The Sacred Laws of the Āryas, Part I: Āpastamba, Gautama, Vasiṣṭha, and Baudhāyana.

The volume opens with introductory materials situating the work within the broader Sacred Books of the East project. The title page identifies this as the first part of The Sacred Laws of the Āryas, containing the schools of Āpastamba and Gautama, translated by Georg Bühler. The Introduction to Āpastamba is one of the most important scholarly sections of the book. Bühler explains that Āpastamba’s Dharma-sūtra is significant because it helps correct the older assumption that Hindu society was governed from the beginning by fixed metrical law codes. Instead, he argues that Dharma literature developed from the teaching traditions of Vedic schools. Āpastamba’s Dharma-sūtra is presented as part of a large Kalpa-sūtra corpus connected with the Black Yajurveda and the Taittirīya tradition. Bühler discusses its relation to Śrauta ritual, Gṛhya domestic rites, and rules of sacred law, showing that Dharma was integrated into the broader Vedic system of ritual and social discipline. The same introduction also analyzes the historical position of Āpastamba. Bühler compares Āpastamba with Baudhāyana and Hiraṇyakeśin, arguing that Āpastamba is later than Baudhāyana but earlier than Hiraṇyakeśin. He examines textual parallels, legal disagreements, inheritance rules, widow customs, marriage forms, southern Brahmanical traditions, and linguistic peculiarities. A key conclusion is that the Āpastamba school likely had strong connections with southern India, especially the Andhra region. The introduction also evaluates the role of Haradatta’s commentary, the Ujjvalā Vṛtti, as an important source for preserving and interpreting the text. The Āpastamba section presents aphorisms on sacred law. Its contents cover general rules of Dharma, initiation, studentship, duties toward the teacher, rules for a student who has returned home, Vedic study, salutation, purification, eating and forbidden food, lawful livelihood, penance, duties of a snātaka, household duties, inheritance, funeral oblations, the four orders, and the king. The text is highly practical and regulatory, showing how Brahmanical law organized education, caste hierarchy, ritual purity, family obligations, and social authority. The Introduction to Gautama argues that Gautama’s Dharma-śāstra is connected with the Sāmaveda and with a Gautama school. Bühler notes its close relationship to the Dharma-sūtra genre and discusses evidence from Sāmavedic materials, including the use of Sāmans and borrowings from the Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa. He also argues that Gautama is probably the oldest of the extant Dharma-sūtras, while acknowledging possible interpolations and later textual adjustments. The Gautama section presents a broad legal and religious framework. Its major concerns include initiation, purification, studentship, the ascetic, the hermit, the householder, salutation, times of distress, kingship, the duties of a snātaka, lawful occupations and livelihood, duties of a king, civil and criminal law, witnesses, impurity, funeral oblations, Vedic study, eating and forbidden food, women, penances, and inheritance. Compared with Āpastamba, Gautama is especially important for the early systematization of Dharma into social, ritual, juridical, and royal domains. The volume concludes with a transliteration appendix for Oriental alphabets used in the Sacred Books of the East series, supporting accurate representation of Sanskrit and other Asian textual terms.