The Grihya-sutras, rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies

Xxii G2?7HYA-S^TRAS.
assumed the character of universality, with which we find
them propounded in the Grzliya-sutras.
It is scarcely necessary to go through the sections of the
texts of other Vedic schools referring to the Grihya. ritual
in the same way in which we have done it in the case of the
vSatapatha Brahmawa. The data which we have produced
from the great Brahma;za of the white Ya^ur-veda, will
be sufficient for our purpose, which is to give an idea of
the stage in which the literary treatment of the Grihya.
ritual stood during the Brahma;za period. As we see, there
were then properly no Grzhya. texts ; but many of the
elements which we find later in the Grihya. texts were
either already formed or were in the process of formation.
Most of the verses which are used for the Gr/hya acts
in so far as they are not verses composed in the oldest
period for the Soma offering and transferred to the Grzhya
ceremonies—bear the formal imprint of the Brahma;/a
period ; the domestic sacrificial fire and the ritual peculi-
arities of the Pakaya^;7as which were to be performed at it,
were known ; descriptions of some such Pakaya^«as were
given in prose ; there were also already vSlokas which gave in
metrical form explanations about certain points of the Grzhya
ritual,just as we find in the Brahmawa texts analogous .Slokas
referring to subjects connected with the vSrauta ritual.
Thus was the next step which the literary development
took in the Sutra period prepared and rendered easy. The
more systematic character which the exposition of the
ritualistic discipline assumed in this period, necessarily led to
the taking of this step : the domain of the Grihya sacri-
fices was recognised and expounded as a second great
principal part of the ritual of sacrifices alongside of the
vSrauta domain which was alone attended to in the earlier
period. The Grzhya-sutras arose which treat, according
to the expression of Ai-valayana in his first sentence, of the
gr/hya«i' as distinguished from the vaitanikani, or, as
vSankhayana says, of the pakaya^;7as, or, as Paraskara
says, of the grzhyasthalipak^na;« karma. The
' Similarly Gobhila : gr/hyakarmam.