Divergent Interpretations in the Dharmaśāstra: The Case of Gautamadharmasūtra 13.12-13
Abstract
There are instances in the Dharmaśāstra where medieval commentators, as well as contemporary scholars, propose different interpretations of certain passages in the root-texts (Dharmasūtras and Dharmaśāstras or Smṛtis). A notable example is Gautamadharmasūtra 13.12–13, where the term śapatha has been interpreted in various ways. The two main commentators on the text, Maskarin and Haradatta, offer differing explanations, as do modern scholars. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the interpretations proposed for these two sūtras and to suggest textual parallels that may help to identify the most accurate reading.
Downloads
References
Editions and translations
Aiyangar, K. V. Rangaswami (ed.) (1941), Bṛhaspatismṛti (Reconstructed), Gaekwad’s Oriental Series 85, Baroda, Oriental Institute.
Aiyangar, K. V. Rangaswami; Aiyangar, N. Krishna (eds.) (1942), Vyavahāranirṇaya of Varadarāja, Adyar, Adyar Library.
Aufrecht, Theodor (ed.) (1877), Die Hymnen des Ṛigveda, 2 vols., Bonn, Adolph Marcus.
Āpṭe, Vināyaka Gaṇeśa (ed.) (1931), Gautama Dharmasūtra, with the commentary Mitākṣarā by Haradatta, Ānandāśrama Sanskrit Series 61, Poona, Ānandāśrama.
Böhtlingk, Otto (ed.) (1844), Die Uṇādi-Affixe, St. Petersburg, Gedruckt bei der Kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Bühler, Georg (ed.) (1879-1882), The Sacred Laws of the Âryas as taught in the schools of Âpastamba, Gautama, Vâsishtha, and Baudhâyana, 2 vols., Sacred Books of the East 2, 14, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Caland, Willem (ed.) (1931), Pañcaviṃśa-brāhmaṇa. The Brāhmaṇa of Twenty-Five Chapters, Calcutta, Baptist Mission Press.
DCS = Digital Corpus of Sanskrit, <http://www.sanskrit-linguistics.org/dcs/> (accessed 11/02/2025).
Jamison, Stephanie W.; Brereton, Joel P. (eds.) (2014). The Rigveda. The Earliest Religious Poetry of India, 3 vols., New York, Oxford University Press.
Kane, Pandurang Vaman (ed.) (1933). Kātyāyanasmṛti on Vyavahāra (Law and Procedure), Poona, Oriental Book Agency.
Kṣemarāja Śrīkṛṣṇadāsa (ed.) (1910), Śrīskandapurāṇam, Bombay, Venkateswara Press.
Kṣemarāja Śrīkṛṣṇadāsa (ed.) (1912), Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇam, Bombay, Venkateswara Press.
Lariviere, Richard W. (ed.) (1981), The Divyatattva of Raghunandana Bhaṭṭācārya: Ordeals in Classical Hindu Law, Delhi, Manohar.
Lariviere, Richard W. (ed.) (2003) [1989], The Nāradasmṛti, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass.
Olivelle, Patrick (ed.) (2000), Dharmasūtras: The Law Codes of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana, and Vasiṣṭha, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass.
Olivelle, Patrick (ed.) (2005a), Manu’s Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra, New York, Oxford University Press.
Olivelle, Patrick (ed.) (2019), Yājñavalkya: A Treatise on Dharma, Murty Classical Library of India, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press.
Olivelle, Patrick (ed.) (2020), Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra. The Textual History of a Hindu Legal Code, Delhi, Primus Books.
Pāṇḍeya, Umeśacandra (ed.) (1966), Gautamadharmasūtrāṇi: Mitākṣarāvṛttisahitāni/ Haradattakṛtta, Kashi Sanskrit Series 172, Varanasi, Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office.
