Of course, there would be a vast literary and oral tradition that is not Smṛti; this is because the elements of this tradition would not be regarded as having the requisite authority or objectives. For something to be appealed to effectively as corroborative of scripture, it must be accepted as duly authoritative by those concerned. Thus Smṛti is a catch-all and somewhat ill-defined category, and whether it acts in the name of the Veda or some other primary scripture, it makes the wisdom of the past accessible so that one can get on with the business of living rightly.
But in the strict sense, that is, in its Vedic context, smṛti is not entirely an amorphous genre. In the course of many centuries, a number of divisions of Smṛti have been handed down. Here it may be useful to distinguish between the ‘high’ and ‘low’ traditions of Smṛti. The former category would be Sanskritic and Brahminic, that is, the Brahmins, as the framers and preservers of the norm, have produced and/or ratified it. This does not necessarily make the item in question easy to identify since, as we have noted already, the Brahmins are not a homogeneous group. Nevertheless, there are texts and practices in the high tradition that enjoy a relatively undisputed authority-status as Smṛti. Groups may also claim that some items of Smṛti have been promulgated or authored by the deity itself. Hindus sometimes argue that a particular knowledge or custom has been inspired by the deity and promulgated through divine incarnations or divinely appointed human or other agents – in order to illuminate the insights of primary scripture in some way. The Mānava Dharma Śāstra and the Bhagavad Gītā (a devotional text dated to about the beginning of the Common Era) may be cited as examples of such lore.
The ‘low’ traditions of smṛti would refer to works and practices enjoying only localized authority, or authority dispersed not ‘vertically'through different social strata of Hinduism but shared ‘horizontally’ in a layer or layers of Hindu society. To complicate matters further, though such instances of Smṛti (the term may not be used in these contexts) may not originate with the Brahmins, they may well have their approval or even participation. There are many examples in the Ancient Banyan of Smṛti's little traditions. Let us now examine some of the main divisions of Smṛti in the high tradition (in Smṛti's strict sense), and in the process give examples of Smṛti in more localized contexts.
Smṛti in the Vedic Sanskritic tradition may, for convenience, be divided into six broad categories. Note that, in some cases, the subject matter of these categories may overlap;they do not represent watertight compartments of thought or action. These categories are (i) the Vedāṇga; (ii) the Gṛhya Sūtras;(iii) the Dharma Sūtras and Śāstras;(iv) Itihāsa; (v) the Purāṇas; and (vi) a catch-all category which we shall call the ‘Prasthāna-vākyas. The first three will be reviewed in this and the next chapter, and the last three in the two following chapters. Whilst describing these categories, we shall take the opportunity to make observations on important features of Hindu tradition, such as the ‘sūtra’ or aphorism as a device to condense conceptual content, and the practice of creating multiple versions of a text as a strategy to appropriate, enliven and sometimes subvert received wisdom (this, specially in connection with the Sanskrit epics), and so on.
(i) The Vedāga
This category is largely concerned with the preservation and propagation especially of the earlier sacrificial section of the Veda. The Veda has been likened to a torso with a head; six disciplines have been compared to its ‘limbs’ (aga). The Vedāṇga are the limbs of the Veda in that they support the Veda, protect it and help to implement it ritually or otherwise. These six disciplines are as follows:
(i) Sikṣā and (ii) Chandas, categories of text that deal with the proper articulation of Vedic utterance and phonetics in general on the one hand, and the intricacies of Vedic metre on the other. A well-known work in the latter category is the ChandaṣŚāstra of Pingalanāga (ca. sixth–fifth century B.C.E.), though this work also deals with vernacular metres. We have seen how important it was to recite, indeed to perform, the Vedic hymns which are metrical, correctly, for this enabled them to be efficacious in producing their ‘fruits’ of right order and human success in the world.
A great deal of care was ... given to ensuring the proper pronunciation of the Vedic texts. As the priestly communities migrated to different regions of South Asia, their mother tongues underwent great changes. With the increasing gap between the language of the original Vedic texts and the mother tongues of the reciters, there was a growing fear of mispronunciation of the scriptural texts. The Vedic accents were no longer observed in either the colloquial forms of Sanskrit or in the vernaculars. It is clear from the modern recitation of the Vedic texts that the mother tongues of the reciters affect the recitation of these texts, and the same Vedic texts sound different if recited by a Bengali or a Tamil Brāhmaṇ priest. The fear of mispronunciation led to the development of a full-scope tradition of phonetic analysis that is preserved in over a hundred different treatises called Śikṣās and Prātiśākhyas. These treatises analyze the articulatory features of each Sanskrit sound and point out specific mispronunciations to be avoided.
