Introductory Note

After the excellent remarks of Professor Bühler on the position of Hiraṇyakeśin among the Sūtra authors of the Black Yajur-veda (Sacred Books, vol. ii, p. xxiii seq.), I can here content myself with shortly indicating the materials on which my translation of this Gṛhya-sūtra, which was unpublished when I began to translate it, is based. For the first half of the work I could avail myself, in the first place, of the text, together with the commentary of Mātṛdatta, which the late Dr. Schoenberg of Vienna had prepared for publication, and which was based on a number of MSS collated by him. It is my melancholy duty gratefully to acknowledge here the kindness with which that prematurely deceased young scholar has placed at my disposal the materials he had collected, and the results of his labour which he continued till the last days of his life. For the second half of the Sūtra his death deprived me of this important assistance; here then Professors Kielhorn of Göttingen and Bühler of Vienna have been kind enough to enable me to finish the task of this translation, by lending me two MSS. of the text and two MSS. of Mātṛdatta's commentary which they possess.

Finally, Dr. J. Kirste of Vienna very kindly sent me the proof-sheets of his valuable edition before it was published. With the aid of these my translation has been revised.