KHADIRA GRIHYA SUTRA

Introduction

Among the Grantha MSS. collected by the late Dr. by Burnell, and now belonging to the India Office Library, there are some MSS. (numbers CLXXII et seq. of the Catalogue) of the hitherto unpublished Grihya-sûtra, which is attributed to Khâdirâkârya. It belongs to the Drâhyâyana Sâma-veda school which prevails in the south of the Indian Peninsula, 1 and is based on the Gobhilîya-sûtra, from which it has taken the greater number of its aphorisms, just as the Drâhyâyana-Srauta-sûtra, so far as we can judge at present, is nothing but a slightly altered redaction of Lâtyâyana 2. Like the Gobhila-Grihya, he very rarely gives the mantras in their entirety, but only quotes them with their practices. it is easy to identify these quotations in the Mantrabrâhmana (published in Calcutta, 1873), which contains the texts prescribed by Gobhila for the Grihya rites.

The Khâdira-Grihya was evidently compiled with the intention of shortening Gobhil’s very detailed and rather lengthy treatise on domestic rites. Digressions, such as that introduced by the words tatraihad âhuh, Gobhila I, 2, 10-27, or as Gobhila’s explanation of paurnamâsî and amâvâsyâ, I, 5, 7 seq., or most of the precepts relating to the Sakvaryas, III, 3, or Slokas, IV, 7, are always left

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and in the descriptions of the particular rites only the main points are given, omitting all words and all matter which seemed to be bypassed. On the other hand, the arrangement of the sutras has undergone frequent changes, in which the compiler clearly shows his intention to group together, more carefully than in the original text, the sutras which naturally belong together. Of the Khâdira-Grihya sutras which cannot be identified in Gobhila, several can be traced back to Lâtyâyana, or perhaps we should rather say, to Drâhyâyana. So Khâd. I, 1, 14 mantrântam avyaktam parasyâdigrahanena vidyât evidently corresponds to Lâtyâyana I, 1, 3, uttarâdih pûrvântalakshanam and Khâd. I, 1, 24 avyâvrittim yagñâṅgair avyavâyam kekhet is identical with Lâty. I, 2, 15, avyavâyoཽvyâvrittis ka yagñâṅgaih.

On the whole, though the Khâdira-Grihya certainly does not contain much matter not known to us from other sources, it is nevertheless of some interest, as it shows by a very clear example how the Sûtrakâra of a later period would rework the work of an ancient author, endeavoring to surpass it by a more correct arrangement, and especially by what was increasingly appreciated as the main achievement of sutra composition, the greatest possible brevity and economy of words. To the expositor of the Gobhila the comparison of the Khâdira-Grihya will doubtless in many cases indicate a more correct understanding of his text than he would probably have arrived at without this aid, and perhaps even the reading of the Gobhila which has hitherto seemed to yield no doubt to the values ​​afforded by the Grantha MSS. of Khâdira-Grihya. So, Gobhila III, 8, 16, I do not hesitate to correct the asamsvâdam on the authority of Khâd. III, 3, 13, to asamkhâdam or asamkhâdan 1.

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As the text of the Khâdira-Grihya is very short and has not yet been published, it has been printed at the bottom of the page along with references to the parallel passages of the Gobhila. For further explanation of the individual sutras, I refer to my translation of Gobhila, which will form part of the second volume of the Grihya-sûtras, where I also hope to provide some extracts from Rudraskanda’s commentary on the Khâdira-Grihya.

Footnotes

371:1 See Catalog Dr. Burnell, p. 56.

371:2 Weber, Vorlesungen über indische Literaturgeschichte (2nd ed.), p. 87: “Almost the whole difference between this sutra and that of Lâtyâyana consists in the arrangement of the matter dealt with, which is itself almost the same in both texts and is expressed in the same words .” Comp. Anandakandra Vedântavâgîsa’s introduction to his edition of the Lâtyâyana (in the Bibliotheca Indica), pp. 2, 3, and his remarks on the Drâhyâyana in the notes to that edition.

372:1 Comp. Pâraskara II, so, 15, and the Böhtlingk-Roth citation pp. v. sam-khâd. Forms derived from two roots, khâd and svad, are often confused in MSS; see two articles in the Dictionary.

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Khadira Grihya Sutra Adhyaya 1 || Adhyaya 2 || Adhyaya 3 || Adhyaya 4