The Grihya-sutras, rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies

XXXvi Gi?7HYA-St}TRAS.
51oka Pada for the later period ^ — , which, for instance,
in the Nalopakhyana of the Mahabharata covers precisely
five-sixths of all the cases, occurs in vSaiikhayana in thirty
cases out of thirty-nine, that is in about three quarters of
the cases ^ ; ^ankhayana has still twice the ending ^ - w —
which is the rule in the Rig-veda, but which is forbidden
by the later prosody : prahuta// pitr/karma/m, uktva man-
tra?;/ spmed apa// ^. It may be observed that a similar
treatment of the vSloka metre appears also in the Rig-veda
Pratijakhya of ^aunaka. Here too the modern form of the
ending of the first pada dominates, although sometimes the
old iambic form is preserved, e. g. II; 5 anta//pada;;zvivr/t-
taya//, III, 6 anudattodaye puna//.
It seems evident that we have in this vSloka form of the
Sutra period, the last preparatory stage which the development
of this metre had to traverse, before it arrived al
the shape which it assumes in epic poetry ; and it is to be
hoped that more exhaustive observations on this point
(account being especially taken of the numerous verses
quoted in the Dharma-siitras) will throw an important
light on the chronology of the literature of this period lying
between the Vedas and the post-Vedic age.
We add to these remarks on the vSlokas quoted in the
Gr/hya-sutras, that we come upon a number of passages in
the midst of the prose of the Sutras, which without being
in any way externally designated as verses, have an un-
mistakable metrical character, being evidently verses which
the authors of the Sutras found ready made, and which
they used for their own aphorisms, either without changing
them at all, or with such slight changes that the original
form remained clearly recognisable. Thus we read in
Aj'valayana (Gr/hya I, 6, 8), as a definition of the Rakshasa
marriage : hatva bhittva ka. jirshawi rudati;;/ rudadbhyo
^ The few verses which are found in Gobhila preserve the same metrical
standard as those quoted in ^"ankhayana ; it follows that in Gobhila IV, 7, 23,
ajvatthad agnibhayaw bruyat, we cannot change briiyat in Jta., as Prof Knauer
proposes. The supernumerary syllable of the first foot is unobjectionable, but
the form xj of the second foot should not be touched.
^ Both passages are to be found in ^"ankhayana-G;7hya I, 10.