150 A notice of the Caunaha Smriti. [No. 3, 



fuller information regarding this difficult and interesting chapter of 

 the Hindu law. My endeavours were successful, and I ohtained two 

 books, the one of which is known amongst our castris as the Brihat — 

 or great — the other as the Laghu — or small, Qaunaka-smriti. The 

 larger of these two works, which contains about 2,500 clokas, is, 

 however, in my MS. called the Qaunakiya-karika, or " memorial 

 verses of Qaunaka." The smaller, which consists of about 300 clokas, 

 is called Yajnangadharmagastram, " or the Dharmacastra connected 

 with the sacrifice."* 



The former of the two, the Qaunakiya-karika, proves to be- the 

 work, which Nanda Pandita the author of the Dattakamimamsa, and 

 other writers on adoption, quote, and it appears, that not the whole of 

 it refers to adoption, but only a small part, which has been given in 

 the Mayukha and in the Samskarakaustubha in its entirety. Though 

 my hope to obtain fresh information regarding the law of adoption 

 has therefore proved to be vain, I nevertheless venture to publish 

 this notice of the work, as it assists to decide the question alluded to 

 before, and as from a historical point of view some interest attaches 

 to every work that bears the name of Qaunaka. My copy is a tran- 

 script of a MS. written in the end of the last century (£aka, 1711, 

 A. D. 1790), and, by no means free from faults. But it will enable 

 me to give an idea of the nature of the work. 



The MS. opens with three verses which cannot belong to Qaunaka, 

 but seems to have been added by some later hand. 

 They run as follows : — 



Jayanti jagadatmanas tamah samxaya bhasharah 

 Kamanuja padavapta bhushanah purushottamah 

 ^rutismriti-jalapurnam castra-kallola-samkulam 

 Vishnubhakti-maha-potam vandeham caunakarnavam 

 Tatsatram caunako drishtva svayam harsha samanvitah 

 Vyapathayatsvaham cishyam tarn nainamyacvalayanam. 



1. " Those best of men conquer, who are the souls of the world, 

 the suns for the destruction of darkness, who are adorned (by the 

 faith taught) by the feet of Bamanuja. 



2. I worship Qaunaka, who is comparable to an ocean, whose 



* In my copy the beginning is wanting. The book treats of sacrificial rites 

 and seems to be of no importance for the Hindu law. 



