Canto XXXV - The education of Alarka (continued): An exposition of things permitted and forbidden

Madālasā describes what food may be eaten and what not—how various things are to be cleansed when impure, and what things are always pure—how one who has contracted impurity should purify himself—what actions and conduct one should avoid—She insists on the necessity of maintaining the daily sacrifice—She mentions what holidoys are allowed the various castes—She describes certain post-funeral ceremonies—and purification after deaths and births.

Madālasā spoke:

Next do thou hearken to the remedial measures for things forbidden and permitted. Rice should he eaten that has been kept awhile, mixed with oil, and long stored; and wheat, barley, and butter-milk and preparations thereof unmixed with oil. The hare, the tortoise, the go-sāmp,^[1] the porcupine, and the rhinoceros, my son,—these indeed may he eaten; and the domestic pig and fowl should he eschewed. The remains of food at a śrāddha after the pitṛs and gods and other recipients have been satisfied may be eaten at the desire of the brāhmans. A man who eats flesh that has been killed for the purpose of medicine is not defiled.

Shells, stones, gold, and silver, ropes, and garments, and vegetables, roots and fruits, and wicker-work vessels and leather, and gems, diamonds, and coral, and pearls, and men’s bodies are best cleansed with water; just as iron things with water, and stone by scrubbing. Oily vessels are cleansed with warm water, and winnowing baskets, grain and antelope-skins, and the pestle and mortar for husking rice, and thick cloths, and a store by sprinkling; and all kinds of bark-made things are best cleansed with water and earth. Grass, wood and medicinal herbs are best cleansed by sprinkling; and all woollen things and hair have ceremonial purity. White mustard is cleansed with oily sediment or the sediment from sesamum seed. Things that are injured are always cleansed with water, my son. So also cotton things are cleaned with water and ashes. Timber, ivory, hone and horn are best cleaned by scraping. Earthen pots are purified ceremonially by re-hurning.

Pure are alms, a workman’s hand, wares for sale, and a woman’s face, whatever passes along the high-road, what is unknown, what is brought by slaves and other menials, what is admirable for its sound, what is long past, what is screened by many, what is light, what is extremely abundant, what is young, and what is done by the old and the sickly, kitchens when the business in them is ended, women who are suckling children. Pure also are running water, and odourless bubbles.

The ground is cleansed through time, by the rubbing of bodies, and the passage of cattle, by smearing, by digging, by watering, by houses, by sweeping and by worship.

Things infested with hair-lice, or sniffed at by cattle, or infested with ñies should be sprinkled with earth water and ashes to be cleansed, my son; things made of udumbara wood^[2] with vinegar; tin and lead with salt. Brass things are cleaned with ashes and water; and the over-flows of fluids are pure. A thing soiled by ordure is cleaned with earth and water and by removing the smell; and other such-like things by removing the colour and smell.

Water is pure that has satisfied cattle, that is in its natural state, that is lying on the earth; and likewise flesh that has been slain by Caṇḍālas, Kravyādas and others. And clothes and other things lying on the high-road are said to he made pure by the wind. Dust, fire, a horse, a cow, the shade, the rays of the sun and moon, the wind, the earth, drops of water, and mosquitoes and other insects inflict no contamination though they may have been in contact with what is corrupt. A goat and a horse are pure as regards their face; but the face of a cow or calf is not pure when the mother is in milk; a hawk is pure when it knocks fruit down. A seat, a bed, a carriage, boats, and grass on the road—they are purified by the rays of the moon and sun and by the wind, in the same way as articles of trade.

After walking along the high road, and after matters of bathing, hunger, drinking, and weariness, one should change one’s clothes and duly rinse out one’s mouth. Bad roads,^[3] mud, and water, when one comes into contact with them, are cleaned by leaving them alone; and things made of mud or brick^[4] are cleansed by contact with the wind.

On taking up a morsel of rice-food that has been damaged through overmaturity, he should discard it, and should rinse out his mouth with water and earth, and should sprinkle the remainder with water. One who has eaten bad food whether wittingly or unwittingly, should fast for three nights in order to assuage^[5] that fault.

After touching a menstruous woman, a horse, a jackal, and other animals, or a woman recently delivered of a child, or people of low caste, one should bathe for the sake of purification; and so should those who have carried a corpse. After touching an oily human bone a man becomes clean when he has bathed; after touching a dry human hone he becomes clean by rinsing out his mouth, or by touching a cow, or by gazing at the sun. Moreover one should not disregard blood, spittle, and unguents for the body.

A wise man should never stand in gardens and other places in the afternoons. Nor should one hold converse with a woman hated by the populace or with a widow.

