Intro

TO THE MEMORY OF ANNIE BESANT
AND OF HER DEVOTION TO SANATANA DHARMA

FOREWORD

RAO BAHADUR K V. RANGASWAMI AIYANGAR IS well known in South India as a distinguished Professor of History and Economics Endowed with a brilliant and versatile intellect, he has an insatiable love of learning and historical research. His strong religious leanings and his spirit of reverence for the past have attracted him to the study of the digests of Hindu Law and filled him with the ambition to produce scholarly editions of our ancient law-books. He has already published the smrti of Brhaspati after laborious examination of hundreds of commentaries and nibandha works, many of them unprinted. His edition of the KrtyaKalpataru of Laksmīdhara (c 1110 A D) which will run to several volumes is being published.

He has now undertaken a critical edition of Varadarāja’s Vyavaharanirnaya, which is one of the digests of Hindu law accepted as authoritative in South India. Though the printing of the text was completed over a year ago, Mr Rangaswami Aiyangar was not willing to publish it without an introduction adequate to its importance The introduction is now complete, and the greater part of it is devoted to an examination of the date of the [[003]] author and his work. The conclusion arrived at by Mr Rangaswami Aiyangar is that the Vyavaharanirnaya cannot be later than 1250 A D and that its upper limit must be the middle of the 12th century A.D. Indian chronology is in many cases a Serbonian bog, and those who are not interested in antiquarian research will not lightly enter it For my part, I am content to rest upon Mr Rangaswami Aiyangar’s conclusions.

The industry that Mr Rangaswami Aiyangar has brought to bear upon his task is amazing Those who are not specially interested in the inquiry as to the date of the work may find the synopsis of the work more interesting. The book deals with both substantive and adjective law. It throws interesting light upon the views taken on these subjects in what may be regarded as the middle ages. The value of a study of the ancient law books to the practising lawyer grows less and less. The increase of legislation and judge-made law steadily tends to render a study of the original works and digests superfluous. The time has now come for a codification of Hindu Law and the recent attempts of the Legislative Department of the Government of India are bound to be welcomed.

26th December 1942
P S SIVASWAMY AIYER
[[004]]

PREFACE

AMONG South Indian nibandha-granthas, the only important work which had not been printed was the Vyavahāranirnaya of Varadarāja, also known as the Vardarājīya. It attracted the notice of Dr. A. C. Burnell, when he was District Judge at Tanjore, and was preparing the descriptive Catalogue of the great manuscript library of the Sarasvatīmahal of the Tanjore Palace, in which were gathered not only the manuscript treasures that Mahārāja Sarfoji (A D. 1798-1833) had garnered, both in South India as well as on his tour in North India, but the collections of the cultured Nayak rulers of Tanjore, who had preceded the Maratha Rājas.

Burnell had already translated (1868) the Dayabhāga section of the Vyavahāra-Madhavīya, which he had also found in the Library. He recognized the merits of the Varadarājīya, and published in 1872 a translation of its chapter on inheritance and partition, with a valuable and characteristic introduction displaying both his erudition and prejudices. The Rev. T. Foulkes followed with an edition of the Dayabhaga chapter of Pratāparudra’s Sarasvatīvilāsa, to which an edition of the text in Nagarī had been added (1881). V-B [[005]]

The section on inheritance and partition in the more extensive Smrticandrika had already been translated and published, with comparative notes and section summaries, by a member of the Madras Judicial Service, T Krishnaswami Aiyar (1867). Thus, seventy years ago, the views on the questions of the most interest to the Courts, which had to adjudicate on Hindu Law in South India, of all the four great South Indian digests, were available in English. No attempt was, however, made to follow it up by the publication of the texts themselves, either partially or in their complete state. It was not for lack of manuscript material. It existed in abundance in both the private and public manuscript collections of South India. But legal interest was exhausted with these translations. It had also become tepid through attacks of J H. Nelson, Burnell and others on smrtis and nibandhas as containing not the law or usage that was actually prevalent in the country but the ideal of law envisaged by a narrow (and selfish and interested) section of the community.

