Praśna I, Adhyāya 5, Kaṇḍikā 11

1. Referring to deaths and births, they declare that the impurity of Sapiṇḍas lasts ten days; excepting officiating priests, men who have performed the initiatory ceremony of a Soma-sacrifice, and students of the Veda.^[1]

2. But amongst Sapiṇḍas Sapiṇḍa-relationship (extends) to the seventh person.^[2]

3. (If children die) before the completion of the seventh month or before teething, (the relatives) shall bathe.^[3]

4. In (the case of a child) that dies before the completion of its third year or before teething, offerings of funeral cakes and water are not prescribed, and one should not burn its (body);^[4]

5. Nor when unmarried maidens die.

6. Some do it in the case of married daughters.^[5]

7. That (is done) in order to gain the good-will^[6] of the people. Women are considered to have no business with the sacred texts.

8. 'The relatives of unmarried women become pure after three days. But the uterine brothers become pure by (following) the rule mentioned before.'^[7]

9. Moreover, the great-grandfather, the grand-father, the father, oneself, the uterine brothers, the son by a wife of equal caste, the grandson, (and) the great-grandson--these they call Sapiṇḍas, but not the (great-grandson's) son;--and amongst these a son and a son's son (together with their father are) sharers of an undivided oblation.^[8]

10. The sharers of divided oblations they call Sakulyas.^[9]

11. If no other (relations) are living, the property (of a deceased male) descends to them (the Sapiṇḍas).^[10]

12. On failure of Sapiṇḍas, the Sakulyas (inherit).^[11]

13. On failure of them, the teacher who (holds the place of a spiritual) father, a pupil, or an officiating priest shall take it,^[12]

14. On failure of them, the king. Let him give that property to persons well-versed in the three Vedas.^[13]

15. But the king should never take for himself the property of a Brāhmaṇa.^[14]

16. Now they quote also (the following verse): The property of a Brāhmaṇa destroys (him who takes it), together with sons and grandsons; poison kills one man only. (Therefore) they do not declare poison to be (the worst) poison. The property of a Brāhmaṇa is called (the worst) poison.'

17. If a birth and a death occur together, one. and the same period of ten (days and) nights (shall serve for both).

18. Now if (other deaths or births) happen before the completion of the ten (days and) nights (of impurity), the first period of ten (days and) nights (shall suffice, provided the new cause of impurity occurs) before the end of the ninth day.^[15]

19. On a birth, indeed, the parents (alone) become impure during ten days.^[16]

20. Some (declare that) the mother (alone becomes impure), because (people) avoid (lying-in women alone).^[17]

21. Others (say that) the father (alone becomes impure) because the semen is the chief cause (of the generation).^[18]

22. For sons who were born without mothers, are mentioned in the revealed texts.

23. But (the correct opinion is that) both the parents (become impure) because they are equally connected (with the event).

24. But when a death (has happened, the relatives of the deceased), allowing the youngest to begin, shall pass their sacrificial threads over the right shoulder and under the left arm, descend into the water at a bathing-place, submerge (their bodies), emerge (out of the water), ascend the bank, sip water, pour out libations for the (deceased, repeating the last four acts) severally three times thereafter, ascend the bank, sip water, touch a coal, water or the like at the door of their house, and sit during ten days on mats, eating food that does not contain pungent condiments or salt.^[19]

25. (Let him perform) a funeral sacrifice on the eleventh or the twelfth (day).^[20]

26. In (performing) the remaining rites (one should) conform to (the customs of) the people.^[21]

27. In case of a (death) let him also keep (a period of impurity) for (persons who are) not (his) Sapiṇḍas, according to the degree of nearness, three (days and) nights, a day and a night, one day and so forth,^[22]

28. For a teacher, a sub-teacher (upādhyāya), and their sons, three (days and) nights,^[23]

29. Likewise for officiating priests,^[24]

30. Let hire keep. on account of a pupil, for one who has the same spiritual guide, for a fellow-student (sabrahmacārin) three (days and) nights, one day and a night, one day and so forth (as periods of impurity).^[25]

31. On a miscarriage females (remain impure) as many (days and) nights as months (elapsed after conception).^[26]

32. If he unintentionally touches the corpse of a stranger, he becomes at once pure after bathing dressed in his clothes.