One should cast remnants of food, ordure, urine and the water used for washing the feet, outside the house.

Without taking up five piṇḍas one should not bathe in another man’s water; one should bathe in holy ponds, and in the Ganges, in lakes and rivers.

After touching or holding converse with blasphemers of the gods, pitṛs, and holy śāstras, sacrifices, prayers and other sacred objects, one should purify one’s self by gazing at the sun. And after looking at a menstruous woman, a śūdra, an outcaste, or a dead body, the unrighteous, a woman recently delivered of a child, a eunuch, a naked person, and persons of low caste, and on those who give away children, and on the paramours of other men’s wives, the wise must indeed perform this purification of themselves. One conversant with righteousness, after touching forbidden food, a woman recently delivered, a eunuch, a cat, a rat, a dog, or a cock, and an outcaste, what is cast away, a Caṇḍāla, and those who carry away corpses, is purified by bathing; and so also one who has touched a woman in her courses, and the domestic hog, and even two men who have been contaminated by the impurity of a newly-delivered woman.

The base man, both he who daily neglects the continual ceremony, and he who is abandoned by brāhmans, is polluted. One should never allow the continual ceremony to cease; but if it is neglected, there is a stoppage to the re-birth of his deceased relatives.

A brahman should spend ten days, exempt from alms-giving, the Homa sacrifice and other pious acts: and a kṣatriya should spend twelve days: and a vaisya half a month; but a śūdra should remain a month, exempt from his peculiar occupation: thereafter all should pursue their own occupation, as already expounded.

Water ought to be presented to a departed person, after his body has been burnt outside by his relatives,^[6] on the first, and fourth, seventh and ninth days of the moon. His relatives should gather together the ashes and bones on the fourth day; it is prescribed that after gathering them together, they should touch their limbs with them. But the sahodakas should perform all the ceremonies, after the gathering together of the remains. If the sapiṇḍas are touched by them, then both the sapiṇḍas and the sahodakas lose their purity.^[7]

If a person dies directly of his own free will, by the sword, by water, by hanging, or by fire, by poison, by a fall, or in any other unnatural way, or by religious fasting to death, or by fasting to death from vindictive motives;^[8] or if he dies as a child, or as a sojourner in a foreign country, or as a religious mendicant, purification will be effected at once; and others say the period of impurity^[9] is declared to be three days for the sapiṇḍas; but if, after the other person is dead, the sapiṇḍa also dies, in this case the ceremonies must be performed during the days called the period of the first impurity.

This same ordinance is applied also to the impurity caused by the birth of sapiṇḍas, among sapiṇḍas and properly among sahodakas also. When a son is born, the father must bathe with his clothes on. And if, after one child has been born there, another should be born, the purification in that case also is prescribed according to the days of the elder-born child.

When ten or twelve months or half a month have elapsed, all the castes should duly perform their respective rites and ceremonies. Next the ekoddiṣṭa śrāddha should be performed for the departed person. And men of understanding must give gifts to the brāhmans; whatever is most desired in the world, and whatever is prized at home, those very things therefore must one who hopes for immortality give to a brahman endowed with good qualities: but at the end of the days, after they have touched water, a chariot, a weapon, a goad and a rod, and after they have performed the ceremonies, they should make the oblation^[10] ordained by the laws of their respective castes, and perform all pure acts that confer bliss in the next world and in this.

A wise man must study the three Vedas, and must be continually occupied therein; he must amass riches righteously, and strenuously perform sacrifices; and he must fearlessly do whatever does not entail censure on the soul of him who does it, my son, and whatever ought not to be concealed in public. The good man that so does, my child, brings splendour to his home by acquiring righteousness wealth and love.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Godhā, the Go-sāmp a very large kind of lizard fonnd in jungle.

[2]:

Udumbara, Ficus glomerata, Roxb.; a large tree, common about villages (Roxb, p. 646.)

[3]:

Vi-rathyā; not in the dictionary.

[4]:

Iṣṭa, brick?

[5]:

for upaśamena road upaśamāya?

[6]:

Gotrika.

[7]:

For mṛtāhani read mṛjā-hānis.

[8]:

For verse 45 of the text read—

Anvakṣcim icchayā śastra-toyodbandhana-vahniṣu
Viṣa-prapātādi-mṛte prāyonaśanayor api.

The text appears to be corrupt. This amended reading is taken from a private MS. consulted by the pandit of the Bengal Asiatic Society for me, but prāyānaśanayor seems preferable.

[9]:

A-śaucakam; not in the dictionary.

[10]:

For upādānam read upadānam?