Of all the legal S[=u]tra-writers Gautama is oldest, and perhaps is pre-buddhistic.  Turning to his work one notices first that the M[=i]m[=a]msist is omitted in the list of learned men (28. 49);[17] but since the Upanishads and Ved[=a]nta are expressly mentioned, it is evident that the author of even the oldest S[=u]tra was acquainted with whatever then corresponded to these works.[18] The opposed teaching of hell versus sams[=a]ra is found in Gautama.  But there is rather an interesting attempt to unite them.  Ordinarily it is to hell and heaven that reference is made, e.g., ’the one that knows the law obtains the heavenly world’ (28. 52); ’if one speak untruth to a teacher, even in thought, even in respect to little things, he slays seven men after and before him’ (seven descendants and seven ancestors, 23. 31).  So in the case of witnesses:  ’heaven (is the fruit) for speaking the truth; otherwise hell’ (13. 7); ’for stealing (land) hell’ (is the punishment, ib. 17).  Now and then comes the philosophical doctrine:  ’one does not fall from the world of Brahm[=a]’ (9. 74); ’one enters into union and into the same world with Brahm[=a]’ (8. 25).

But in 21. 4-6 there occurs the following statement:  ’To be an outcast is to be deprived of the works of the twice-born, and hereafter to be deprived of happiness; this some (call) hell.’  It is evident here that the expression asiddhis (deprivation of success or happiness) is placed optionally beside naraka (hell) as the view of one set of theologians compared with that of another; ’lack of obtaining success, i.e., reward’ stands parallel to ‘hell.’  In the same chapter, where Manu says that he who assaults a Brahman “obtains hell for one hundred years” (M. xi. 207), Gautama (21. 20) says “for one hundred years, lack of heaven” (asvargyam), which may mean hell or the deprivation of the result of merit, i.e., one hundred years will be deducted from his heavenly life.  In this case not a new and better birth but heaven is assumed to be the reward of good acts.  Now if one turns to 11. 29-30 he finds both views combined.  In the parallel passage in [=A]pastamba only better or worse re-births are promised as a reward for good or evil (2. 5. 11. 10-11); but here it is said:  “The castes and orders that remain by their duty, having died, having enjoyed the fruits of their acts, with the remnant of their (merit) obtain re-birth, having an excellent country, caste, and family; having long life, learning, good conduct, wealth, happiness, and wisdom.  They of different sort are destroyed in various ways.”  Here, heavenly joys (such as are implied by ni[h.]creyasam in 26) are to be enjoyed first, and a good birth afterwards, and by implication one probably has to interpret the next sentence to mean ’they are sent to hell and then re-born in various low births.’  This, too, is Manu’s rule (below).  At this time the sacred places which purify are in great vogue, and in Gautama a list of them is given (19. 14), viz.:  “all mountains, all rivers, holy pools, places of pilgrimage (i.e., river-fords, tirth[=a]ni), homes of saints, cow-pens, and altars.”  Of these the tirthas are particularly interesting, as they later become of great importance, thousands of verses in the epic being devoted to their enumeration and praise.