IN our classification of Smṛiti or Post-vedic literature, at the commencement of the last Lecture, we placed the Smārta Sūtras under the second head, and pointed out that they were to a great extent the source of the subsequent law-books which form, in our arrangement, the third head of Smṛiti. We also observed that the term Smārta-sūtra is a general expression for collections of aphoristic rules which are distinguished from the Ṥrautasūtra of the Kalpa Vedānga, because they do not relate to Ṥrauta or Vedic ceremonies, but rather to Gṛihya or ‘domestic rites’ and Samayāćāra or ‘conventional everyday practices.’ Hence the Smarta Sūtras are commonly subdivided into, a. Gṛihya Sūtras, and b. Sāmayāćārika Sūtras. It will be desirable, therefore, before commencing our survey of Manu's celebrated Law-book, to advert briefly to these sources from which some of its materials were derived, and especially to the Gṛihya Sūtras. Of these there are collections of different schools attached to each Veda. Thus to the Rig-veda belong the Āśvalāyaṇa and Ṥānkhāyaṇa Gṛihya Sūtras; to the Sāma-veda those of Gobhila; to the Vājasaneyi-saṃhitā or White Yajurveda those of Pāraskara; to the Taittirīya or Black Yajurveda those of Kāṭhaka, Baudhāyaṇa, Bhāradvāja, Āpastamba, the Maitrāyaṇīya, Mānava (which last have perished, though some of their Kalpa-sūtras have been preserved, see p. 213), &c.

In fact, every Brāhmanical family or school (ćaraṇa) had probably its own traditional recension (śākhā, p. 161) of the Mantra and Brāhmaṇa portion of the Vedas as well as its own Kalpa, Gṛihya, and Sāmayāćārika Sūtras; and even at the present day the domestic rites of particular families of Brāhmans are performed in accordance with the Sūtras of the Veda of which they happen to be adherents.