Verse 5.58

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

दन्तजातेऽनुजाते च कृतचूडे च संस्थिते ।
अशुद्धा बान्धवाः सर्वे सूतके च तथौच्यते ॥ ५८ ॥

dantajāte'nujāte ca kṛtacūḍe ca saṃsthite |
aśuddhā bāndhavāḥ sarve sūtake ca tathaucyate || 58 ||

When a child dies that has teethed, or one younger than it when its tonsure has been performed, all its relatives are ‘impure’. The same is declared to be the case with births also.—(58).

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

‘Anujāta’—is taken to mean younger than the child that has teethed.

The present verse mentions the several stages only by way of illustration, and much emphasis is not meant to be laid on them; since the exact period of ‘impurity’ in regard to the various stages is going to be prescribed later on; e .g., in another Smṛti-text we read—(a) Till the appearance of teeth etc.’—(b) ‘When a child dies in a foreign country, etc., etc.’ (5.77),—there is^‘immediate impurity’;—where the term ‘child’ is to be understood as standing for one that has not teethed. Thus too it. is that what the text (5.67) says regarding the ‘one night’s impurity’ in connection with the death of ‘persons whose tonsure has not been performed etc.’ is taken to be applicable also to one who has teethed. It is in this way that the rules laid down by the two Smṛti-texts in connection with the ‘child’ become reconciled. In fact the ‘one night’s impurity’ pertains only to children till the performance of the Tonsure; since in connection with those whose Tonsure has been performed, the period of impurity is going to be prescribed as to last for three days; and this applies to the case of hoys before their Initiatory Ceremony; after which the period would be ten days and so forth, as laid down in the text—‘The Brāhmaṇa is purified in ten days, etc.’ (5.83).

Some people interpret the several alternative rules laid dowu in verses 5.59 et seq—‘Impurity due to death lasts for ten days’ etc., etc.,—as pertaining to the different ages (of the dying person), and construe them differently from their natural order—on the strength of usage and of other Smṛti.texts; by which (a) the impurity in connection with the Initiated child lasts for ten days, (b) in connection with the uninitiated for four days, (c) in connection with one whose Tonsure has been performed, three days, (d) in connection with one who has teethed, one day, and (e) in connection with younger children, it is to be only ‘immediate’; and so forth. In this way there would be an option between ‘three’ and ‘four’ days, in connection with one whose Tonsure has been performed.

But in accordance with these views, there would be no notice taken of the rule that has been prescribed in another Smṛti- text, in connection with the death of the boy ‘who has completed his Vedic Study’. All this we shall explain later on.

A person is called ‘dead’ when all his functions have ceased, and the root ‘sthā’ with the prepositiou ‘sam,’ denotes cessation of functions, [Hence ‘saṃsthita’ means de?a ].

‘Relations’,—i.e., Sapiṇḍas (sharers in the ball-offering) and Samānodakas (‘Sharers in the water-offering’).

‘Jātaka’ is the birth of a son, etc.

‘The same is declared to be the case’; i.e., all relations are impure.

Question: “Whence is any notion of age obtained, by which the text is interpreted as applying to one whose Tonsure has been performed, and thus refering to a particular sacramental rite? In a later text, the connection of the Initiatory Rite has been directly mentioned. But we do not find it any where stated upto what age a child may be called tonsured.”

Our answer to the above is as follows: By reason of its having been mentioned along with ‘one who has teethed,’ the term ‘tonsure’ is understood as indicating a definite age; and this age is to be taken as extending upto the third or the fourth year.

It has been argued that—“Since there is the option of performing the Tonsure during the first year, if one adopts this option, the present rule (which extends the ‘impurity’ in the case of the^‘tonsured’ child to one day) would be contrary to the rule that ‘upto the period of teething, the impurity is only immediate’.”

