The law-book of Pracetas — fragments 1: Quoted passages

English (machine translation) 1

Language: English

Quoted passages

1.1

Artisans, craftsmen, physicians, female and male slaves, kings and king's servants are declared to be purified at once.

1.2

A woman, a Śūdra and a Śvapaca, and (anyone) at the birth rite, should perform a śrāddha with uncooked food, by the rule of the pārvaṇa śrāddha.

1.3

Mustard oil, perfumed oil, oil scented with flowers and oil mixed with other substances is never forbidden (on the days when oil is prohibited).

1.4

If the eleventh is extended, in the bright and especially in the dark fortnight, the ascetic should keep the later day, the householder fast on the earlier.

1.5

In the daily śrāddha the twice-born should make no invitation, no oblation, no invocation or dismissal, no rice-ball, and (no rite for) the gods.

1.6

A wise man should avoid a seat of cow-dung or clay, a broken one, one of palāśa or pippala, one bound with iron, and always one of arka wood.

1.7

For killing a calf of one year unintentionally a quarter-Kṛcchra is prescribed for a man; for one of two years half; for one of three years three quarters; beyond that the Prājāpatya.

1.8

Betel, anointing and eating from a bell-metal dish are to be avoided by the ascetic, the student and the widow.

1.9

After the sapiṇḍīkaraṇa the single-person śrāddha is prescribed for all who had no sons, and likewise for those who had no wives.

1.10

The sons and others should bathe the dead man and honour him with clothes and the like; one should never burn a naked body; something should be left (on it) to give.

1.11

When an officiating priest or the man for whom one sacrifices dies, one is purified in three days.

1.12

Worship of the gods with flowers (proceeds) from the feet to the head.

1.13

Those ignorant of Mīmāṃsā, those outside the treatises and others without the Veda: what they say one should not do; dharma is prescribed from the Veda.

1.14

Whatever sprinkling a twice-born man performs with fire, all that, say the expounders of the Veda, is like the water of the Gaṅgā.

1.15

Defiled clothes (are purified) by steaming, by removing the smell and the stain, or by cutting out that part; new garments by sprinkling; unused ones by sprinkling.

1.16

One who is to eat at a śrāddha should clean his teeth on rising in the morning; a wise man who performs the śrāddha should not clean his teeth.

1.17

The rites from the eleventh day on are duly to be performed in order by the eldest; not each (son) separately — but the annual śrāddha (they perform) each separately.

1.18

Black beans and sesame are best, and barley and rice, large barley, vrīhi-barley and madhūlikā (for the śrāddha).

1.19

Having given (the guests) water to sip (before eating), he should recite the Sāvitrī three times and then 'madhu vātā …'

1.20

For those who died by falling from trees, by iron and the like, by lightning, water, poison and the like, or by beasts with claws and fangs, the fourteenth is prescribed.

1.21

Day by day he should give full handfuls of water for the departed, increasing them until the rice-balls are completed.

1.22

When a wife dies with her husband, on the day of his death or the next, impurity counts from the death, not from the cremation of the two.

Linked texts (1)

Pracetassmṛti (fragments) — Sanskrit