The conservative element in South Indian society was not less indifferent. It was more interested in the elucidation of the rules which governed daily rites, special ceremonies and laws of purity and expiation.

Pandits like the late Dharmādhikāri Chakravarti Aiyangar of Mysore undertook to meet the need of the S’rīvaisņava section by publishing, in locally intelligible scripts (e g. Telugu) works on ahnika, asauca, sraddha and samskara of comparatively late nibandhas like those of the Vaidika-Sarvabhauma (Harīta Veńkațācārya [[006]] c. A.D. 1450).[^1]

For non-Vaisnavas the later and fuller nibandha of Vaidyanatha Dīkşita (c. A D. 1600) was print ed in two or three editions in South Indian scripts, and one of them was provided by a gifted scholar, who died young, with a Tamil version on the same page as the original Sanskrit.[^2]

Minor works on paurohitya, editions of the Kalpasutras followed in South India, and mediaeval tracts on controversial points monopolized the attention and enterprise of the pandits of the province. The rival nibandhas of Venkatācārya and Vaidyanatha had no sections on Vyavahara. Their authors apparently felt that there was no need for new digests on Vyavahara. The only attempt to draw upon the Vyavahara sections of distinctively South Indian digests was that of V. Parabrahma Sastri, when he published in 1851 a compendium in Sanskrit named Vyavahāradarpaņa, which was a mere condensation of Varadarāja’s treatise.

The following list of works published by pandits like the late Dharmadhikari Cakravarti Aiyangar of Mysore is collected from the books available in the Adyar Library

(a) Asaucasataka with Commentary (Telugu) Sadvidyā Mandiram Press, Mysore, 1884 There is also a grantha edition.
(b) Grhyaratnam with Kanthabhūşanam or Vibudhakanthabhūşanam. Sadvidya Mandiram Press, Mysore, 1882 Gopala Vilas Press, Kumbakonam has published a grantha edition in 1913
(c) Pitrmedhasara with Sudhīvilocanam, ed Dharmadhikari Chakravarti Aiyangar, Vidyatarangini Press, Mysore, 1898
(d) Smrtiratnākara Telugu edition bears Shelf Number 52 F 39 in the Adyar Library There is also a Nāgari edition published by the Lakshmi Venkateshwar Press, Bombay (e) Dasanirnayam, ed. by Dharmādhikāri Chakravarti Aiyangar, Vidya tarangini Press, Mysore.

[^2] By Srinivasa Sastri of Nadukkāveri, Chidambaram, 5 Volumes, with Tamil translation, 1898 [[007]] XII

The editors of the Mysore Government Sanskrit Series published legibly printed editions (in Nāgarī) of the Smṛticandrikā and the Vyavahāra part of Sarasvatīvilāsa. These editions were not provided with the critical apparatus, which every properly edited classic should have, and could be regarded only as more valuable than the manuscripts they reproduced in print, because they were more easy to read, and were in a script that enjoyed a wider circle of readers.

Mr. J. R. Gharpure of Poona has more recently printed editions of both the Smṛticandrikā and the Smṛtimukta-phala (i.e. Vaidyanātha-Dīkṣita’s extensive nibandha) in Nāgarī. They show some improvement as they have indices of works cited and of pratīkas. Mādhvācārya’s well-known commentary on Parāśarasmṛti, of which there was not even one printed edition in a South Indian script 70 years ago, was published in the Bibliotheca Indica between 1883 and 1899 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal. A really satisfactory edition of it in Nāgarī was atlast provided by a learned paṇḍita of Mahārāṣṭra, the late Vāman Śāstrī Islāmpūrkar. His edition took 26 years (1893 to 1919) to complete.

