Gautama Dharmasutra

Template:Italic title Gautama Dharmasūtra is a Sanskrit text and likely one of the oldest Hindu Dharmasutras (600-200 BCE), whose manuscripts have survived into the modern age.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The Gautama Dharmasutra was composed and survives as an independent treatise,Template:Sfn unattached to a complete Kalpa-sūtras, but like all Dharmasutras it may have been part of one whose Shrauta- and Grihya-sutras have been lost to history.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The text belongs to Samaveda schools, and its 26th chapter on penance theory is borrowed almost completely from Samavidhana Brahmana layer of text in the Samaveda.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The text is notable that it mentions many older texts and authorities on Dharma, which has led scholars to conclude that there existed a rich genre of Dharmasutras text in ancient India before this text was composed.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Authorship and dates

Testimony during a trial <poem> The witness must take an oath before deposing. Single witness normally does not suffice. As many as three witnesses are required. False evidence must face sanctions. </poem>

— Gautama Dharmasutras 13.2-13.6 Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The Dharmasutra is attributed to Gautama, a Brahmin family name, many of whose members founded the various Shakhas (Vedic schools) of Samaveda.Template:Sfn The text was likely composed in the Ranayaniya branch of Samaveda tradition, generally corresponding to where modern Maratha people reside (Maharashtra-Gujarat).Template:Sfn The text is likely ascribed to revered sage Gautama of a remote era, but authored by members of this Samaveda school as an independent treatise.Template:Sfn

Kane estimated that Gautama Dharmasastra dates from approximately 600-400 BCE.Template:Sfn However, Olivelle states that this text discusses the progeny of Greeks with the word Yavana, whose arrival and stay in substantial numbers in northwest India is dated after Darius I (~500 BCE). The Yavana are called border people in the Edict of Ashoka (256 BCE), states Olivelle, and given Gautama gives them importance as if they are non-border people, this text is more likely to have been composed after the Ashoka's Edict, that is after mid 3rd century BCE.Template:Sfn Olivelle states that the Apastamba Dharmasutra is more likely the oldest extant text in Dharmasutras genre, followed by Gautama Dharmasastra.Template:Sfn Robert Lingat, however, states that the mention of Yavana in the text is isolated, and this minor usage could well have referred to Greco-Bactrian kingdoms whose border reached into northwest Bharat's subcontinent well before the Ashoka era. Lingat maintains that the Gautama Dharmasastra may well pre-date 400 BCE, and he and other scholars consider it to be the oldest extant Dharmasutra.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Regardless of the relative chronology, the ancient Gautama Dharmasutra, states Olivelle, shows clear signs of a maturing legal procedure tradition and the parallels between the two texts suggest that significant Dharma literature existed before these texts were composed in 1st millennium BCE.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The foundational roots of the text may pre-date Buddhism because it reveres the Vedas and uses terms such as Bhikshu for monks, which later became associated with Buddhists, and instead of Yati or Sannyasi terms that became associated with Hindus.Template:Sfn There is evidence that some passages, such as those related to castes and mixed marriages, were likely interpolated into this text and altered at the later date.Template:Sfn

Organization and content

The text is composed entirely in prose, in contrast to other surviving Dharmasutras which contain some verses as well.Template:Sfn The content is organized in the aphoristic sutra style, characteristic of ancient India's sutra period.Template:Sfn The text is divided into 28 Adhyayas (chapters),Template:Sfn with cumulative total of 973 verses.Template:Sfn Among the surviving ancient texts of its genre, the Gautama Dharmasutra has the largest portion (16%) of sutras dedicated to government and judicial procedures, compared to Apastamba's 6%, Baudhayana's 3% and Vasishtha's 9%.Template:Sfn

The contents of the Gautama Dharmasutra, states Daniel Ingalls, suggest that private property rights existed in ancient India, that the king had a right to collect taxes and had a duty to protect the citizens of his kingdom as well as settle disputes between them by a due process if and when these disputes emerged.Template:Sfn

The topics of this Dharmasūtra are arranged methodically, and resembles the structure of texts found in much later Dharma-related smṛtis (traditional texts).Template:Sfn

