The Dharma Sutras

01Part of the Kalpa

Kalpa, the Vedanga of ritual procedure, has four parts: Shrauta Sutras for the great fire-yajnas, Grihya Sutras for household rites and samskaras, Dharma Sutras for conduct and law, and Shulba Sutras for the geometry of the altars. A family that belongs to the Taittiriya shakha of the Krishna Yajurveda and follows the Apastamba Kalpa reads its dharma in the Apastamba Dharma Sutra, its wedding rites in the Apastamba Grihya Sutra, and so on. Many South Indian families still state their sutra, "Apastamba sutra", at every sankalpa.

02Four sutras, three Vedas

Apastamba and Baudhayana belong to the Krishna Yajurveda. Gautama is linked by tradition to the Samaveda and Vasishtha to the Rigveda. Apastamba's is the only Kalpa that survives whole, in thirty prashnas: the Shrauta Sutra fills the first twenty-four, the mantras for household rites come next, then the Grihya Sutra, then the Dharma Sutra as prashnas twenty-eight and twenty-nine, and the Shulba Sutra last. The form is the sutra: short prose rules, meant to be learned by heart and explained by a teacher. Baudhayana and Vasishtha mix in verses, often introduced with "athapy udaharanti", now they also quote.

03What they teach

The four cover the same ground in their own order: the student and his teacher, the householder, permitted and forbidden food, purity, the king, crime and punishment, inheritance, and penance. Apastamba is the most personal in tone and quotes the conduct of learned people as a source of dharma. Baudhayana's Kalpa also contains the Baudhayana Shulba Sutra, whose rule for the diagonal of a rectangle is the relation later called Pythagoras's theorem.

04Where dharma is found

Each sutra begins by naming its authority, and they agree more than they differ. Apastamba: the agreed practice of those who know dharma is the measure, and the Vedas. Baudhayana: dharma is taught in each Veda; the second source is smriti; the third is the practice of the shishtas. He then says who a shishta is. Free of envy and of ego, content with a pot of grain, without greed, hypocrisy, arrogance, delusion or anger. Vasishtha puts it in two sutras: dharma is what shruti and smriti enjoin, and where they are silent, the conduct of the shishtas is the authority. A shishta, he adds, is one without selfish desire.

05Dharma does not announce itself

Apastamba has the most quoted passage of all four. "Dharma and adharma do not go about saying, here we are. Nor do devas, gandharvas or the pitris declare, this is dharma, this is adharma." What the noble praise when it is done is dharma; what they blame is adharma. So a person should follow the conduct that the disciplined, elderly and self-possessed people of every region agree upon. Just before this Apastamba gives an image from the orchard: when a mango tree is planted for its fruit, shade and fragrance come with it. Practise dharma for its own sake, and the worldly goods follow; if they do not, dharma is not lost.

06The second birth

The acharya is so called, Apastamba explains, because from him the student gathers (achinoti) the dharmas. He must never be wronged. "He gives birth to the student through knowledge, and that is the best birth; the father and mother give birth only to the body." The sutras then lay down the student's life in detail: the upanayana in spring for a brahmana boy, the girdle, staff and deerskin, the begging round, rising before the teacher and sleeping after him, never speaking of him with disrespect. Baudhayana adds a warning about learning without practice: a wooden elephant, a leather deer and a brahmana who has not studied are three things that bear only a name.

07When the rule is unclear

The sutras do not pretend that every case is settled. Where a point of dharma is in doubt, Baudhayana says, let a parishad decide: at least ten learned men, among them those who know the four Vedas, one who knows the angas, one who can recite the Dharmashastra, and three from the ashramas. Five will do, or three, or even one who is beyond reproach, but not a thousand who do not know. The path of dharma has many doors and is subtle, so in a doubt no single person should pronounce alone, however learned. When a pandit-sabha gives a vyavastha on a disputed rite, it is this principle at work.

