sutta
From: Petra Kieffer-Pülz
Message: 4118
Date: 2014-12-10
Dear All,
since it was mentioned that one first has to clarify in how far Klaus' results on the term sūtra in the Sanskrit context
have met with general acceptance, before one can proceed with applying this results on the sutta discussion in Pāli,
I have asked colleagues who are more familiar with the Śrauta- and Gṛhyasūtras in how far Klaus' arguments (that these two
types of sūtras are verbose, and that, therefore, sutta cannot be used in the sense of short/concise text) have been accepted.
I was told that no work on Gṛhyasūtras has been done recently, so that it cannot be said in how far Klaus' hypothesis has been
accepted. Furthermore I was informed that Śrauta- and Gṛhyasūtras form one category in the corpus of the six Vedaṅgas, namely the Kalpasūtras,
and that the Śrautasūtras are extreme verbose whereas the Gṛhyasūtras are extremely short. This leaves us with two extremes for texts containing the word sūtra in their titles. So it is perhaps necessary to read Klaus' earlier article on the Śrauta- and Gṛhyasūtras to see his argumentation.
Best,
Petra