The Grihya-sutras, rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies

XXxIi G227HYA-SijTRAS.
direction, that e.g. it should designate Paraskara as author
when Katydyana himself was the author.
We shall not be able to trust so implicitly to tradition
where it puts down the same author for the Gr/hya-sutra
as for the corresponding vSrauta-sutra ;
the possibility that
such data are false is so large that we have to treat them
as doubtful so long as we have not discovered certain proofs
of their correctness. At present, so far as I can see, we are
just as little justified in considering that such a proof has
been made as we are able to prove the opposite state of
things. It is easy to find the many agreements in contents
and expression which exist, for instance, between thcSrauta-
sutra and Grz'hya-sutra of 5aiikhayana, or between the
5rauta-sutra and the Gr/hya-sutra of Ai'valayana ^. But
these agreements cannot be considered as sufficient proof
that in each case the Gr/hya-sutra and the vSrauta-sutra are
by the same author. Even if the author of the Gr/hya-sutra
was not A^valayana or Sahkhayana in person, still he must
have been at all events perfectly familiar with the works of
those teachers, and must have intended to fit his work to
theirs as closely as possible, so that agreements of this kind
can in no way astonish us ^. On the other hand, if the
^rauta-sutras and Gr/hya-sutras are read together, it is
easy to discover small irregularities in the exposition,
repetitions and such like, which might seem to indicate
different authors. But the irregularities of this kind which
have been detected up to the present are scarcely of such
* The parallel passages from the .Srauta-sutra and the G^-zTiya-sutra of the
Manavas are brought together in Dr. Von Bradke's interesting paper, ' Ueber
das Manava-G;7hya-sutra,' Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenland. Gesellschaft,
vol. xxxvi, p. 451.
^ For this reason I cannot accept the reasoning through which Prof. Biihler
(Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii, p. xiv) attempts to prove the identity of the
author of the 6'rauta-sutra and of the Dharma-sutra of the Apastambiya school.
Biihler seems to assume that the repetition of the same Sutra, and of the same
irregular grammatical form in the .^rauta-sutra and in the Dharma-siitra, must
either be purely accidental, or, if this is impossible, that it proves the identity
of the authors. But there remains a third possible explanation, that the two
texts are by different authors, one of whom knows and imitates the style of the
other.