Baudhayana is the author of a manual (Kalpasutra) on rituals
and principles of conduct. Baudhyana belonged to northern India. His Kalpasutra
corpus comprises the sutras (principles) of Shrauta, Grihya, Prayaschitta,
Sulba, Pitrmedha, Pravara and Dharma. Tradition ascribes all these sutra texts
to Baudhayana. The manuscript tradition spells the name as Bodhayana.
Baudhayana Kalpasutra belongs to the Baudhayana School of the Taittiriya recensions
of Krishna Yajurveda (6th century BCE).
Baudhayana is well known as a pravacanakara (commentator)
rather than a sutrakara. A pravacana is a discourse, which is delivered by a
teacher to his disciples. Naturally, the composition of a pravacana is extensive.
The Taittiriya tradition respects him as the senior most acharya (preceptor).
Kalpasutra is a guide laying down the rituals, following a particular
school of a Vedic recension, in a regular order. Though tradition ascribes the authorship
of the rituals of six systems – Srauta, Grihya, Dharma, Sulba, Pravara and
Pitrmedha to Baudhayana, only Srauta and Grihyasutras may be rightly attributed
to him. The other sutra texts were probably composed by one or more of his disciples
or by the followers of the Baudhayana School. Even the entire Srautasutra cannot
be said to have been the creation of Baudhayana himself. The text of Chapters
I-XIX called Prashnas, – the Dvaidha, Karmanta and Prayaschitta sutras forming
part of the Baudhayana Srautasutra – were composed by somebody else.
The Baudhayana school spread in southern India. At present
the followers of this school are restricted to Karnataka and parts of Tamil
Nadu and Kerala.