08"Apastamba sutra" at every sankalpa

In the South a person still introduces himself to elders by his sutra. The abhivadana, said while touching the feet of an elder, names the rishis of one's pravara, the gotra, the sutra and the shakha: "...Apastamba sutrah, Yajus shakhadhyayi...". Apastamba is followed by most Taittiriya families of Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and Baudhayana by many others of the same shakha. The sutra decides small things that matter in a household: how the upanayana is done, the order of the wedding rites, the mantras at a shraddha. Apastamba ends his own book with humility: some say the rest of dharma is to be learned from women and from people of every varna.

09Read with Haradatta

Haradatta's Ujjvala on Apastamba and his Mitakshara on Gautama are the classical commentaries; Maskarin also wrote on Gautama, and Govindasvamin on Baudhayana. Georg Bühler's English translations appeared in the Sacred Books of the East in 1879 and 1882, and Patrick Olivelle produced a critical edition of all four in 2000. P. V. Kane's History of Dharmasastra, published in five volumes between 1930 and 1962, drew on all four for its account of Hindu law and custom. The later smritis built on these sutras: Manu and Yajnavalkya cover the same ground in verse, and the commentators keep quoting the sutras to settle what a verse means.

What it contains

1. 1
   Apastamba Dharma Sutra आपस्तम्बधर्मसूत्रम्

   Two prashnas, part of the Apastamba Kalpa of the Taittiriya shakha (Krishna Yajurveda). The first prashna is mostly the student and the snataka, with the passage on dharma that does not announce itself; the second turns to the householder, inheritance, the king and the courts. Haradatta's Ujjvala is read with it.

2. 2
   Gautama Dharma Sutra गौतमधर्मसूत्रम्

   Twenty-eight adhyayas, linked by tradition to the Samaveda. It is entirely in prose, without the quoted verses of Baudhayana and Vasishtha. Its list of the forty samskaras and eight virtues of the self is quoted by later writers.

3. 3
   Baudhayana Dharma Sutra बौधायनधर्मसूत्रम्

   Four prashnas, part of the Baudhayana Kalpa of the Krishna Yajurveda. It opens with the three sources of dharma and the parishad of ten, mixes prose with quoted verses, and gives long sections on purification and penance. The same Kalpa holds the Baudhayana Shulba Sutra.

4. 4
   Vasishtha Dharma Sutra वसिष्ठधर्मसूत्रम्

   Thirty adhyayas, linked by tradition to the Rigveda. It opens "athatah purusha-nihshreyasartham dharma-jijnasa", now the inquiry into dharma for the highest good of man, and defines the land of Aryavarta. It quotes many verses, some shared with Manu.

Famous verses

अथातः सामयाचारिकान् धर्मान् व्याख्यास्यामः

Now we shall explain the dharmas based on accepted conduct.Apastamba Dharma Sutra 1.1.1.1

स हि विद्यातस्तं जनयति । तच्छ्रेष्ठं जन्म । शरीरमेव मातापितरौ जनयतः ॥

The teacher gives birth to him through knowledge, and that is the best birth. The father and mother give birth only to the body.Apastamba Dharma Sutra 1.1.1.16–18

न धर्माधर्मौ चरत आवं स्व इति । न देवगन्धर्वा न पितर इत्याचक्षतेऽयं धर्मोऽयमधर्म इति ॥ यत्त्वार्याः क्रियमाणं प्रशंसन्ति स धर्मो यद्गर्हन्ते सोऽधर्मः ॥

Dharma and adharma do not go about saying, here we are; nor do the devas, gandharvas or pitris declare, this is dharma, this is adharma. What the noble praise when it is done is dharma; what they censure is adharma.Apastamba Dharma Sutra 1.7.20.6–7

उपदिष्टो धर्मः प्रतिवेदम् । तस्यानु व्याख्यास्यामः । स्मार्तो द्वितीयः । तृतीयः शिष्टागमः ॥

Dharma is taught in each Veda; we shall explain it in accordance with that. The second source is smriti; the third, the practice of the cultured.Baudhayana Dharma Sutra 1.1.1.1–4

श्रुतिस्मृतिविहितो धर्मः । तदलाभे शिष्टाचारः प्रमाणम् ॥

Dharma is what is enjoined by shruti and smriti. Where these are not available, the conduct of the cultured is the authority.Vasishtha Dharma Sutra 1.4–5