6.9. The concept of Aucitya (propriety)

[Full title: Human values: A mirror to Indian culture (9): Aucitya]

It is necessary to achieve balance in life. All actions of a person need to be governed by the principle of aucitya. With that one can lead a trouble free life. Aucitya is formed from the base word ucita, fit, proper, suitable. Now it is for an individual to decide what is fit or proper for him in a given situation. The scriptures, the preceptors, the elders can guide him in this or provide him with necessary inputs to take decisions. Aucitya could vary with varied situations. What may be suitable in a particular situation may be unsuitable in another. What is necessary for aucitya is to be clear-headed, the capacity to exercise judgement and to get along with the advice of well-wishers. It also requires knack of assessing situations and sifting the right options from among the many. It also implies acquaintance with social and religious norms transgression of which contribute to impropriety which may land one in troubles. Then there are precedents of which one has to be aware in taking decisions. While thinking of aucitya, propriety, one has to take note of anaucitya, the impropriety, too. The knowledge of negatives would provide a person with the vision for the positive. Aucitya has different facets, physical, mental, intellectual, spiritual and verbal. The physical facet first. The Gita enunciates the need for a healthy body: de

R yuktaharaviharasya yuktacestasya karmasu Aucitya 167 yuktasvapnavabodhasya yogo bhavati duhkhahan "He who is moderate in food, moderate in recreations moderate in necessary action, moderate in sleep and moderate in awakening, can practice the Dhyanayoga, meditation, which is the destroyer of grief." There is an old anecdoate which tellingly emphasizes limited intake of wholesome food to keep off diseases and ailments with the procurement of rightful means. It is said that once the mythical physician Dhanvantari was going in a forest. A bird who knew who he was started chirping: ko'ruk, ko 'ruk, kotuk, which i besides representing the onomatopoetic sound of the bird also carried the query kah aruk, who is free from disease, who does not court disease. The physician smiled at the clever way of putting forth the query by the bird and answered in the same refrain: hitabhuk mitabhuk rtabhuk so 'ruk, so 'ruk soruk, one who helps himself with wholesome food in limited quantity procured by rightful means is free from disease, is free from disease, is free from disease. The aucitya for physical well-being is three-fold: (i) food should be had in limited quantity, (ii) it should be wholesome and (iii) it should have been acquired by rightful means (this has spiritual dimensions). It is said that one who eats in limited quantity (actually) eats much: yo mitam bhunkte sa bahu bhunkte, in that he has long life and his total intake of food is much more than that of one who overeats and shortens his life span reducing thereby his total intake of food in comparison to the one who continues to live long. The texts on Ayurveda prescribe which items of food one should have and in which period of time. They enjoin the eating of fruits in the morning with the exception of banana and cucumber. pratah phalani bhojyani kadalim karkatim vina. One may have curd during the day time but not in the night: na naktam dadhi bhunjita. The food is classified as per the constitution of the people into three categories sattvika, rajasa and tamasika. Just as with food, so is it with drink. The rule is that one should have

water frequently but each time only in small quantity, muhur muhur vari pibed abhuri. Further, one should have water in the course of the meal but not before or after it. The water drunk before the start of the meal leads to loss of appetite, that drunk after it is as harmful as poison: bhojanadav agnihari madhye tad amrtopamami bhojanante visam vari varinas trividha gatih³11 Propriety demands that one should have food in a happy mood. Mark the injunction: prasannamukho'nnani bhunjita. That helps in the digestion. Food partaken in pensive and depressed mood or in a mood of anxiety or worry leads more to harm than to good. While eating it is imperative that one should not condemn it or find fault with it for that would release such fluids in the body that would turn it harmful; annam na nindyat.4 It is also necessary that one should have food in the company of the good people and at a neat and clean place. One should not also allow the time for meals to pass, bhojanavelatikrame cikitsaka dosam udaharanti, physicians consider it wrong to skip the normal time for meals (a common enough phenomenon these days when under heavy work-load people have lunch late afternoons or dinner around midnight or just gulp down a few morsels or help themselves with what goes by the name of junk food or combine breakfast and lunch and have what they call 'brunch'/'The rule is: satam vihaya bhoktavyam, one should keep aside a hundred things and have food first. Just as it is with food, so is it with bath. This is even more important. No consideration should overrule it or delay it. "Keep aside a thousand things and have bath first. sahasram snanam acaret. 6 Coming to verbal aucitya, the most important thing is judicious choice of words, as says the Manusmrti: drstiputam nyaset padam vastraputam jalam pibeti satyaputam vaded vacam manhputam samacareti al✓ "One should set foot purified by one's sight, drink water purified by cloth, utter speech purified by truth and adopt a conduct purified by mind." Further on the Smrti says that one

9 Aucitya 169 should bear patiently harsh words and not insult anybody. The Sruti enjoins uttering of words coated with honey. madhumayim vacam. It is imperative that one should avoid insulting speech which is the root cause all enmities, sa yonih sarvavairafiam. 10 The mental aucitya, propriety consists of not thinking ill of anybody, not hatching plots to harm others. The quality of aucitya the Dharmamrta proclaims to be superior to even a crore (millions) of other qualities: gunakotya tulakotim yad ekam api tikate.11 The reason for this is that it is the core quality. The rest of them are its offshoots. With its cultivation many of the wrongs that are likely to surface could be avoided or innocent pursuits may lead to harm if it is not kept up. One may indulge in drinking, gambling, enjoying women, hunting, singing and playing on instruments. It is overindulgence in them which is harmful, as says the Mahabharata: panam aksas tatha naryo mrgaya gitavaditam! etani yuktya seveta prasango hy atra dosavani112 Similarly to aspire for something may have nothing bad about it but the compulsive wish to have it by whatever means is bad: aucityam ganayati ko visesakamah. It is very difficult to give a precise definition of aucitya. Scanning of old literature may not be of much help in this. Not to exceed the limit is one which one can have from the Ramayana hemistiche sarvatratikrtam bhadre vyasanayopakalpate,13 "everywhere anything done in excess leads to peril." The context wherein this occurs is the remark of a demoness Vinata to Sta to surrender herself to Ravana the absence of which could mean the end of her life by her being devoured by the demoness guards. Among the Alankarikas aucitya occurs as a literary theory. Ksemendra has composed a full text on it uner 'the title d Aucityavicaracarca where he discusses what should be proper in delineation of Rasas, figures of speech and the Nayaka-Nayikas and so on. Considering the situation in which the word occurs or the negative of it, it appears it could be defined in simplistic terms r

as 'that which goes well with a particular time or place, desa and kala. Anything that agrees with established custom, the socially accepted norms and time-honoured practice, with reference to a particular region (in another region the custom may vary and the norms may be different) is ucita, fit and proper. The otherwise of it is anucita, improper; propriety and impropriety being conditioned by above factors. If ucita is proper, aucitya is propriety. REFERENCES 1. 6.17. 2. 10.20, Vaidyakiyasubhasitasangrahah (Quoted as the statement of Krsnakutuhala) 3. ibid, 10.19, p.67. 4. Taittiriyopanisad, 3.6. 5. A popular saying. 6. Vaidyakiyasubhasitasangrahah, 10.20, p.23 7. ibid. 8. 6.46 9. Atharvaveda, 16.2.2 10. Uttararamacarita, V. 30. 11. 6.2.5 12. Santiparvan, 140.26. 13. Ramayana, V. 2.4.21.