z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 03.indd MK SJ YS 21 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 57
RIDDLE NO. 7 57
“The Vedic passage, na seso ‘gne’ nyajatamasti certainly disapproves of the practice of the adoption of a son, which is clearly recommended in later times by the Smriti literature. This is a clear example of a Sruti being thrown overboard by a Smriti. But Mitramisra says that there is nothing wrong about the procedure. The Sruti passage is a mere arthavada ; it does not lay down any injunction. The Smritis on the other hand prescribe adoption so that homas etc. should be properly performed. Arthavada Sruti is thus being fittingly overruled by a Smriti text, which has a vidhi for its purport.”
“The custom of the Sati of the later age is in direct conflict with the vedic injunction prohibiting suicide. Apararka, however, argues that the conflict with Sruti should not invalidate the custom. For the Sruti passage lays down a general principle disapproving suicide, while the Smritis lay down a special exception in the case of a widow.”
Whether the customs of a Sati and adoption are good or not is a different question. Somehow or other society had come to approve of them. Smritis gave canonical sanction to them and sought to defend them even against the authority of the Vedas.
The question is why did the Brahmins after having struggled so hard for establishing the supremacy of the Vedas degrade the Vedas and invest the Smritis with authority superior to that of the Vedas ? They did so much to raise the authority of the Vedas above the divine. Why did they drag them below the Smritis which had nothing but social sanction ?
The steps they adopted were so ingenious and artificial that one cannot help feeling that there must have been some definite motive which led the Brahmins to give the Smritis a status superior to that of the Vedas.
To give some idea as to how artificial, ingenious and desparate these arguments were it might be useful to give just a brief outline of them.
As an illustration of an artificial argument, one may refer to the view propounded by Brahaspati. According to him, Sruti and Smriti are the two eyes of the Brahmana, if he is void of one of them he becomes a one-eyed person.
As an illustration of an ingenious argument one may refer to the argument of Kumarila Bhatt. His argument is founded on the theory of lost Sruti. It was argued on behalf of the Smritis that their views cannot be set aside even when they are in direct conflict with the Srutis for they may quite possibly have been based upon a lost text of Sruti, and so the conflict is not a conflict between a text of Sruti and that of