The Grihya-sutras, rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies

A.
6 G/27HYA-SUTRA OF GOBHILA
of the paryukshawa of the sacrificial fire. The sacrificer
pours out water to the south, the west, and the north of the
fire, with the Mantras, ' Adite-numanyasva,' ' Anumate
^^numanyasva,' ' Sarasvaty anumanyasva ;
' then he sprinkles
water round the fire once or three times with a longer
Mantra, 'Deva Savita/^ prasuva ya^na.m prasuva ya^wapatim
bhagaya. Divyo gandharva/^ ketapu// ketaw na./i punatu.
Va^aspatir vaZ'a?// na// svadatu/ This last one is the
Mantra given in its entirety in the Mantra-Brahma//a, while
Gobhila ^ has only the first words of it. To assume here
that the author of the Mantra-Br^hma;/a knew only of that
one Mantra, and that at the time of Gobhila the custom of
the Sama-vedins had undergone a change, so that they used
four Mantras instead of the one, would be, in my opinion,
an artificial and not very probable way of explaining the
facts ; a much more natural supposition would be, I
believe, that the Sutra and the Mantra-Brahmawa describe
one and the same form of the ceremony, so that the Br^hma«a,
by omitting the short Mantras, which were given in
the Sutra in their entirety, implicitly refers to the Sutra,
and the Sutra, on the other hand, by quoting only the first
words of the longer Mantra, refers to the Brahma;/a in
which the full text of that Mantra was given.
Among the numerous ceremonies described by Gobhila,
which could -furnish the occasion for similar remarks, we
select only two : the rites performed in the evening of the
wedding-day^, and the sacrifice on the full-moon day of
Ai-vayu^a". The bridegroom, having carried away his
bride from her home, takes her to the house of a Brahma;^a,
and when the stars have appeared, he makes six oblations
with the six verses lekhasandhishu pakshmasu (Man-
tra-Br. I, 3, 1-6) : these are given in the Mantra-Brahma//a,
and Gobhila has only the Pratika. Then follow two short
Mantras : the bride, to whom the polar-star has been
shown, addresses that star with the words : dhruvam asi
dhruvahaw patikule bhuy^sam amushyasav iti;
1 Gobh. I, 3, 4.
' Gobh. II, 3, 17 seq. ^ Gobh. Ill, 8.