thee. '
Similarly, the fact that Vaiçravana (Kubera and Içāna (Rudra-Çiva) are
1 Chipter IV', p. 101.
2 Pāraskara, Gțihya Sülra, 1, 3, 26.
## p. 209 (#243) ############################################
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MARRIAGE CEREMONIES
209
>
>
9
worshipped ‘for the bridegroom' point to the phallic nature of these cognate
spirits (Pār. , G. S. , I, 8, 2 ; Çānkh. , G. S. , I, 11, 7).
The Gșihya Sūtras show that there was no one rite of universal accep-
tation in those ceremonies most intimately connected with domestic felicity.
Indeed, the author of the Āçvalāyana Grihya Sūtra (I, 7, 1) says expressly
that in the matter of weddings, 'customs are diverse,' and he gives only that
which is common usage. Thus he tells how the bride is to go about the
fire, mount the stone, pour out grain, gaze at the pole-star, etc. , but does
not mention other rites which other Gțihya Sūtras enjoin. Some of these,
however, are of universal interest ; and a comparison of the Hindu cere-
monies with those of other Aryan-speaking peoples shows that in all pro-
bability the Indian ritual has preserved elements reaching far back into
prehistoric times? .
Thus in the ceremony it is universal usage to walk the seven steps to.
gether and for the bridegroom to murmur, as he takes the bride's hand :
“This am I, that art thou, that art thou, this am I ; Heaven am I and Earth
art thou ; the (feminine) Rich (Rigveda verse) art thou, the Saman am I.
Be thou devoted to me,' and to make the bride mount a stone as an emblem
of firmness. But special rules are that women shall come to the bride's
house and eat and drink brandy and dance four times ; and that merry girls
shall escort the bridegroom to the bride's house, and that he must do all
the foolish (? ) things they tell him to d (except when taboo is con-
cerned). (Çārkh. , G. 8. , I, 12, 2). Some measure of values may perhaps
be obtained from the statement that the fee to the priest who performs the
marriage-ceremony is a cow, given by the bridegroom, if the groom is of
the same caste as the priest, but a village if the groom is 'royal', Rājanya,
that is a nobleman of 'kingly order, and a horse if the groom is of the third
estate (farmer, trader). Obviously the succeeding rule, which is not unique,
countenances a sort of sale in that it adds : “(The bridegroom must give)
to the one who has the daughter one hundred (cows) together with a
chariot. ' The same rule is found in the Dharma Sūtras (Āpastamba, II,
13, 12) with the explanation that the gift must be returned, as a sale is not
allowed –which only points back to an earlier period when the sale of
daughters was allowed.
1 On this point, cf. Haas and Weber, Indische Studien, vol. v ; L. von Schroeder,
Die Hochzeitsgebrä'lche der Esten und etniger anderer finnisch-ugrischer Volkerschaften
in Vergleichung mit denen der indogermanischen Volker (1888) ; M. Winternitz, Das
altindische Hochzeitsrituell. . . mit Vergleichung der Hochzeitsgebräuche bei den übrigen
indogermanischen Volkern (1892); also a paper by the last writer on the same subject
in the Transactions of the National Folk-lore Society (Congress, 1891-2), and one by Th.
Zachariae, ‘Zum altindischen Hochzeitsrituell' (Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Mor.
genlandes, vol. XVII, pp. 135 f. , and 211 f. ).
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210
[CH,
LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN THE SUTRAS
The distinction among the orders mentioned in the gifts above is only
one of innumerable passages in which, as a matter of course and without
thought of any other social order, the castes are named as priest, noble or
warrior, and 'people', the last terms embracing all those ‘reborn', who are
not priests or warriors or slaves. The slaves, Çūdras and lower orders, are
recognised as part of the social structure. The name itself suggests that the
Çūdras were originally a conquered people, as Karian became synony-
mous with slave at Athens. Yet the Çūdras were not Pariahs but members
of the household, who took part in some of the domestic rites.