Panśikār, Wāsudev Laxman Śāstrī (ed.) (1936), Yādnavalkyasmṛiti of Yogīshvara Yādnavalkya. With the Commentary Mitākṣarā of Vidnyāneshvara, Bombay, Nirnaya Sagar Press.
Ranade, H. G. (ed.) (2019), Jaiminīyabrāhmaṇam, 3 vols., Delhi, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.
Śāstrī, A. Cinnasvāmī; Śāstrī, Paṭṭābhirāma (ed.) (1935-1936), Tāṇḍyamahābrāhmaṇa. With the Commentary of Sāyaṇācārya, 2 vols., Kashi Sanskrit Series, 105, Benares, Jaya Krishna Das Haridas Gupta, Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office.
Scriba, Karl (ed.) (1902), Die Fragmente des Pitāmaha. Text und Übersetzung, Leipzig, Druck von W. Drugulin.
Sharma, Ram Nath (ed.) (1987-2003), The Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, 6 vols., Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal.
Srinivasacharya, L. (ed.) (1917), Gautama-Dharmasutra with Maskari Bhasya, Government Oriental Library Series, Bibliotheca Sanskrita 50, Mysore, Government Branch Press.
Sukthankar, Vishnu S.; Belvalkar, Shripad K.; Vaidya, Paraśurāma L. (eds.) (1933-1971), The Mahābhārata. For the first time critically edited, 19 vols., Poona, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
Studies
Acquarone, Lorenza (20152) [2006], Tra Dharma, Common Law e WTO. Un’introduzione al sistema giuridico dell’India. Nuova edizione aggiornata e ampliata, Milano, Unicopli.
Agamben, Giorgio (2008), Il sacramento del linguaggio. Archeologia del giuramento, Homo sacer II, 3, Roma-Bari, Laterza.
Derrett, J. Duncan M. (1978), ‘Ancient Indian ‘Nonsense’ Vindicated’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 98 (1), 100-106.
Francavilla, Domenico (2011), Il diritto nell’India contemporenea. Sistemi tradizionali, modelli occidentali e globalizzazione, Torino, Giappichelli.
Giudice, Alessandro (2024), ‘The ‘Orthodoxisation’ of the Ancient Indian Marriage by Bride Price (śulka). Insights into the Ārṣa and Āsura Forms of Marriage in and out of the Dharmaśāstra Tradition’, Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques 78 (4), 719-759.
Hara, Minoru (1987), ‘A Note on The Ancient Indian Oath (1). Mahābhārata 13. 95-96 And Rāmāyaṇa 2.69’, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 68 (1), 225-231.
Hara, Minoru (1988), ‘A Note on The Ancient Indian Oath (2). Use of the Periphrastic Future’, Indologica Taurinensia 14, 201-214.
Hara, Minoru (1991), ‘A Note on The Ancient Indian Oath (III).’ Ji Xianlin jiao shou ba shi hua dan ji nian lun wen ji = Papers in honour of prof. dr. Ji Xianlin on the occasion of his 80th birthday, vol. 1, Nanchang, Jiangxi ren min chu ban she, 52-65.
Hara, Minoru (1991-1992), ‘A Note on the Ancient Indian Oath (IV) – śāpito ’si mama prāṇaiḥ –’, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 72/73 (1), 251-261.
Hazra, Rajendra Chandra (1968), ‘The Judicial Pramāṇas (means of proof) known to or mentioned in the Extant Dharma-sūtras of Gautama and others’, Our Heritage 16 (1), 1-56.
Hopkins, E. Washburn (1932), ‘The Oath in Hindu Epic Literature’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 52 (4), 316-337.
Kane, Pandurang Vaman (1962-1975), History of Dharmaśāstra, 5 vols., Poona, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
Klein-Terrada, Rosa (1980), Der Diebstahl der Lotusfasern, Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz.
Lariviere, Richard W. (1976). ‘A Note on the kośadivya’, Adyar Library Bulletin 40, 152-165.