33. (If he does it) intentionally, (he will remain impure) during three (days and) nights.

34. And (the same rules apply if he touches a woman) during her courses.^[27]

35. A son who is born from (intercourse with a temporarily unclean woman) becomes an Abhiśasta. Thereby the penances (to be performed) by him have been explained.

36. On touching one who sells the Veda, a sacrificial post, an outcast, a funeral pile, a dog, or a Caṇḍāla he shall bathe.^[28]

37. Now if a worm is produced in an open wound that is filled with pus and sanies, how shall, in that case, a penance be performed?^[29]

38. He who is bitten by a worm will become pure on bathing (daily) during three days and drinking (a mixture of) cow's urine, cowdung, milk, sour milk, butter, and water boiled with Kuśa grass.

39. He who has been touched by a dog shall bathe dressed in his clothes;^[30]

40. Or he becomes pure by washing that spot (where he has been touched), by touching it with fire, by (afterwards) again washing it and his feet, and by sipping water.

41. Now they quote also (the following verses): 'But a Brāhmaṇa who has been bitten by a dog, is purified if he goes to a river that flows into the ocean, (bathes there and) suppresses his breath one hundred times and (afterwards) eats clarified butter. He will (also) become pure at, once on bathing (in water brought) in golden or silver (vessels), or in a cow's horn, or in new (earthen pots).'^[31]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

11. Vasiṣṭha IV, 16. Officiating priests, Soma-sacrificers, and students do not become impure by deaths or births occurring among their relatives; see Vasiṣṭha XIX, 48; Gautama XIV, 1.

[2]:

Vasiṣṭha IV, 17. For the specification of the extent of the Sapiṇḍa-relationship, see below, Sūtra 9.

[3]:

Viṣṇu XXII, 27.

[4]:

Viṣṇu XXII, 28; Gautama XIV, 34, 43.

[5]:

Gautama XIV, 36. 'That refers to the Sapiṇḍas on the father's side.'--Govinda.

[6]:

Manu IX, 18.

[7]:

This verse, which occurs in all my MSS. of the text, is left out in the two copies of Govinda's commentary.

[8]:

Colebrooke, Dāyabhāga XI, 1, 37; V. Digest CCCXCVII. The text on which Colebrooke's two versions are based differs from that of my MSS. and of Govinda by reading avibhaktadāyādān instead of teṣāṃ ca putrapautram [v. l. °pautrakam] avibhaktadāyam. The meaning of the latter clause, which is placed parenthetically before sapiṇḍān ācakṣate, '(these) they call Sapiṇḍas,' seems to be that a father with his son and grandson share the cakes offered at one funeral sacrifice by the fourth descendant. Its object is to show that the group called Sapiṇḍas consists of two such subdivisions, between whom the middlemost forms the connecting link. For the middlemost, the svayam, 'oneself,' of the text, first offers the cakes to his three ancestors and later receives the cakes, together with his first two descendants, from his great-grandson. Govinda gives no help. He merely remarks that the Sūtra contains a paribhāṣā or technical rule of interpretation, and that the words api ca, 'moreover,' indicate that it is an expansion of Sūtra 2.

[9]:

Colebrooke, loc. cit. According to Jīmūtavāhana the Sakulyas are the three ascendants beyond the great-grandfather and the three descendants beyond the great-grandson. Others, among p. 179 whom Govinda takes his place, explain the word sakulya to mean 'members of one family' in general. Govinda says, sambandhaviśeṣajñāne sati sapiṇḍā ucyante sambandhamātrajñāne sakulyāḥ|| Ataś ca sapiṇḍā api sakulyāḥ|| 'If a particular relationship is known, they are called Sapiṇḍas; and if (the fact) only is known that relationship exists, Sakulyas. Hence the Sapiṇḍas are also Sakulyas.'