(Deshpande in Mittal & Thursby 2004:513)
But at the same time, Hindu culture was becoming proficient in the understanding of the scope of human speech and its meaningful articulation. This leads to the next two Vedāgas.
(iii) Vyākaraṇa or grammar, the representative text here being the outstanding grammarian, Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī (‘Work in Eight Chapters’). Pāṇini, who is believed to have been an inhabitant of the extreme north-west of the subcontinent, is thought to have lived in about 400–300 B.C.E. His work is of momentous import for the history of the Sanskrit language. So great was his authority that none of the complete works of the grammarian predecessors to whom he refers are extant; they seem not to have been deemed worthy of preservation. Thus here we have one criterion of what counts for inclusion in (and exclusion from) smṛti, viz. magisterial authority in summing up and consolidating the gains of the past (or the lack of it). The Aṣṭādhyāyī, comprising about 4000 sūtras or rules of grammar, presents itself as a general treatise on grammar rather than as being specifically tied to the Veda. But because it has been seen as serving to elucidate the understanding of the Veda, and because it is the cream of a long tradition of grammatical works also thought to serve this purpose, it may be included in this division as the ‘representative’ text.
(iv) Nirukta, sometimes translated as ‘etymology’, is rendered as ‘the analysis of semantic content’ by the nirukta-scholar Eivind Kahrs (1984:139). This category focuses on the task of explaining the meaning of contentious Vedic words. Its most eminent exponent known to us is Yāska, who may have lived before Pāṇini and who produced an analysis of the meaning of mainly abstruse Vedic words as found in the earliest lexicographical text we have, the Nighaṇṭu. Yāska's work, which is also called the Nirukta, ‘is the single text we possess which applies a certain method designed to give a semantic analysis of nouns, in the widest sense of that term. Moreover, the Nirukta contains lengthy discussions of linguistic and philosophical import. For Yāska a term, singular or general, is simply equipped with a meaning, and for a language user it is not necessary to keep this meaning in mind while using the term. The meaning is embedded in it, hence is objective and can be grasped intersubjectively ...’(Kahrs 1998:27).
What I have tried to give a glimpse of, as we proceed through the categories of the Vedāgas, is the extraordinary preoccupation with words and (the Sanskrit) language, as associated with the Veda, of the ancient Hindus, and the range and depth of discussion on this subject even at this very early period. No other ancient civilization to my knowledge had this intense and long-standing concern for the understanding of speech-acts. This concern continues among Hindus to the present day, not, of course, through the performance of the ancient Vedic sacrificial ritual which is now almost defunct, but in new manifestations, e.g. by the production of an ever-increasing volume of fine literary
works in the various vernaculars as also in English, and through (linguistic) philosophical and theological expertise in universities and institutes of higher education in India and around the world. Indian competence in computer-speak, acknowledged around the world, may well be regarded as an extension of this frame of mind.
(v) Jyotiṣa comprises astronomical-cum-astrological texts originally produced to fix the most auspicious days and times for the performance of the various Vedic sacrificial and other rituals. An early extant work in this category is Lagadha's short JyotiṣaVedāga (ca. 400 B.C.E.). A later, more astronomical treatise is the well-known Āryabhaṭīya of one Aryabhaṭa (fifth–sixth century C.E.), which, in contrast to the view generally held at the time in Hindu tradition, attributes the passing of the day to the rotation of the earth on its axis.
This genre of text later gave rise to the almanacs (pañjikā) and horoscopes (koṣṭhī) in which most Hindus have shown a keen interest up to the present day. Almanacs are published regularly in different formats nationwide and are easily available in cheap printed editions in market places so that users can determine dates and times for the numerous festivals and holy days of the multifaceted Hindu calendar. Most significant public religious events follow a lunar calendar, so there is constant need for the almanacs. Horoscopes too are regarded as essential by most Hindus, for by marking the heavenly co-ordinates of one's birth it is believed that important influences on one's life such as the giving of personal names, finding a marriage partner, determining one's health prospects, embarking on important journeys, making crucial decisions about jobs and financial undertakings etc. can be decided.