Gautama Dharmasutras

Chapter	Topics (incomplete)	Translation Comments
1. Sources of Dharma 1.1-4 Origins and reliable sources of law Template:Sfn
2. Brahmacharya 1.5-1.61 Student's code of conduct, insignia, rules of study Template:Sfn 2.1-2.51 General rules, conduct towards teachers, food, graduation Template:Sfn
3. Stages of life 3.1-3.36 Student, monk, anchorite Template:Sfn 4.1-8.25 Household, marriage, rituals, gifts, respect for guests, behavior during times of crisis and adversity, interaction between Brahmin and the King, Ethics and virtues Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 9.1-9.74 Graduates Template:Sfn 10.1-10.66 Four social classes, their occupations, rules of violence during war, tax rates, proper tax spending, property rights Template:Sfn
4. Judiciary 11.1-11.32 The king and his duties, Judicial process Template:Sfn 12.1-13.31 Criminal and civil law categories, contract and debts, theory of punishment, rules of trial, witnesses Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
5. Personal rituals 14.1-14.46 Death in a family, cremation, impurities and purification after handling corpse Template:Sfn 15.1-15.29 Rites of passage for ancestors and the death of loved ones Template:Sfn 16.1-16.49 Self-study of texts, recitation, annual suspension of Vedic readings Template:Sfn 17.1-17.38 Food, health, prohibition on killing or harming animals to produce food Template:Sfn 18.1-18.23 Marriage, remarriage, child custody disputes Template:Sfn
6. Punishment and penances 18.24-21.22 Seizure of property, excommunication, expulsion, readmission, sins Template:Sfn 22.1-23.34 Penances for killings animals, adultery, illicit sex, eating meat, different types of penances Template:Sfn
7. Inheritance and conflicts within law 28.1-28.47 Inheritance rights of sons and daughters on man's property, on woman's property, levirate, estates, partition of property between relatives Template:Sfn 28.48-28.53 Resolving disputes and doubts within law Template:Sfn

Commentaries

Duties of a graduate <poem> He should not spend the morning, midday or afternoon fruitlessly, but pursue righteousness, wealth and pleasure, to the best of his ability, but among them he should attend chiefly to righteousness. </poem>

— Gautama Dharmasutra 9.46-9.47Template:Sfn

Maskarin and Haradatta have commented on Gautama Dharmasūtra – the oldest is by Maskarin in 900-1000 CE, before Haradatta (who also commented on Apastamba).Template:Sfn

Olivelle states that Haradatta while writing his commentary on Gautama Dharmasutra titled MitaksaraTemplate:Sfn copied freely from Maskarin's commentary.Template:Sfn In contrast, Banerji states that Haradatta's commentary is older than Maskarin. Asahaya may have also written a commentary on the Gautama text, but this manuscript is either lost or yet to be discovered.

Influence

Daniel Ingalls, a professor of Sanskrit at the Harvard University, states that the regulations in the Gautama Dharmasutra were not laws for the entire society, but were regulations and code of conduct that were developed and applied "strictly to one small group of Brahmins".Template:Sfn The Gautama text was part of curriculum of one of the Samaveda schools, and most of the rules if enforceable, states Ingall, applied to just this group.Template:Sfn

It is quite likely, states Patrick Olivelle, that the ideas and concepts in the Gautama Dharmasutra strongly influenced the authors of Manusmriti.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Medieval texts, such as Apararka, state that thirty six Dharmasastra authors were influenced by Gautama Dharmasutras.Template:Sfn

See also

• Arthashastra
• Manusmriti
• Upanishads
• Vedas

References

Bibliography

• Daniel H.H. Ingalls (2013). Roy W. Perrett, ed. Theory of Value: Bharat's Philosophy. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-70357-8.
• Timothy Lubin; Donald R. Davis Jr; Jayanth K. Krishnan (2010). Hinduism and Law: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-49358-1.
• Patrick Olivelle (1999). Dharmasutras: The Law Codes of Ancient India. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-283882-7.
• Patrick Olivelle (2005). Manu's Code of Law. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517146-4.
• Patrick Olivelle (2006). Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-977507-1.
• Robert Lingat (1973). The Classical Law of India. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-01898-3.