While thus there were at last atleast two editions for each of three South Indian smṛti-nibandhas, there was not even one, in any script, of the fourth, i.e. Varadarāja’s Vyavahāranirṇaya. Burnell’s trained Smṛticandrikā— Mysore Sanskrit Series Nos 43, 44, 45, 48, 52, 56 Sarasvatīvilāsa, Mysore Sanskrit Series No 71 Collections of Hindu Law Texts edited by J. R. Gharpure, Poona Smṛticandrikā 1918 (No 11) Smṛtimukta-phala Varṇāśrama, No 25 (1), 1927. Āhnika, No 25 (2), 1938 Āsauca, No. 25 (3), 1939, Śrāddha, 25 (4), 1940 [[008]]

?? mind was impressed by even his examination of only a section of it. He recognized its superiority to the better known work of Madhavācārya. A more thorough examination would have confirmed his high opinion of it, and its superiority to other South Indian digests, in the qualities that scholars (and lawyers) value, viz., brevity, clearness, precision, close logic, mastery of the relevant literature and technique and absence of pedantry. In these respects Varadarāja’s work will stand comparison with the best treatises of the class from any part of India.

Even the Mitaksarā to which and to whose eminent author Varadarāja pays tribute, and on which he sensibly modelled himself, lacks one of his qualities, viz., terseness. The temptation to show off learning by entering upon irrelevant discussions of side issues is one to which nibandhakaras succumb, and which Varadarāja has successfully resisted. We can perhaps trace it to the rigorous philosophical discipline to which Varadarāja must have been accustomed, if the identification suggested in this work of the author of Vyavaharanirnaya with the Varadarāja, who composed an acute work on the Mimamsa of S’abara and Prabhakara, is sustained.+++(5)+++

The deferential citation of the Varadarāja (who wrote the smrtisamgraha) by so discriminating a critic as Vedānta Des’ika is itself a mark of honour.+++(5)+++

After a service of 32 years, I entered early in 1933 on leave prior to retirement from the educational service of Travancore. For years, my spare leisure had been devoted to the study of Arthasastra. It had [[009]] brought me into touch with smrti literature.

The first use to which my recovered freedom was to be put was to rebuild some lost smrti and to edit, in a form that would satisfy the requirements of modern scholarship, some digest whose age and merits would justify the labour. I was fortunate in my choice. On the suggestion and under the inspiration of Mahāmahopadhyāya P. V. Kane, M.A., LL.M., who had re-built the vyavahara sections of both Katyayana ¹ and S’ankha-Likhita, I undertook the reconstruction of the long lost Brhaspatismrti, and to rebuild not only its Vyavahara section but its other divisions as well.

The task was laborious, involved the examination of hundreds of commentaries and nibandhas, many of which were unprinted, and the final utilization of about two hundred of them, a far larger number than what had been used in such restorations by Dr Jolly and Professor Kane. It took some years, and the book atlast appeared in 1941, in the Gaekwad’s Oriental Series. I also began about the same time to edit the Krtya-Kalpatru of Lakṣmīdhara (c. 1110 A.D.) the oldest nibandha now extant, whose value is signified by its respectful citation of it by subsequent Dharmsāstra works, and the free use made of it, to the extent of wholesale absorption of entire sections, by Hemādri, Candesvara and Mitra-mis’ra. An almost complete manuscript of it had been noticed in the library of the

¹ Katyāyana Smrtisārōddhāra, P V Kane, 1933.
² Annals of the Bhandarkar Research Institute, Vols. VII, VIII.
³ Now issued as No 85 of the Gaekawad’s Oriental Series, 1941.

