Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/274

 Sūtras. Particular interest attaches to one of these, the Sūtra of Manu, or the Mānavas, because of its relationship to the famous Mānava dharma-çāstra. Of the numerous quotations from it in Vasishṭha, six are found unaltered or but slightly modified in our text of Manu. One passage cited in Vasishṭha is composed partly in prose and partly in verse, the latter portion recurring in Manu. The metrical quotations show a mixture of trishṭubh and çloka verses, like other Dharma Sūtras. These quoted fragments probably represent a Mānava dharma-sūtra which supplied the basis of our Mānava dharma-çāstra or Code of Manu.

Fragments of a legal treatise in prose and verse, attributed to the brothers Çankha and Likhita, who became proverbial for justice, have been similarly preserved. This work, which must have been extensive, and dealt with all branches of law, is already quoted as authoritative by Parāçara. The statement of Kumārila (700 A.D.) that it was connected with the Vājasaneyin school of the White Yajurveda is borne out by the quotations from it which have survived.

Sūtras need not necessarily go back to the oldest period of Indian law, as this style of composition was never entirely superseded by the use of metre. Thus there is a Vaikhānasa dharma-sūtra in four praçnas, which, as internal evidence shows, cannot be earlier than the third century A.D. It refers to the cult of Nārāyaṇa (Vishṇu), and mentions Wednesday by the name of budha-vāra, "day of Mercury." It is not a regular Dharma Sūtra, for it contains nothing connected with law in the strict sense, but is only a treatise on domestic law (gṛihya-dharma). It deals with the religious duties of the four orders (āçramas), especially with those of the