Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/272

 the duties of the four religious orders, the mixed castes, various kinds of sacrifice, purification, penance, auspicious ceremonies, duties of kings, criminal justice, examination of witnesses, law of inheritance and marriage, the position of women. The fourth section, which is almost entirely composed in çlokas, is probably a modern addition, and even the third is of somewhat doubtful age.

With the above works must be classed the well-preserved law-book of. Though it does not form part of a Kalpa Sūtra, it must at one time have been connected with a Vedic school; for the Gautamas are mentioned as a subdivision of the Rāṇāyanīya branch of the Sāmaveda, and Kumārila's statement that Gautama's treatise originally belonged to that Veda is confirmed by the fact that its twenty-sixth section is taken word for word from the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa. Though entitled a Dharma Çāstra, it is in style and character a regular Dharma Sūtra. It is composed entirely in prose aphorisms, without any admixture of verse, as in the other works of this class. Its varied contents resemble and are treated much in the same way as those of the Dharma Sūtra of Baudhāyana. The latter has indeed been shown to contain passages based on or borrowed from Gautama's work, which is therefore the oldest Dharma Sūtra that has been preserved, or at least published, and can hardly date from later than about 500 B.C.

Another work of the Sūtra type, and belonging to the Vedic period, is the Dharma Çāstra of. It has survived only in inferior MSS., and without the preserving influence of a commentary. It contains thirty chapters (adhyāyas), of which the last five appear to