[[010]]

Udaipur Palace by Dr. P. Peterson in 1878. Through influential intercession, I was enabled to obtain a transcript of the entire work from the Government of Mewar. The first instalment of the work, dealing with Dana¹ appeared a year ago, and four other instalments are nearly ready for release shortly. In spite of these heavy commitments, I had resolved to edit Varadarāja’s Vyavahāranirnaya also Before I assumed the Principalship of the Central Hindu College and the duties of University Professor of Economics in the Benares Hindu University in July 1935, a preliminary transcript of the Varadarājīya had been made, which was used subsequently for comparison with manuscripts as they became available. The work was carried on simultaneously with the preparations of the other two works and the studies they necessitated, as well as heavy administrative and teaching duties, in such leisure as could be snatched from official work. But, from the outset, I was fortunate in securing the collaboration in editing the Varadarājīya, of my old pupil, Mr A N Krishna Aiyangar, M.A., L.T, whose name also appears on the title page of the book. After three years of steady labour, in the intervals afforded by other work, the Varadarājīya was ready for the press.

Captain G Srinivasamurti, Vaidyaratna, B.A., B.L., M B. & C. M., the Director of the Adyar Library, offered to publish the book, first in the Bulletin of the Library (Brahmavidyā), which was just then

¹ Krtya-Kalpataru of Bhatța Lakṣmīdhara, Dānakāņda, Vol V, (1941), Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, No 92, [[011]] XV1

being started, and later on independently as a volume in the Adyar Library Series. The offer was gladly accepted, and the first instalment, with a ‘Preliminary Note’ discussing the value of the nibandha and its date appeared in the Bulletin in October 1937. The printing was completed in 1940, but the release of the book has had to wait for an introduction that would be adequate to its importance, which, I was unable to provide till now, by circumstances beyond my control.

During the whole period of its progress towards publication both editors have had other pre-occupations, largely of an official character. The text now presented is based on nine manuscripts, which may be deemed fairly representative. They are described in Annexure III.

It was not possible to use the manuscripts in the Sarasvatīmahāl at Tanjore, as the new rules framed for that library deny to scholars the loan of manuscripts, and its transcription charges are heavy. An old palm-leaf manuscript in Nandinagarī letters from the Mysore Government Library (Acc No. 904) was obtained and examined, but the want of one familiar with the difficult script used in it, precluded its fuller utilization. As the most complete MS. in the Madras Government library was itself a transcript of a very old palm-leaf manuscript in Telugu letters (No 3143), and two remaining MSS. in the library were reported to be fragmentary, the publication was not held up till these also could be compared. After the text had been printed, two palm-leaf manuscripts were acquired by me for the library which I was [[012]] XVII building up for the Sri Venkates’vara Oriental Institute, Tirupati, when I happened to be its organizing Director (1939-40).

Their examination suggested no changes of any importance. The collated copy has been bound and deposited in the Adyar Library, as references to citations of Brhaspati from Varadaraja’s work in my published reconstruction of Brhaspati-smrti are to the pages of this copy. Attention may be invited to some features of this edition. It has a very full index of pratīkas Each entry in the index is followed by the name of the author to whom it is ascribed in the digest This should be helpful to other workers in the field of Dharma-sastra. For purposes of comparison, extracts from parallel passages in standard commentaries like the Mitaksara, the Anakula of Haradatta on Apastamba and Bhavasvamin’s recently recovered commentary on the ancient version of Naradasmrti, which bears the title of Naradiya-Manusamhita, have been given as footnotes. These help in determining the reciprocal relations of the writers Two points are held as established by the comparison of the text of the Varadarajiya with the parrallel passages thus cited viz., his obligations to Vijnanesvara and the antiquity of Bhavasvamin’s bhāṣya, whose editor had assigned an untenable and very late date for it. In the introduction, certain conclusions are advanced. The priority of the Varadarajiya to the