Lingat, Robert (1973) [1967]. The Classical Law of India, tr. J. D. M. Derrett, Berkeley, University of California Press.
Lüders, Heinrich (1959), Varuṇa II. Varuṇa and das Ṛta. Edited by Ludwig Alsdorf, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
McClish, Mark (2018), ‘Titles of Law: vyavahārapada’, in Olivelle, Patrick; Davis, Donald R. Jr. (eds.) (2018), Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra, The Oxford History of Hinduism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 299-312.
McClish, Mark (2019), The History of the Arthaśāstra. Sovereignty and Sacred Law in Ancient India. Ideas in Context, 120, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Olivelle, Patrick (2005b), ‘Manu and Gautama: A Study in Śāstric Intertextuality’, in Olivelle, Patrick (ed.), Language, Texts, and Society, Cambridge, Anthem Press, 261-274.
Olivelle, Patrick (2018a), ‘Social and Literary History of Dharmaśāstra: The Foundational Texts’, in Olivelle, Patrick; Davis, Donald R. Jr. (eds.) (2018), Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra, The Oxford History of Hinduism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 15-29.
Olivelle, Patrick (2018b), ‘Legal Procedure: vyavahāra’, in Olivelle, Patrick; Davis, Donald R. Jr. (eds.) (2018), Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra, The Oxford History of Hinduism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 283-298.
Olivelle, Patrick; McClish, Mark (2015), ‘The Four Feet of Legal Procedure and the Origin of Jurisprudence in Ancient India’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 135, 33-47.
Patkar, Madhukar Mangesh (1978), Nārada, Bṛhaspati, and Kātyāyana: A Comparative Study in Judicial Procedure, Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal.
Pendse, S. N. (1985), Oaths and Ordeals in Dharmaśāstra, Vadodara, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.
Rocher, Ludo (2012), Studies in Hindu Law and Dharmaśāstra, ed. Donald R. Davis Jr. London, Anthem Press.
Singh, Mahendra Pal; Kumar, Niraj (eds.) (2019), The Indian Legal System: An Enquiry, Delhi, Oxford University Press.
Thakur, Amareswar (1933), Hindu Law of Evidence or a Complete Study of the Law of Evidence According to the Smṛtis, Calcutta, University of Calcutta.
Wiese, Harald (2016), ‘Ordeals: an economic vindication of ancient Indian “nonsense”’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 79 (3), 513-534.
Yagi, Toru (2001), ‘Once again on the Forms of Oath in Classical India (III): in Connection with Saccakiriyā-’, The Bulletin of the Cultural and Natural Sciences in Osaka Gakuin University 43-44, 47-90.
Yagi, Toru (2001-2002), ‘Once again on the Forms of Oath in Classical India (II): in Connection with the Relationship between the Inst., Dat. and Acc.’, ZINBUN 36 (2), 61-86.
Yagi, Toru (2002), ‘Once again on the Forms of Oath in Classical India (I): In Connection with Kātyāyana’s vt. 8 “śapa upalambhane” on Pāṇini 1.3.2’, in Deshpande, Madhav M.; Hook, Peter E. (eds.), Indian Linguistic Studies. Festschrift in Honor of George Cardona, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 264-289.
Yelle, Robert A. (2001), ‘Rhetorics of Law and Ritual: A Semiotic Comparison of the Law of Talion and Sympathetic Magic’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69 (3), 627-647.
Yelle, Robert A. (2002). ‘Poetic Justice: Rhetoric in Hindu Ordeals and Legal Formulas’, Religion 32 (3), 259-272.
Yelle, Robert A. (2010), ‘Hindu law as performance: ritual and poetic elements in Dharmaśāstra’, in Lubin, Timothy; Davis, Donald R. Jr.; Krishnan, Jayanth K. (eds.), Hinduism and Law: An Introduction. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 183-192.
Yelle, Robert A. (2013), Semiotics of Religion. Signs of the Sacred in History, London-New York, Bloomsbury.