[10]:

Colebrooke, loc. cit. Both the Dāyabhāga and the Digest read satsvangajeshu, 'when there is male issue,' and the Vīramitrodaya, fol. 218, p. 2, l. 7, agrees with them. The MSS. read all satsv anyeshu, which may, however, be taken with Govinda for asatsv anyeshu, because the preceding word ends in e. Govinda explains anyeshu, 'others,' by aurasādishu, 'legitimate sons of the body, and so forth.'

[11]:

Colebrooke, Dāyabhāga, loc. cit. The digest omits this Sūtra.

[12]:

Colebrooke, loc. cit. Gīmūtavāhana wrongly reads pitā cācāryaḥ, 'the father and the teacher.' Govinda gives the explanation adopted above. Regarding the spiritual fatherhood of the teacher, see e.g. Vasiṣṭha II, 4.

[13]:

Colebrooke, loc. ca. Govinda reads satsvam, 'the property of a holy man,' instead of tatsvam, 'that property.'

[14]:

Colebrooke V, Dig. CCCCXLIV; Vasiṣṭha XVII, 86.

[15]:

Vasiṣṭha IV, 23-25. Govinda points out that in case the second birth or death happens after the completion of the ninth day, the rule given (Gautama XIV, 7) applies.

[16]:

Vasiṣṭha IV, 20-21.

[17]:

Vasiṣṭha IV, 21-22. Tatpariharaṇāt, literally, 'because she is avoided, i.e. because people avoid newly-confined women (not their husbands).'--Govinda.

[18]:

E.g. Agastya and Vasiṣṭha. See Rig-veda VII, 33, 11, and Sāyaṇa's commentary thereon.

[19]:

Vasiṣṭha IV, 9-15. When the libations of water are poured out, the name of the deceased must be pronounced. Govinda correctly states that iti, 'or the like,' which stands after 'a coal, water,' is intended to include 'cowdung, and yellow mustard seed,' which are mentioned by Yājñavalkya III, 13. Regarding the clause sakṛttriḥ, '(repeating these last four acts) severally three times,' see Āpastamba II, 6, 15, 10.

[20]:

Viṣṇu XXI, 2 seq., and especially 19.

[21]:

Govinda, in explanation of this Sūtra, refers to the last words of Āpastamba II, 6, 15, 10, where it is said that relatives shall perform those rites for the dead which the women declare to be necessary,' and to Āpastamba II, II, 29, 15.

[22]:

Gautama XIV, 20. Govinda is of opinion that the duration of the impurity shall depend on the good qualities, learning, &c. of the deceased.

[23]:

Viṣṇu XXII, 42, 44. Govinda asserts that the impurity on account of an Upādhyāya lasts one night, together with the preceding and following days, and on account of a teacher's or Upādhyāya's sons one day only. It looks as if he had read the words pakṣiṇyekāham in his text.

[24]:

Govinda asserts that ka, 'likewise,' indicates that the rule applies also on the death of persons for whom one sacrifices.

[25]:

Viṣṇu XXII, 44. Govinda explains satīrthya to mean 'one who has the same guru or spiritual guide,' while according to others it means 'one who studies under the same sub-teacher' (upādhyāya). See also the Kāśikā on Pāṇini IV, 4, 117, and note.

[26]:

Viṣṇu XXII, 25. 3233. Gautama XIV, 27.

[27]:

Viṣṇu XXII, 69.

[28]:

This verse, which is another version of I, 5, 9, 5, is left out in the Dekhan and Gujarāt MSS.; I consider its genuineness very doubtful.

[29]:

Vasiṣṭha XVIII, 16.

[30]:

-40. Āpastamba I, 5, 15, 16-17. Govinda, too, states that the second mode of purification is to be adopted, if the dog touches any part of the body below the navel.

[31]:

Vasiṣṭha XXIII, 31.