[Advaita-l] Classical treatise on Smriti

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

All information below comes from A History of Dharmashastra by P.V. Kane

On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Crbala Subramanian wrote:

>
> 2) Smriti Chandrika: This work is composed by Sri Devana bhatta.

His name is also spelled Devanna which suggests he was a Maratha or 
Telang.  He probably lived between 1150AD - 1225 AD.


>
> 3) Krtiya Kalpataru : This work is composed by Sri Bhatta Lakshmidhara.
> Same here I couldn't collect more information on this author.

Unfortunately the DLI copy of Kane's work appears to be missing the 
section on this author but if I recall correctly he was 11th-12th century 
AD and a Maratha Brahmana.

>
> 4) Smriti Baskaran: No information is available about the author, but this
> is very old treatise of information available in grantha script. The book
> is very old and extreme care is required. Sri Vaithyanatha Dikshithar
> refers this book at many places in his work.
>

Don't have any information about this one.

> 5) Kritya Ratnakara and Grhasta Ratnakara: This is written by Chandeswara
> Thakkur.

His Smrti Ratnakara as well as the two volumes named above also include 
Vivada Ratnakara on the subject of criminal and civil 
law, Dana Ratnakara, Shuddhi Ratnakara Rajaniti Ratnakara and Puja 
Ratnakara.  He also wrote a completely separate nibandha on dharmashastra 
called Krtya Chintamani.  He was minister to the Maharaja Harisimhadeva of 
Tirabhukta (Tirhut) under whose authority he invaded Nepal in 1314 AD. 
The Smriti Ratnakara was composed between 1314 - 1324 AD.

> 6) Smriti Sammuchaya: This book is prepared by the pandits of anandashrama
> mudralaya, edited by Mahopadhyaya Sri Vinayak Ganesh Apte. This book is
> also available in DLI.
>

Three other influential nibandhas on dharmashastra are

Chaturvarga Chintamani by Hemadri Acharya.  He was a Maratha Brahmana and 
an official of the Yadava kings of Devagiri (modern Daulatabad.)  This 
work was written between 1260-1270 AD.

Madhava Acharya the brother of Sayana Acharya the commentator on Vedas and 
who as a sannyasi was the famous Swami Vidyaranya wrote Parashara Madhava 
and Kala Madhava or Kala Nirnaya.  The former is ostensibly a commentary 
on Parashara Smriti but is actually an encyclopedia of dharmashastra.

In the same way Vignaneshvara wrote a commentary on Yajnavalkya Smrti 
called Mitakshara which is much more than just an explanation of the text. 
It became the foundation for post-British Hindu civil law.

>
> Among the list given above Smriti muktaphalam gives exhaustive information
> on Ahnika, Achoucha, Sraddha and Varnasrama which is not available in the
> others given in above list.

Well the others mention these topics too but perhaps they are not as well 
organized as in the S.M.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>