Finally, one of the most interesting subjects with which the Gṛihya Sūtras deal is that of funeral rites (antyeshṭi) and the worship of the Manes. All but children under two years of age are to be cremated. The dead man’s hair and beard are cut off and his nails trimmed, the body being anointed with nard and a wreath being placed on the head. Before being burnt the corpse is laid on a black antelope skin. In the case of a Kshatriya, his bow (in that of a Brahman his staff, of a Vaiçya his goad) is taken from his hand, broken, and cast on the pyre, while a cow or a goat is burnt with the corpse. Afterwards a purifying ablution is performed by all relations to the seventh or tenth degree. They then sit down on a grassy spot and listen to old stories or a sermon on the transitoriness of life till the stars appear. At last, without looking round, they return in procession to their homes, where various observances are gone through. A death is followed by a period of impurity, generally lasting three days, during which the relatives are required, among other things, to sleep on the ground and refrain from eating flesh. On the night after the death a cake is offered to the deceased, and a libation of water is poured out; a vessel with milk and water is also placed in the open air, and the dead man is called upon to bathe in it. Generally after the tenth day the bones are collected and placed in an urn, which is buried to the accompaniment of the Rigvedic verse, “Approach thy mother earth” (x. 18, 10).
The soul is supposed to remain separated from the Manes for a time as a preta or “ghost.” A çrāddha, or “offering given with faith” (çraddhā), of which it is the special object (ekoddishṭa), is presented to it in this state, the idea being that it would otherwise return and disquiet the relatives. Before the expiry of a year he is admitted to the circle of the Manes by a rite which makes him their sapiṇḍa (“united by the funeral cake”). After the lapse of a year or more another elaborate ceremony (called pitṛi-medha) takes place in connection with the erection of a monument, when the bones are taken out of the urn and buried in a suitable place. There are further various general offerings to the Manes, or çrāddhas, which take place at fixed periods, such as that on the day of new moon (pārvaṇa çrāddha), while others are only occasional and optional. These rites still play an important part in India, well-to-do families in Bengal spending not less than 5000 to 6000 rupees on their first çrāddha.
From all these offerings of the Gṛihya ritual are to be distinguished the two regular sacrifices of the Çrauta ritual, the one called Piṇḍa-pitṛi-yajna immediately preceding the new-moon sacrifice, the other being connected with the third of the four-monthly sacrifices.
The ceremonial of ancestor-worship was especially elaborated, and developed a special literature of its own, extending from the Vedic period to the legal Compendia of the Middle Ages. The Çrāddha-kalpa of Hemādri comprises upwards of 1700 pages in the edition of the Bibliotheca Indica.
The above is the briefest possible sketch of the abundant material of the Gṛihya Sūtras, illustrating the daily domestic life of ancient India. Perhaps, however, enough has been said to show that they have much human interest, and that they occupy an important place in the history of civilisation.
The second branch of the Sūtra literature, based on tradition or Smṛiti, are the Dharma Sūtras, which deal with the customs of everyday life (sāmayāchārika). They are the earliest Indian works on law, treating fully of its religious, but only partially and briefly of its secular, aspect. The term Dharma Sūtra is, strictly speaking, applied to those collections of legal aphorisms which form part of the body of Sūtras belonging to a particular branch (çākhā) of the Veda. In this sense only three have been preserved, all of them attached to the Taittirīya division of the Black Yajurveda. But there is good reason to suppose that other works of the same kind which have been preserved, or are known to have existed, were originally also attached to individual Vedic schools. That Sūtras on Dharma were composed at a very early period is shown by the fact that Yāska, who dates from near the beginning of the Sūtra age, quotes legal rules in the Sūtra style. Indeed, one or two of those extant must go back to about his time.
The Dharma Sūtra which has been best preserved, and has remained free from the influence of sectarians or modern editors, is that of the Āpastambas. It forms two (28–29) of the thirty sections of the great Āpastamba Kalpa Sūtra, or body of aphorisms concerning the performance of sacrifices and the duties of the three upper classes. It deals chiefly with the duties of the Vedic student and of the householder, with forbidden food, purifications, and penances, while, on the secular side, it touches upon the law of marriage, inheritance, and crime only. From the disapprobation which the author expresses for a certain practice of the people of the North, it may be inferred that he belonged to the South, where his school is known to have been settled in later times. Owing to the pre-Pāṇinean character of its language and other criteria, Bühler has assigned this Dharma Sūtra to about 400 B.C.
Very closely connected with this work is the Dharma Sūtra of Hiraṇyakeçin; for the differences between the two do not go much beyond varieties of reading. In keeping with this relationship is the tradition that Hiraṇyakeçin branched off from the Āpastambas and founded a new school in the Konkan country on the south-west (about Goa). The lower limit for this separation from the Āpastambas is about 500 A.D., when a Hiraṇyakeçin Brahman is mentioned in an inscription. The main importance of this Sūtra lies in its confirming, by the parallelism of its text, the genuineness of by far the greatest part of Āpastamba’s work. It forms two (26–27) of the twenty-nine chapters of the Kalpa Sūtra belonging to the school of Hiraṇyakeçin.
The third Dharma Sūtra, generally styled a dharmaçāstra in the MSS., is that of Baudhāyana. Its position, however, within the Kalpa Sūtra of its school is not so fixed as in the two previous cases. Its subject-matter, when compared with that of Āpastamba’s Dharma Sūtra, indicates that it is the older of the two, just as the more archaic and awkward style of Baudhāyana’s Gṛihya Sūtra shows the latter to be earlier than the corresponding work of Āpastamba. The Baudhāyana school cannot be traced at the present day, but it appears to have belonged to Southern India, where the famous Vedic commentator Sāyaṇa was a member of it in the fourteenth century. The subjects dealt with in their Dharma Sūtra are multifarious, including the duties of the four religious orders, the mixed castes, various kinds of sacrifice, purification, penance, auspicious ceremonies, duties of kings, criminal justice, examination of witnesses, law of inheritance and marriage, the position of women. The fourth section, which is almost entirely composed in çlokas, is probably a modern addition, and even the third is of somewhat doubtful age.
With the above works must be classed the well-preserved law-book of Gautama. Though it does not form part of a Kalpa Sūtra, it must at one time have been connected with a Vedic school; for the Gautamas are mentioned as a subdivision of the Rāṇāyanīya branch of the Sāmaveda, and Kumārila’s statement that Gautama’s treatise originally belonged to that Veda is confirmed by the fact that its twenty-sixth section is taken word for word from the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa. Though entitled a Dharma Çāstra, it is in style and character a regular Dharma Sūtra. It is composed entirely in prose aphorisms, without any admixture of verse, as in the other works of this class. Its varied contents resemble and are treated much in the same way as those of the Dharma Sūtra of Baudhāyana. The latter has indeed been shown to contain passages based on or borrowed from Gautama’s work, which is therefore the oldest Dharma Sūtra that has been preserved, or at least published, and can hardly date from later than about 500 B.C.