Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 2.djvu/18

Rh to the sacrificer. In the first passage the verb, upeyât, is added, which the sense requires ; in the second it has the abbreviated form, which the best MSS. of the Dharma-sûtra offer. The occurrence of the irregular word, ritve for ritvye, in all the three passages, proves clearly that we have to deal with a self-quotation of the same author. If the Dharma-sûtra were the production of a different person and a later addition, the Pseudo-Âpastamba would most probably not have hit on this peculiar irregular form. Finally, the Grihya-sûtra, too, contains several cross-references to the Srauta-sûtra, and the close agreement of the Sûtras on the Vedic sacrifices, on the domestic rites, and on the sacred, both in language and style, conclusively prove that they are the compositions of one author.

Who this author really was, is a problem which cannot be solved for the present, and which probably will always remain unsolved, because we know his family name only. For the form of the word itself shows that the name Âpastamba, just like those of most founders of Vedic schools, e.g. Bhâradvâga, Âsvalâyana, Gautama, is a patronymic. This circumstance is, of course, fatal to all attempts at an identification of the individual who holds so prominent a place among the teachers of the Black Yagur-veda.

But we are placed in a somewhat better position with respect to the history of the school which has been named after Âpastamba and of the works ascribed to him. Regarding both, some information has been preserved by tradition, and a little more can be obtained from inscriptions and later works, while some interesting details regarding the time when, and the place where the Sûtras were composed, may be elicited from the latter themselves. The data, obtainable from these sources, it is true, do not enable us to determine with certainty the year when the Âpastambîya school was founded, and when its Sûtras were composed. But they make it possible to ascertain the position of the school and of its Sûtras in Vedic