Books of the East (1880), respectively. The Vis.n.usmr.tiiis divided into 100 chap-
ters (adhya ̄ya) of very uneven length: 5 (chapters 34, 39, 40, 42, 76) with just
onesu ̄tra and one verse, one with 101 su ̄tras followed by one verse (chapter 98).
The body of the text is in prose, but, with one exception (chapter 74), all chap-
ters end in verses, from a single s ́lokato 32 (chapter 20, after 21 su ̄tras). The first
and the last two chapters are entirely in verse. The conclusion is that there may
have been an early Vis.n.udharmasu ̄tra, entirely in prose, which to some degree
belonged to the Ka ̄t.hakabranch of the Black Yajurveda. At a later time verses were
added to the core, many of them equivalent to and probably borrowed from
Manu (160 verses are identical), Ya ̄jñavalkya, Na ̄rada, the Bhagavadgita ̄, and
other sources. Finally, the initial and the last two chapters made the text into a
Va i s.n.ava work, thereby creating the single dharmas ́a ̄stra text in which it is Vis.n.u
who, in his boar (vara ̄ha) incarnation, proclaimed dharma to the goddess Earth
at the time when the world was recreated after one of the recurring cosmic
destructions (pralaya).
Even as some of the dharmasu ̄trasare preserved only in fragments, several
dharmas ́a ̄stras too, are known only from more or less abundant quotations in
later works. From the collections of these fragments edited by modern scholars
it is obvious that some of these lost dharmas ́a ̄stras were extensive and important.
This is especially true of the Br.haspatismr.ti, from which Jolly translated a col-
lection of verses on legal procedure and substantive law (vyavaha ̄ra) in volume
XXXIII of the Sacred Books of the East (1889). K. V. Rangaswarni Aiyangar
(Baroda, 1941) not only edited a far larger collection of fragments on legal
issues; he also added extracts dealing with sam.ska ̄ra (648 verses and two prose
passages), a ̄ca ̄ra (101 verses), s ́ra ̄ddha (155 verses), as ́auca(ritual impurity, 78
verses), a ̄paddharma (53 verses), and pra ̄yas ́citta(90 verses).
Of the equally important Ka ̄tya ̄uanasmr.tiwe so far have only 973 verses on
legal procedure and substantive law that were collected and translated by Kane
(Poona, 1933), to which 121 more were added by K. V. Rangaswami Aiyangar
(Festschrift Kane, Poona, 1941: 7–17).
Further, 268 verses on law and legal procedure, attributed to the Sage Vya ̄sa,
have been collected by B. K. Ghosh (Indian Culture 9, 1942, 65–98). Recently,
M. L. Wadekar edited 2,475 verses on a ̄ca ̄ra,vyavaha ̄ra, and pra ̄yas ́citta(plus 81
verses on jyotis.a) from the lost Devalasmr.ti(Delhi, 1996–7, 2 vols.).
A collection of 19 dharmas ́a ̄stras, many of them attributed to Sages mentioned
earlier (often preceded by adjectives such as B
̈
r.had-“major,” Laghu- “minor,”
Vr.ddha- “senior”) but probably of more recent origin, were published under
the title Dharmas ́a ̄strasam.grahah.by Jivananda Vidyasagara (Calcutta, 1876).
Twenty-seven similar texts, titled Smr.tina ̄m.samuccayah., were printed in volume
48 of the A ̄nanda ̄s ́rama Sanskrit Series (Poona, 1905), and 20 were edited and
translated under the title The Dharmas ́a ̄stra by M. N. Dutt (Calcutta, 1906–8).
Gustav Herberich (Würzburg, 1893) edited and translated 103 verses ascribed,
not always consistently, to Vr.ddhamanu or Br.hanmanu.
At this stage it is necessary also to refer to extensive passages dealing with
various topics ofdharma that are found in numerous passages of the two Indian
the dharmas ́a ̄stras 109