The Grihya-sutras, rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies

G/27HYA-SUTRA OF GOBHILA.
examine into the relation in which the two texts, the
Mantra-Brahma//a and the Gobhihya-sutra, stand to each
other. He has very kindly enabled me to make use,
before they were published, of the results of his investiga-
tions, which he has laid down in the introduction to his
translation of Gobhila. While I wish, therefore, to acknow-
ledge the obligation under which Prof. Knauer has thus
laid me, I must try, on the other side, to state my own
opinion as to the problem in question, which in some
points differs from, or is even opposed to, the theory by
which Prof. Knauer has tried to solve it.
To begin with that side of the question regarding which
there can scarcely be any doubt : it is certain, I believe,
that Gobhila supposes the Mantra-Brahmawa to be known
to the students of his Siitra. The reasons which show
this are obvious enough ^. By far the greater part of the
Mantras of which Gobhila quotes the first words, are not
found in the Sama-veda nor, for the most part, in any
other Vedic Sawhita, except in the Mantra-Brahmawa, in
which they stand in exactly the same order in which
they are referred to by Gobhila. The descriptions of the
Grzhya sacrifices by Gobhila would have been meaningless
and useless, and the sacrificer who had to perform his
domestic ceremonies according to the ritual of Gobhila,
would have been unable to do so, unless he had known
those Mantras as contained in the Mantra-Brahma;/a.
And not only the Mantras, but also the order in which the
Mantras stood, for Sutras such as, for instance, Gobh. II, i,
lo ('With the two following verses he should wash,' &c.),
would have no meaning except for one who had studied
the Mantra-Brahmawa which alone could show which '
the
two following verses ' were.
There are, consequently, two possibilities : either the
Mantra-Brahnia;/a existed before the Gobhiliya-sutra, or
the two works have been composed together and on one
common plan. It is the first of these alternatives which
Prof. Knauer maintains ; I wish, on the other hand, to call
^ Cf. Knauer's Introduction, pp. 24, 31 seq.