A History of Sanskrit Literature

by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

Chapter IX

The Sūtras

(Circa 500–200 B.C.)

As the Upanishads were a development of the speculative side of the Brāhmaṇas and constituted the textbooks of Vedic dogma, so the Çrauta Sūtras form the continuation of their ritual side, though they are not, like the Upanishads, regarded as a part of revelation. A sacred character was never attributed to them, probably because they were felt to be treatises compiled, with the help of oral priestly tradition, from the contents of the Brāhmaṇas solely to meet practical needs. The oldest of them seem to go back to about the time when Buddhism came into being. Indeed it is quite possible that the rise of the rival religion gave the first impetus to the composition of systematic manuals of Brahmanic worship. The Buddhists in their turn must have come to regard Sūtras as the type of treatise best adapted for the expression of religious doctrine, for the earliest Pāli texts are works of this character. The term Kalpa Sūtra is used to designate the whole body of Sūtras concerned with religion which belonged to a particular Vedic school. Where such a complete collection has been preserved, the Çrauta Sūtra forms its first and most extensive portion.

To the Rigveda belong the Çrauta manuals of two Sūtra schools (charaṇas), the Çānkhāyanas and the Āçvalāyanas, the former of whom were in later times settled in Northern Gujarat, the latter in the South between the Godāvarī and the Kṛishṇā. The ritual is described in much the same order by both, but the account of the great royal sacrifices is much more detailed in the Çānkhāyana Çrauta Sūtra. The latter, which is closely connected with the Çānkhāyana Brāhmaṇa, seems to be the older of the two, on the ground both of its matter and of its style, which in many parts resembles that of the Brāhmaṇas. It consists of eighteen books, the last two of which were added later, and correspond to the first two books of the Kaushītaki Āraṇyaka. The Çrauta Sūtra of Āçvalāyana, which consists of twelve books, is related to the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa. Āçvalāyana is also known as the author of the fourth book of the Aitareya Āraṇyaka, and was according to tradition the pupil of Çaunaka.

Three Çrauta Sūtras to the Sāmaveda have been preserved. The oldest, that of Maçaka, also called Ārsheya-kalpa, is nothing more than an enumeration of the prayers belonging to the various ceremonies of the Soma sacrifice in the order of the Panchaviṃça Brāhmaṇa. The Çrauta Sūtra composed by Lāṭyāyana, became the accepted manual of the Kauthuma school. This Sūtra, like that of Maçaka, which it quotes, is closely connected with the Panchaviṃça Brāhmaṇa. The Çrauta Sūtra of Drāhyāyaṇa, which differs but little from that of Lāṭyāyana, belongs to the Rāṇāyanīya branch of the Sāmaveda.

To the White Yajurveda belongs the Çrauta Sūtra of Kātyāyana. This manual, which consists of twenty-six chapters, on the whole strictly follows the sacrificial order of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa. Three of its chapters (xxii.–xxiv.), however, relate to the ceremonial of the Sāmaveda. Owing to the enigmatical character of its style, it appears to be one of the later productions of the Sūtra period.

No less than six Çrauta Sūtras belonging to the Black Yajurveda have been preserved, but only two of them have as yet been published. Four of these form a very closely connected group, being part of the Kalpa Sūtras of four subdivisions of the Taittirīya Çākhā, which represented the later sūtra schools (charaṇas) not claiming a special revelation of Veda or Brāhmaṇa. The Çrauta Sūtra of Āpastamba forms the first twenty-four of the thirty chapters (praçnas) into which his Kalpa Sūtra is divided; and that of Hiraṇyakeçin, an offshoot of the Āpastambas, the first eighteen of the twenty-nine chapters of his Kalpa Sūtra. The Sūtra of Baudhāyana, who is older than Āpastamba, as well as that of Bhāradvāja, has not yet been published.

Connected with the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā is the Mānava Çrauta Sūtra. It belongs to the Mānavas, who were a subdivision of the Maitrāyaṇīyas, and to whom the law-book of Manu probably traces its origin. It seems to be one of the oldest. It has a descriptive character, resembling the Brāhmaṇa parts of the Yajurveda, and differing from them only in simply describing the course of the sacrifice, to the exclusion of legends, speculations, or discussions of any kind. There is also a Vaikhānasa Çrauta Sūtra attached to the Black Yajurveda, but it is known only in a few MSS.