This is not right. As a matter of fact, what is the extent of the ‘tonsured’ age we learn from the juxtaposition of the epithets ‘tonsure’ and ‘initiated’, which indicates that the new name becomes applicable only upon the performance of the next sacramental rite [so that the boy could be regarded as ‘tonsured’ only till the performance of the Initiatory Rite]. In this way, the present text would become reconciled with such texts as ‘Till teething, impurity is to be immediate.’ Similarly in the Smṛti- text—‘Till the ceremony of initiation it is to be for three days’—the Initiatory ceremony is mentioned only as indicative of a particular age. It might be argued that—“there would, in this case be no age specified for the Śūdra, in the way in which it is for the Brāhmaṇa, the Kṣatriya and the Vaiśya, in connection with whom, the Initiation has been more or less strictly prescribed, as being the eighth year and so forth.”—But in this case also, the age would be understood as when the period of ‘childhood’ is passed; in accordance with the law that ‘for all there is a full period of impurity.’ Thus then, after the eighth gear, in case of all the four castes, the period of impurity would be the full term’, and this age is applicable to the case of the Śūdra also. In accordance with the view by which the ‘Initiation’ in the present context is taken as indicating the eleventh (and twelfth) year in the case of the Kṣatriya and the Vaiśya,—there would be no age mentioned in connection with the Śūdra. Though in his case also the period of impurity extends to the full time, in the case of one who has passed his childhood; before which the period extends to three days only: and the passing of childhood has been defined in another Smṛti-text, which says—‘Upto the eighth year one is called a child’, while others declare that ‘one is a child till his sixteenth year.’ Those who hold that ‘childhood’ ceases after the sixteenth year,—according to those also purification takes place only after a month (the full term). It has also been declared that ‘after six years, the purification of the Śūdra comes after a month’; and in another text—‘one month in the case of the eight-year-old child’.

Objection—“The rules regarding the several ages are obtained from the verses that follow; why then should the ‘teething’, etc., have been specified in the present verse?”

Answer— True; but it bus been answered here also for the purpose of making the rules more intelligible.—(58)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

‘Anujāte’—‘Younger than one that has teethed’ (Medhātithi, Govindarāja, Nārāyaṇa, Rāghavānanda; and Kullūka also, who is not rightly represented by Buhler).

‘Ca’—This includes ‘one whose Upanayana has been performed’ (Govindarāja, Kullūka, Nārāyaṇa and Rāghavānanda).

This verse is quoted in Smṛtitattva (II, p. 239), which adds that according to this the impurity attaches, not only to the Sapiṇḍas, but also to Sagotras, Samānodakas, paternal relations, maternal relations and so forth;—‘anujāta,’ literally meaning ‘bora after,’ means ‘one born after the dantajāta,’ this latter being the noun immediately preceding the word;—the presence of ‘ca,’ implies the ‘initiated’ also; ‘saṃsthīte’ means ‘dead.’

It is quoted in Hāralatā (p. 1), which adds the following notes:—‘anujāta’ is the child born after the child that has cut its teeth, i.e., a ehilçl that has not cut its teeth,—‘kṛtacūḍe ca,’ the ‘ca’ is meant to include one whose Upanayana has been performed,—‘saṃsthite’ on his dying,—‘sūtaka’ stands here for the impurity due to birth, that duo to death having been separately mentioned.

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Parāśara (3.21).—(Same as Manu.)

Āpastamba (2.15.3.4).—‘On account of the death of children who have not completed their first year, the parents alone shall bathe—and those who bury them.’

Viṣṇu (22.26-31).—In the case of the child dying immediately after birth, or one who is still-born, the impurity of the family ceases immediately; for such a child there is no cremation, nor water-oblations; in that of a child that has teethed hut whose tonsure has not been performed, the impurity lasts for a day and night; in that of one whose tonsure has been done, hut no other sacrament, three days.’

Yājñavalkya (3.18.23).—‘Impurity due to death lasts for three or ten days; if the dead is a child less than two years old, the impurity attaches to the parents only; and that due to the birth attaches to the mother only. In the case of the death of children before teething, the impurity is only for the moment; in that of those after teething but before tonsure, it lasts for one night; in that of those after tonsure, hut before Upanayana, for three days;—after that, for ten days.’