(vi) Kalpa is a large division and the term is usually regarded as co-extensive with works known as śrauta sūtras. ‘śrauta’ is derived from ‘śruti’; hence the śrauta sūtras revolved around the yajña or solemn sacrificial ritual, which is the chief concern of the early portion of the Veda. According to some authorities, ‘kalpa’ (i.e. the Kalpa sūtras) refers not only to the śrauta sūtras but also to the sūtras of the next two categories of Smṛti, namely the Gṛhya (or‘Domestic’) sūtras and the Dharma sūtras. Yet others distinguish between the śrauta sūtras on the one hand, and the Smarta sūtras on the other, a generic name for the Gṛhya and Dharma Sūtras. These distinctions draw our attention to two points, (i) that originally a branch or school of Vedic study had its own ‘set’ of śrauta, Gṛhya and Dharma sūtras;in some cases ‘sets’ or parts of sets seem to have been shared. Many of these sets of the numerous early Vedic schools, or parts of these, have been lost, though a representative sample remains; and (ii) that Smṛti was essentially an interpretive category of text: it could not have so many divisions or parts of divisions unless there was a range of schools of interpretation of the vast array of corroborative material of primary scripture.
The śrauta sūtras contain details about the sacrificial ritual, viz. types, goals, times, duration, liturgy; the fees to be paid to the priests for the different sacrifices; the penances to be performed if rules pertaining to them were transgressed and so on. The sūtras continually either quote or allude to Saṃhita texts which were to be used with the different rites. In this connection there were Mantra-Saṃhitās, i.e. collections of relevant Vedic texts in unabridged form, which the priests could consult as they performed one ritual or other.2
Taken collectively, the basic extant works of the Vedāgas range in time from about 600 B.C.E. to about a century after the beginningof the Common Era. Haradatta Miśra in the Ujjvalā (ca. sixteenth century C.E.), his commentary on the Dharma Sūtras of Āpastamba, quotes a verse to the effect that Vyākaraṇ a is the mouth of the Veda, yotiṣa the eyes, nirukta the ears, śikṣā the nose, chandas the feet, and kalpa the hands. It is thus that these disciplines serve the Veda as its limbs or agas (2.4.8.11).
Most of the material mentioned so far, especially in the first five divisions of the Vedāga, has traditionally been the preserve of specialist Brahmins – for the most part the rarefied activity of Hinduism's ivory towers. Most ordinary Brahmins, let alone non-Brahmins, would have been totally uncomprehending of these towers of specialization. But this is the way in the intellectual development of all cultures. Nevertheless, such activity was not unimportant in the historical development of Hinduism. It reinforced the centrality of the solemn ritual, and of the Veda, and the crucial position of Brahminic authority for the ritual's performance and transmission. Schools of Vedic performance proliferated and established an active image of Brahmin presence in society.
But the development of the Vedāṇgas also enabled the horizons of the multi-faceted Vedic way of life to be adjusted continually to meet changing circumstances. Further, not only did thinking on the solemn ritual ramify with that on the domestic ritual through their common intermediaries, the Brahmins, but the ethos of the ritual as such began to be a normative influence for the life of the community. We can begin to understand now how the Veda was seen to be ‘the root of dharma’ or of right order and right living.
Today, with the decline of the performance of the traditional Vedic ritual, many aspects of the Vedā. gas have ceased to have extensive priestly relevance. But they still live another life of specialization. They have become the preserve of Indological scholars, not only revealing through the labours of these scholars glimpses of a psyche of the past, which helps makes sense of Hindu thinking of the present, but also continuing to surprise us by their intellectual sophistication, and shaping and informing current theories of human language in ways that would not otherwise have been possible.3
The sūtra
The term ‘sūtra’ has cropped up often, e.g. in such phrases as ‘Gṛhya sūtras and Dharma Sūtras’, and it refers to an important device for the transmission of Hindu wisdom or smṛti. A short inquiry here into the purpose and scope of the sūtra will not be out of place. sūtra has been derived from the root siv, to sew, and means ‘thread’ (the English word ‘suture’ has a cognate meaning);in our context, sūtra refers to a thread of sounds (though a single word can be a sūtra) conveying meaning in a condensed form. There is a Sanskrit verse to the effect that the sūtra must be short, unambiguous, pithy, comprehensive, without gratuitous words, and unobjectionable – a tall order!4 These very demands, I believe, are calculated to give the sūtra interpretive scope.
