Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/239

Rh Paka-yajnas, were easily performed. Gautama enumerates seven Paka sacrifices: Astaka, performed in the four winter months; Parvana, at full and new moon; Sraddha, or monthly funeral oblations; Sravani, Agrahayani, Chaitri, and Asvayuji, performed on the days of full moon in the months from which the rites have been named. The account of these rites contained in the Grihya Sutras is deeply interesting, because after a lapse of over two thousand years the Hindus still practise the same rites, sometimes under the same name, and often under a different name and in a somewhat different way. The Grihya Sutras also contain accounts of social ceremonies performed at marriage, at the birth of a child, at his first feeding, at his assuming the life of a student, and at other important periods in his life, and thus we get a complete idea of domestic life among the ancient Hindus from these Grihya Sutras.

The Srauta Sutra, the Dharma Sutra, and the Grihya Sutra go collectively under the name of Kalpa Sutra. Indeed, each Sutra-charana is supposed to have had a complete body of Kalpa Sutra, including the divisions mentioned above, but much of what once existed has been lost, and we have only fragments of the Sutra literature left. The entire Kalpa Sutra of Apastamba still exists, and is divided into thirty prasnas or sections. The first twenty-four of these treat of Srauta sacrifices; the twenty-fifth contains the rules of interpretation; the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh treat of the Grihya rites; the twenty-eighth and