Overview

Excerpt from The Institutes of Vishnu: Translated There is no surer way for ascertaining the particular Vedic school by which an ancient Sanskrit law-book of unknown or uncertain origin was composed, than by exa mining the quotations from, and analogies with, Vedic works which it contains. Thus the Gautama Dharma sastra might have originated in any one among the divers Gautama Karafzas with which Indian tradition acquaints us. But the comparatively numerous passages which its author has borrowed from the Samhita and from one Brah ma7za of the Sama-veda prove that it must belong to one of those Gautama Karazzas who studied the Sama-vedal. Regarding the code of Yegiiavalkya we learn from tradi tion that a Vedic teacher of that name was the reputed author of the White Yagur-veda. But this coincidence might be looked upon as casual, if the Yegfiavalkya-smrz'ti did not contain a number of Mantras from that Vedic Samhita, and a number of very striking analogies, in the section on funeral ceremonies particularly, with the Grihya sutra of the Vagasaneyins, the Katiya Grihya-sutra of Para skara 2. In the case of the Vishnu-sutra an enquiry of this kind is specially called for, because tradition leaves us entirely in the dark as to its real author. The fiction that the laws promulgated in Chapters II - XCVII were communicated by the god Vishnu to the goddess of the earth, is of course utterly worthless for historical purposes; and all that it can be made to Show is that those parts of this work in which it is started or kept up cannot rival the laws themselves in antiquity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Full Product Details

9781333449933

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available