53. Vyāsa

Volume I: Part I pp. 529–533

53. Vyāsa

53. Vyāsa

In Jīvananda ( part II, pp. 321-342 ) and in the Ānandāśrama collection of smṛtis there is a smṛti ascribed to Vyāsa ( pp. 357-371 ). The two texts are the same with a few variationṣ It is in four chapters and contains about 250 verseṣ Vyāsa is said to have declared the Smṛti in Benāreṣ The contents briefly are:—the dharmas herein laid down prevail only in that region where the black deer roam about; the authoritativeness of śruti, smṛti and purāṇas; mixed castes; sixteen saṁskāras; duties of brahmacārī; marriage a Brāhmaṇa may marry Kṣatriya or Vaiśya girl but not Śūdra; duties of a wife; the nitya, naimittika and kāmya acts of householders, eulogy of the householder stage and of giftṣ

Viśvarūpa quotes a few verses of Vyāsa. They are mostly taken from the Mahābhārata and are concerned with topics of marriage, daily duties ( such as washing the teeth and bathing ), śrāddha and prāyaścitta. Similarly Medhātithi quotes several verses from the Mahābhārata as Vyāsa'ṣ Kalpataru quotes Vyāsa about 80 times on Vyavahāra, 16 times in Gṛhastha, 3 times on Rājadharma. Viśvarūpa on Yāj. II. 121 ( part 2, p. 121 ) quotes three verses of Vyāsa on theft, the 2nd and 3rd of which say 'on acquiring by theft one suvarṇa, one cow or even one fingerbreadth of land from the best of brāhmaṇas (the thief) certainly receives bodily punishment' ( or death sentence ); and 'by gift or theft the reward ( or result ) is middling or lowest or highest, depending on the extent of the thing donated and the worth of the donee'. Maskarin on Gaut. 23. 2 quotes Vyāsa's verse¹ ( i. e. Mahābhārata, Udyogaparva, 59. 5, that both Keśava ( Kṛṣṇa ) and Arjuna were seen drunk ( having drunk sweet liquor ), who had applied sandalwood paste to their bodies and who lay down on the same beḍ Kalpataru ( Gṛhasthakāṇḍa p. 302 )² speaks of only five Yamas and five Niyamas ( as quoted below ), while the Yogasūtra also names five Yamas and five Niyamas, but Yāj. III. 312–313 and Vaik. Smṛtasūtra IX. 4 enumerate ten yamas and ten niyamas; vide H. of Dh. Vol. V. p. 946 ṇ 1525 and pp. 1419-21 for these. Vyāsa says³ 'nobody is a friend or foe of anybody; friends and enemies arise on account of power'. Vyāsa refers to the opinion of some that one should not marry a girl of the same gotra as that of one's mother ( in her maiden state ). Vyāsa and Bṛhaspati provide that aged parents, a virtuous wife and a son who is a child must be given maintenance even by taking to condemned means of livelihooḍ A brāhmaṇa should not hanker after gifts; he may collect them only for his livelihood; a brāhmaṇa taking more than what is required for his maintenance incurs degradatioṇ In Aparārka, the Smṛticandrikā and other works about two hundred verses of Vyāsa are cited on vyavahāra. From these it appears that Vyāsa dealt with rules of procedure and the several titles of law ( vyavahāra-padas ) and that his doctrines closely agreed in most respects with those of Nārada, Kātyāyana and Bṛhaspati. He gives rules on the four kinds of uttara ( mithyā, sampratipatti, kāraṇa and prāṇ-nyāya ), divides documents into three varieties ( svahasta, jānapada, rājaśāsana ), divides laukika documents into eight sub-varieties ( just as Kātyāyana seems to have done ); Yāj. ( I. 316-318 ) provides that when a king makes a grant of land or of a permanent right to receive a certain sum of money or a certain part of goods, he should inscribe on a piece of cloth or on a copper plate the details of the grant with his seal. Bṛhaspati ( four verses quoted by Aparārka on pp. 579-580 ) deals more elaborately with the same matter and Aparārka quotes about eight verses of Vyāsa, one of which prescribes that the grant should record in it the merit for the grantor and his successors who continue the grant, and heaven for 60000 years, and hell for the same length. of time for him who resumes it.⁴ Vyāsa lays down that if a stranger enjoys a person's land for twenty years when the king is there (i. e. when there is no revolution or anarchy) and when the owner is able (to resist) the latter loses his property.⁵ He speaks of adverse possession as having five characteristicṣ⁶ He mentions seven kinds of sureties, while Hārīta and Kātyāyana speak of only five and Bṛhaspati of four. He speaks of only five kinds of ordealṣ He defines a niṣka as equal to 14 suvarṇas, a suvarṇa being equal to eight palaṣ⁷ Vyāsa seems to represent a middle stage in the evolution of the rights of the widow to succeed to her deceased husbanḍ He says that a woman was to get a maximum of two thousand (kārṣāpaṇas) from the estate of her deceased husband⁸ (besides what he gave her when living). Vyāsa gave to the father and sons equal share in ancestral property and allowed partition even against the wish of the father.⁹ From these important characteristics of Vyāsa it may safely be concluded that Vyāsa flourished about the same time as Yājñavalkya and Bṛhaspati, i. e. between the second and the fifth century (A. D.). In Aparārka and other works there are numerous verses attributed to Vyāsa which are certainly not taken from the Mahābhārata or from the Vyāsa-smṛti in the Ānandāśrama collection (pp. 357–371). For example, on Yāj. I. 12 he cites a verse of Vyāsa in the Vasantatilakā metre about the auspicious asterism for caula and another verse laying down Saturday, Sunday and Friday as not suitable for caula. Similarly, Vyāsa's verses dealing with the merit of bathing on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in conjunction with certain tithis are cited by Aparārka (p. 213). Vyāsa speaks of śrāddhas when the Sun is in the sign of Virgo (Aparārka p. 424). These indications are sufficient to assign Vyāsa to a comparatively later date. But, as Aparārka evidently makes no distinction between Vyāsa the jurist, Vyāsa, the reputed compiler of the Mahābhārata (e. g. he quotes on p. 961 six verses of the Bhagavadgītā as Vyāsa’s) and Vyāsa who wrote on the saṁs-kāras, śrāddha and other topics, it appears that the jurist and the writer on other topics of dharma were separated from him by several centurieṣ Whether the jurist and the writer on other topics of dharma are identical is a difficult probleṃ The Mit. also appears to identify Vyāsa of the Mahābhārata with the jurist. For example, on Yāj. III. 253 it refers to ‘Ubhau Madhvāsa’s (Udyogaparva 58. 5) applied to Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna and explains that all intoxicants were not forbidden to Kṣatriyas but only wine prepared from flour. The Mit. on Yāj. II. 283 (on ‘Strisaṅgrahana’) quotes three verses and a half on the three kinds of that juridical topic. No one has so far identified these verses in the Mahābhārata. The Kalpataru (on Vy. pp. 577–579 ) quotes with slight variations the same verses and also sets forth similar verses of Bṛhaspati. Aparārka (pp. 854–55) and Smṛticandrikā (Vy. p. 8) also quote the same verses as Vyāsa’s (with slight variationṣ). All that can be said is that the two may probably be identical. The Smṛticandrikā quotes a Gadya-vyāsa¹⁰ and quotes about 450 verses of Vyāsa on āhnika, vyavahāra and prāyaścitta.