First, because the sūtra is pithy, it requires discursive expansion. Thus the commentary, or bhāṣya, is a corollary of the sūtra. We shall come to the commentary later (Chapter 9);here let me give an example of how the sūtra, because of its semantically condensed form, is hermeneutically charged. The Brahmā sūtras (ca. 200 C.E.) comprise a Sanskrit text of about 550 sūtras on the brahman spoken of in the Upaniṣads: it purports to give comprehensive instruction about this subject (the number of sūtras cannot be given exactly because they are identified differently in different traditions). Explicating this text is foundational for the philosophical–theological project of the Vedānta schools. Thus, throughout the ages, it has been commented upon by leading thinkers of these schools.
The first Brahma; sūtra is as follows: athāto brahmajijñāsā There are two compounds here, each consisting of two words, i.e. atha + ataṣ, and Brahmā + jijñāsā.5 The whole sūtra means literally: ‘Now (atha), therefore (ataṣ), brahman-inquiry (jijñāsā)’. Not very illuminating, you might think; in fact, on the face of it, quite puzzling. Why does the text begin with ‘Now’, as if something has gone before? And ‘therefore’ implies the conclusion of a line of reasoning – but this is how the text starts! What kind of inquiry does jijñāsā entail? Finally, exactly how are we to deconstruct the compound in which the uninflected brahma-appears, viz. ‘brahman-inquiry’? Does it mean inquiry about/into brahman, or perhaps for the sake of brahman? Clearly, the sūtra requires expansion and elucidation;it does not appear to be ‘unambiguous’ (asaṃdigdha)!
We have examples of the second kind of construction or compound in English. Someone who owns a house or houses is a‘house-owner’, but by
itself the compound ‘house-owner’ does not reveal whether the owner possesses one house or more. This is because the word ‘house’ in the compound is not inflected: it could be construed as either a singular or a plural noun. There is an inbuilt ambiguity in the compound.‘House-owner'is a kind of sūtra that requires elucidation. This is a very simple example. There are also some compounds whose ‘compound meaning’ transcends what one might expect the sum of the meanings of their individual components to be. Consider the compound ‘flower-power’;in general usage this does not signify the measurable physical power of one or more flowers, but rather the influence of a peace movement that arose in the 1960s! Sanskrit can be much more complicated to decipher because Sanskrit compounds can consist of more than two terms joined together (on occasion, half a dozen or more!).
Let us return to our sūtra. From the comments made earlier, we can see that prima facie it contains a number of semantic unclarities, which cloud the sense of both compounds. We cannot dwell too long on these, but let us consider two examples of the way the first compound, athato, has been explained, both taken from theologians belonging to different schools of Vedānta.
The Advaitin, Śaṃikara (ca. eighth century C.E.), construes the combination as follows: atha or ‘now'intimates that the inquirer into Brahman has attained four pre-requisites – certain moral virtues, a thirst for liberation, and so on – before embarking on the inquiry; the word atah, ‘therefore’, signifies a process of reasoning as follows: ‘Because the Veda shows that the fruit of the sacrificial ritual is not eternal and that one attains the highest goal only through knowledge of Brahman, therefore one should embark on an inquiry into Brahman’.6 The theist Rāmānuja (eleventh–twelfth century) disagrees, at least in part. He contends that ‘now’ (atha) denotes immediacy in the following sense, viz. immediately after the Veda and its ancillary disciplines have been studied. This links with his interpretation of ataṣ, ‘therefore’: ‘After one has studied the Veda and its ancillary disciplines and found this wanting in so far as one realizes that this study produces impermanent rewards, one becomes desirous of attaining the permanent fruit of salvation;therefore one embarks on an inquiry into Brahman’. The two theologians disagree as to what atha or ‘now’ signifies and this has bearing on how they interpret atah or ‘therefore’. One can see that the elucidation of the same sūtra by two thinkers even from the same hermeneutic tradition, viz. Vedānta, can give rise to very different lines of thought.
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