Sacred Texts Hinduism Index Previous Next
Buy this Book at Amazon.com
The Grihya Sutras, Part 2 (SBE30), by Hermann Oldenberg, [1892], at sacred-texts.com
The short treatise of Âpastamba on the Grihya ritual forms one Prasna of the great corpus of the Âpastambîya-Kalpa-sûtra (see Sacred Books, vol. ii, p. xii) and stands, among the Grihya texts, in closest connection with the Hiranyakesi-Grihya-sûtra. The chief difference between these two Sûtras, both belonging to the Taittirîya School of the Black Yagur-veda, consists herein, that Âpastamba, just as has been stated above 1 with regard to Gobhila, gives only the rules for the performance of the Grihya rites without the Mantras, which are contained in a special collection, the Mantrapâtha, standing by the side of the Sûtras: Hiranyakesin, on the other hand, follows the more usual practice, as adopted by Sâṅkhâyana, Âsvalâyana, Pâraskara, of interweaving the description of the ceremonies with the text of the corresponding Mantras. As to the relation in which the Âpastambîya-sûtras stand to the Mantrapâtha, there is, so far as I can see, no reason why we should not extend the theory which we have tried to establish with regard to Gobhila, to the evidently parallel case of Âpastamba: the Sûtras presuppose the existence of the Mantrapâtha, just as the latter text seems to presuppose the Sûtras.—The questions regarding the historical relation of Âpastamba to Hiranyakesin have been treated of by Professor Bühler in his Introduction to Âpastamba's Dharma-sûtra, S.B.E., vol. ii, pp. xxiii seq.
I have here to thank Dr. Winternitz, to whom we are indebted for an excellent edition of the Âpastambîya-Grihya-sûtra, for having placed at my disposal, before publication,
the proof-sheets of his edition, and for lending me his copy of the Mantrapâtha as well as of the commentary of Haradatta. The kindness of the same scholar has enabled me to make use of Professor Eggeling's copy of the first part of Sudarsanârya's commentary and of his own copy of the second part of the same work.