Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/440

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APPENDIX ON TECHNICAL LITERATURE

Law.

On Sanskrit legal literature in general, consult the very valuable work of Jolly, Recht und Sitte, in Bühler's Encyclopædia, 1896 (complete bibliography). There are several secondary Dharma Sūtras of the post-Vedic period. The most important of these is the Vaishṇava Dharma Çāstra or Vishṇu Smṛiti (closely connected with the Kāṭhaka Gṛihya Sūtra), not earlier than 200 A.D. in its final redaction (ed. by Jolly, Calcutta, 1881, trans. by him in the Sacred Books of the East, Oxford, 1880). The regular post-Vedic lawbooks are metrical (mostly in çlokas). They are much wider in scope than the Dharma Sūtras, which are limited to matters connected with religion. The most important and earliest of the metrical Smṛitis is the Mānava Dharma Çāstra, or Code of Manu, not improbably based on a Mānava Dharma Sūtra. It is closely connected with the Mahābhārata, of which three books alone (iii., xii., xvi.) contain as many as 260 of its 2684 çlokas. It probably assumed its present shape not much later than 200 A.D. It was ed. by Jolly, London, 1887; trans. by Bühler, with valuable introd., in the Sacred Books, Oxford, 1886; also trans. by Burnell (ed. by Hopkins), London, 1884; text ed., with seven comm., by Mandlik, Bombay, 1886; text, with Kullūka's comm., Bombay, 1888, better than Nirn. Sāg. Pr., ed. 1887. Next comes the Yājnavalkya Dharma Çāstra, which is much more concise (1009 çlokas). It was probably based on a Dharma Sūtra of the White