1 Shelf No 37 B 7, two volumes 2 Printed in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series as No. 97. V-c

[[013]] Madhavīya is established Its date is shown to be not lower than at least a generation before Vedanta Desika’s reference to it in a work, whose date itself is fixed as A D. 1298. The date of Varadarāja is thus pushed back by about four centuries beyond the date which used to be ascribed to him in modern books on Hindu Law. It is close to the date now accepted as that of the Smrticandrikā. It is argued that this work is later (by at least a generation) than the Vyavaharanirnaya and that it betrays knowledge of the latter. It is also held that the authors of the Vyavaharanirnaya and of the Mimamsa-nayaviveka-dīpikā are identical, that Varadarāja was a pupil of a Sudarsanācārya, probably the same as the author of the Srutaprakasika commentary on Ramanuja’s Sri Bhāṣya, and that he was a descendant (four generations removed) of Rāmānuja’s pupil, Pranatartihara, better known as “Kidāmbi Accān.” These are, however, conclusions, which may not perhaps now be accepted by all readers as so firmly established as Varadarāja’s date, his being a well-known member of the Sri Vaisnava community and the author of other books now lost.

The duty of acknowledging obligations remains to be discharged. The heads of the libraries from which the manuscripts used were borrowed are entitled to thanks. Among them specific mention has to be made of Rajyaratna, Jñānajyoti, Dr. B. Bhattacharyya, M.A, Ph D, Director of the Oriental Institute, Baroda, who not only lent manuscripts of the Varadarājīya from his library, but provided a complete list of Vyavahara manuscripts [[014]] in the Institute; of Professor P.P.S. Sastri, M.A., Vidyāsāgara, Vidyāvācaspati of the Presidency College, Madras, and former Curator, Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras, who lent for my inspection and study a transcript of Varadarāja’s Mīmāmsā-nayavivekadīpikā in that library, and supplied valuable information about the manuscripts in the Sarasvatīmahāl, which he had described in the published Catalogues that bear his name, ¹ of Professor Sriram Sharma, M.A., of the D.A.V. College, Lahore, through whose kind intercession the Telugu palm-leaf manuscript of Vyavahāranirnaya in the fine MSS library of that College was secured on loan, and of the authorities of the Mysore University and particularly Mr M. S Basavalingiah, MA, BL the Curator of the Mysore Government Oriental Library, for the loan of manuscripts of the digest. Mahamahopadhyaya Pandit A. Chinnaswami Sastri, Principal, College of Theology, Benares Hindu University, helped in the comparison of manuscripts in Grantha and Telugu characters I have had the advantage of his expert help in studying the crucial passage in the Dipikā on which the identity of the two Varadarājas is based Professor PK Gode, MA., Curator, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, and Mahamahopadhyaya P V. Kane have discussed with me points in relevant chronology Dr. V. Raghavan, MA., Ph.D, of the Madras University, ¹ Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Tanjore Maharaja Serforji Saraswati Mahal Library Vols I to XIX Vol. XVII describes manuscripts of works on Dharma S’astra [[015]] XX VYAVAHĀRANIRNAYA has helped with information about the location of manuscripts. Mr. Gode was the first to discover the citation of Vyavaharanirnaya by Kātayavema, which pushed its date by a century beyond the date suggested for it by Prof. Kane, whose History of Dharmasāstra 15 indispensable to every one who essays to work in the field The debt to Captain G Srinivasamurti is more personal. He accepted the work for publication in the series, which he had organized He provided innumer able helps to the study of the digest And, along with Mr. C. Subbarayudu, Manager of the Vasanta Press whose fine printing is illustrated in the book now re leased, he has shown an understanding of the persona difficulties which have impeded an earlier contributior of the Introduction, for want of which publication has been held up for a period which a General Editor anc a printer with less sympathy and insight would not have as generously condoned For many years my debt to Sir P. S Sivaswam Aiyer, KCSI., CIE, LL.D has steadily mountec up for the countless acts of consideration. It is now further increased by the benediction of a Foreword from his pen. To be ushered into the world with ar introduction from one so eminent in rājya-tantra, law and letters is a happy augury of the future of the Vyavaharanirnaya. BASAVANGUDI, BANGALORE, 5th December 1942.

KV. RANGASWAM [[016]]