Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 2.djvu/32

Rh in several other cases he adopts a line of reasoning which fully agrees with that followed in Gaimini's Mîmâsâ-sûtras. Thus the arguments, that 'a revealed text has greater weight than a custom from which a revealed text may be inferred,' and that 'no text can be inferred from a custom for which a worldly motive is apparent,' exactly correspond with the teaching of Gaimini's Mîmâmsâ-sûtras I, 3, 3–4. The wording of the passages in the two works does not agree so closely that the one could be called a quotation of the other. But it is evident, that if Apastamba did not know the Mîmâmsâ-sûtras of Gaimini, he must have possessed some other very similar work. As to the Veddânta, Âpastamba does not mention the name of the school. But Khandas 22, 23 of the first Patala of the Dharma-sûtra unmistakably contain the chief tenets of the Vedântists, and recommend the acquisition of the knowledge of the Âtman as the best means for purifying the souls of sinners. Though these two Khandas are chiefly filled with quotations, which, as the commentator states, are taken from an Upanishad, still the manner of their selection, as well as Âpastamba's own words in the introductory and concluding Sûtras, indicates that he knew not merely the unsystematic speculations contained in the Upanishads and Âranyakas, but a well-defined system of Vedântic philosophy identical with that of Bâdarâyana's Brahma-sûtras. The fact that Âpastamba's Dharma-sûtra contains indications of the existence of these two schools of philosophy, is significant as the Pûrvâ Mîmâmsâ occurs in one other Dharma-sûtra only, that attributed to Vasishtha, and as the name of the Vedânta school is not found in any of the prose treatises on the sacred law.

Of non-Vedic works Âpastamba mentions the Purâna. The Dharma-sutra not only several times quotes passages from 'a Purâna' as authorities for its rules, but names in one case the Bhavishyat-purâna as the particular Purâna from which the quotation is taken. References to the