The test of caste is not marriage alone but defilement by eating and
touching what is unclean. In this regard the Sūtras show only the begin.
ning of that formal theory of defilement which results in a pure man of the
upper castes being defiled by the shadow of an impure man, and in the taboo
of all contact with the impure. According to Gautama (Dharma Sūtra, XVII,
I f. ), Brāhman may eat food given by any of the 'reborn' who are worthy
members of their caste, and if in need of food to support life he may take
food and other things even from a Çūdra. Food forbidden is that defiled
naturally by hairs or insects falling into it and that touched by woman dur-
ing her courses, by a black bird (crow), or by a foot, etc. , or given by an
outcast, a woman of bad character, a person accused, an hermaphrodite, a
police-officer (dandika), a carpenter, a miser, a jailer, a physician, a man who
hunts without using the bow (i. e. a non-Aryan snarer of animals), a man who
eats refuse or the food of a multitude, of an enemy, etc. The list continues
with the taboo of food offered disrespectfully and of certain animals,
Āpastamba (Dharma S. , I 6, 18, 1 f. ) allows the acceptance of gifts, includ-
ing a house and land, even from an Ugra (low caste or mixed caste), though,
like the later law-books, his code states that a priest may not eat in the
house of anyone of the three orders (varņas) belong him ; but he may
eat the food of any other priest, and according to 'some' he may eat the
food of people of any caste except Çūdras and even their food in times of
distress. Forbidden by him is the food of an artisan, of people who let
houses or land, a spy, an unauthorised hermit (Buddhist ? ), besides that of
surgeon, usurer, and others. Caste is varņa or jāti, 'colour' and 'kin,' the
former embracing the latter, as a social order including clans or families.
Even in the all-important matter of marriage, caste is not so important as
family. The only test, when one seeks a wife, according to Çānkhāyana, is
that of the family : ‘They ask the girl in marriage, reciting the clan-names. '
The text of Āçvalāyana expressly mentions as a form of marriage that in
which the bridegroom kills the relatives and rapes the weeping girl, evident-
ly a form once countenanced as well as enumerated among possible forms;
at any rate it bars out all examination of the bride's social position. Indeed
the marriage rules permit the marriage of a Çūdra woman, though as the
:
1
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last of four wives, with a member of the highest caste (e. g. Pār. , G. S. , 1, 4,
11), whose offspring, of course, being ‘mixed' or impure, is not a member of
the Āryan 'reborn,' but nevertheless is recognised legally. And what shall
we say of those who are not ‘reborn' although Āryans ? The rule in this
case is universal that, if priest, warrior, or member of the third estate fail to
be ‘reborn in the Veda,' i. e. if such a one is not duly initiated into his
social order at the proper time, he loses his prerogatives and becomes an
‘outcast'. 'No one should initiate such men, nor teach them, nor perform
sacrifice for them, nor have intercourse with them, and further, 'A person
whose ancestors through three generations have been thus outcast is exclud-
ed from the sacrament of initiation and from being taught the Veda,' that
is, they become Vrātyas or entirely outcast persons with whom one may not
even have intercourse unless they perform special ritest.
In general the Gșihya Sūtras may be said to be the later scholastic
codification of rules, formulas, and rites long practised, concerned chiefly
with the orderly progress of an individual ideal life, and incidentally with
such ceremonies as naturally occur in such a life, that is, besides rites from
babyhood to marriage, fixed moon-rites etc. , those concerned with building,
holidays, burial, etc. That they are not of Vedic age in their present form,
though in substance reverting in part to Brāhmaṇa beginnings, may be con-
cluded from their obvious posteriority in respect of language and metre
(where verses are cited) to the Brāhmaṇas, not to speak of earlier Vedic
texts, as well as from the fact that several Sūtras emanate from districts
scarcely known even by name to the Brāhmaṇas. The general order of
arrangement in the Gșihya Sūtras is one conditioned by the subject matter
which is to reveal the whole duty of man as a householder. Most of them
begin with the marriage and continue with the birth of a child, the
ceremonies at conception and at various stages before birth, at the birth it.
