[INDOLOGY] Dharmasastra quotation on upanayana

[Patrick Olivelle]

See also Gautama Dharmasūtra 1.5.



On Jun 6, 2013, at 12:17 PM, Lubin, Tim wrote:

> upanīyayet seems to be a conflation of upanīya or upanayīta and upanayet, all forms being common in this context.
> 
> VaikhānasaGS 6.7 quotes the first half as śruti:
> brāhmaṇyāṃ brāhmaṇāj jātamātrasya brāhmaṇasya prathamajanma syād upanayanasaṃskāre dvitīyaṃ bhavati dvitīyajanmany ācāryaḥ pitā sāvitrī mātā dvābhyāṃ janmabhyāṃ dvijo bhavaty < aṣṭavarṣaṃ brāhmaṇam upanayīta- > iti śrutis tasmād garbhādhānādyaṣṭame varṣe brāhmaṇasyopanayanaṃ śreṣṭhaṃ 
> 
> "aṣṭavarṣaṃ brāhmaṇam upanayīta" is also quoted three or four times in The Mimāṃsāślokavārttika with the Commentary Kāśikā of Sucaritamiśra. Trivandrum 1926, 1929, 1943. (Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, 90, 99, 150).
> 
> I do not know of any such occurrence in śruti -- perhaps it is "lost śruti"; anyway, it would have to be "gṛhya śruti" such as Śatapatha Br. 11.5.4.1 ff.
> 
> GobhilaGS 2.2.1: aṣṭavarṣaṃ brāhmaṇam upanayed garbhāṣṭame vā |1|
> 
> The first sentence of your printed version =
> ĀśvGS 1.19.1, KhādiraGS 2.4.1 (as printed anyway)
> 
> BaudhGS 2.5.5 and ĀpDhS 1.1.1.24 both prescribe age 10 for the annādyakāma; I have never seen 6 for this.  I have digital versions of all GSs, but I cannot find exactly your passage, or the latter half thereof.
> 
> In the GSs, there is no general agreement that the appropriate age for Brahmins to be initiated is eight -- but it becomes standard only in the Dharmasūtras (I have written about the patterns underlying the disagreements in a 2005 article.)  Hence I am skeptical  that there was ever a śruti passage that prescribed it.  (Vaikhānasa is too late to cite as support for such a notion; it may have an expansive notion of śruti.)
> 
> Tim
> 
> Timothy Lubin
> Professor of Religion
> Washington and Lee University
> Lexington, Virginia 24450
> 
> http://home.wlu.edu/~lubint
> http://wlu.academia.edu/TimothyLubin
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=930949
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: Martin Gansten <martin.gansten at pbhome.se>
> Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 17:31:49 +0200
> To: Indology <indology at list.indology.info>
> Subject: [INDOLOGY] Dharmasastra quotation on upanayana
> 
> Balabhadra in his Hāyanaratna quotes an unnamed text on the preferred
> time of upanayana. The MSS I have seen all give the quotation as:
> 
> aṣṭavarṣaṃ brāhmaṇam upanīyayet ṣaṣṭhe ’nnādyakāma iti
> 
> The printed text cleans this up as follows:
> 
> aṣṭame varṣe brāhmaṇam upanayet ṣaṣṭhe ’nnādyakāma iti
> 
> -- but I don't know whether this corrected version exactly matches any
> actual text. Any help in placing the quotation would be much appreciated.
> 
> Martin Gansten
> 
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