self, at the naming of the child, when he sees the sun, when he is fed, when
his hair is cut, when he becomes a student, and when he returns home from
his Guru (tutor) and becomes a householder. Then the child, now grown to
a man, marries and the circle begins again. Finally the rite for the burial
is described. A few texts take up the round of life at another point, that
where the student-life begins. This is the procedure in the case of some of
the Black Yajurveda texts (for example, the Mānava and Kāțhaka Sūtras),
but it makes no difference where one begins; each Sūtra follows out the life
to the end, and the general uniformity shows that, whatever be the minor
discrepancies and divergences of opinion (of which the authors are
themselves well aware), the Gșihya Sūtras as a whole are based upon one
model, and that, whether in the northern or southern districts, the lives of
1 See Paraskara, Grihya Sülra, II, 5, 40 f. , and Weber Ind. Literaturgesch. p. 73 f. ,
Eng. trans. p. 67.
a
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orthodox Āryans were governed by a remarkable conformity of ritual. It is
not improbable that, as has been suggested by Professor Oldenberg, many
of the rites prescribed as general rules were nothing more than formulas of
secret magic owned at first by certain families and afterwards become unis
versal property?
The specimen given above will suffice to show the artless style of
these didactic Sūtras. They have in fact no style save that attained
by scrupulous brevity. In the following paragraphs we shall seek rather
to illustrate certain phases of the Gșihya Sūtras as indicative of religious and
magical beliefs and of the social environment in which they were produced,
or at least for which they were intended.
We may begin with reverting to the cure of epilepsy already mentioned.
In the course of childhood the boy may be attacked by the dog-demon
(epilepsy). What is the father to do? The names of the canine demons
have been mentioned above with a parallel passage containing more of
the same sort. These are to be averted by a sort of honorific propitiation.
They are lauded ; but their objectionable behaviour in this special case is
deprecated. The author of our Sūtra contents himself with this. But
a rival author or two (Hiraṇyakeçin, G. S. , II, 2, 7, 1 f. ; Āpastamba,
2
Grihya Sūtra, VII, 18, 1) are not content with the method here advocated.
According to them, the father must make a hole in the roof of the royal
gaming-hall and pull the boy through it, lay him on his back on dice strewn
about, and then, while a gong is sounded, recite the deprecatory words
to the dog-demons and pour curds and salt over the boy. Several items of
this recipe are of interest, the avoidance of the door, the use of salt
and curds to frighten demons, the gong for the same purpose to be beaten
on the south side of the hall. These may be said to be universal antidotes;
peculiar is the use of the dice, which has no parallel in the similar situations
offered by the Sūtra. Finally the fact that the father makes a hole in
the roof of the gaming-hall shows that it is made of thatch (easily repaired)
and leads to the question what sort of architecture is normally to be
found implied in the Sutras. The gaming-hall is the public gambling-
place which a king is directed to build for the use of his subjects, and
curiously enough, with the exception of the house-holder's own dwelling, it
is almost the only reference to edifices found in the Sūtras. On the other
hand, all the dicta of the Sūtras show that such life as is depicted is
supposed to be country life ; the district and the village are the geographical
entities. Cities are not ignored but are despised”. Thus there are no
1 Compare the admirable discussion of the position of the Gșihya Sūtras by
Prof. Oldenburg in S. B. E. vol. XXX.
2 Apastamba, Dharma Sūtra, I, 32, 21, let him avoid going into towns', and
Baudhāyana, Dharma Sūtra, II, 3, 6, 33, 'It is impossible for one to obtain salvation,
who lives in a town, covered with dust,'
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ceremonies for urban life. But there is a rite for ploughing, when sacrifice
is made to Açani (the thunder-bolt) and to Sītā (the furrow), as well
as to other bucolic deities, Aradā, Anaghā, etc. , as to the greater bucolic
gods, Parjanya and Indra and Bhaga, with similar offerings on the occasion
of the 'furrow sacrifice,' the 'threshing-floor sacrifice,' when one sows,
reaps, or takes in the harvest, all indicating that the life portrayed is that
of the village agriculturist, who must even 'offer a sacrifice at mole-heaps
to Akhurāja, the king of moles' (Gobhila, Gșihya Sūtra, IV, 4, 28 f. ;
ibid. 30 f. ).
