Dakshasmriti 6
English (machine translation) 6
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Contents
6.1
I shall explain birth-and-death impurity arising from birth and death; / and a third lasting for the duration of life, duly in regular sequence:
6.2
Immediate purification, one day, two, three, and four days, / ten days, twelve days, a fortnight, and a month,
6.3
and another ending at death; these ten alternatives in birth-and-death impurity / I shall explain completely in the sequence stated.
6.4
He who knows the meaning of the text, the Veda along with its auxiliary sciences, / along with the ritual manuals and secret lore, and is devoted to ritual, does not incur birth-and-death impurity.
6.5
For kings, officiating priests, consecrated persons, in the case of an infant, in another country, / and for those keeping a vow or performing a sacrificial session, immediate purification is prescribed.
6.6
One day is declared for him who is endowed with the fires and the Veda; / for one lesser and far lesser, two, three, and four days.
6.7
A brāhmaṇa by birth is purified in ten days, a ruler of the earth in twelve days, / a vaiśya in fifteen days, and a śūdra is purified in a month.
6.7.p1
Moreover, whoever eats without having bathed, without having offered into the fire, / and without having given [a gift], for every such person, birth-and-death impurity is declared.
6.8
For the diseased, the miserly, the one always overwhelmed with debt, / the one devoid of rites, the fool, and especially the one subjugated by women,
6.9
for the one whose mind is attached to vices, the one constantly dependent on others, / and the one devoid of faith and renunciation, birth-and-death impurity ends only in ashes.
6.10
There may never be birth-and-death impurity, or birth-and-death impurity may last for the duration of life; / thus, according to distinction of qualities, birth-and-death impurity has been declared.
6.11
When birth impurity and death impurity coincide, and likewise in the case of death impurity following birth impurity, / for those whose impurities are combined, purification is attained through death impurity.
6.12
Giving a gift, receiving a gift, fire offering, and Vedic self-recitation cease. / After ten days, a duty-knowing brāhmaṇa is entitled to purification.
6.13
And a gift should be given according to rule, for it is indeed a savior from misfortune. / If a death occurs at the end of a death impurity, or a birth at the end of a birth impurity,
6.14
for those with combined purifications, it is purified by the earlier impurity. / In both cases, the food of the family is not eaten for ten days.
6.15
On the fourth day, the collection of bones must be performed by twice-born men; / then, after the collection, the touching of limbs is prescribed.
6.16
When a single husband has wives in the regular order of the castes, / the birth-and-death impurity at childbirth is ten, six, three days, or one day [respectively].
6.17
At the time of a sacrifice, in marriage, during the ruin of a realm, / and likewise while oblations are being offered in the fire, there is no impurity in a death or birth impurity.
6.18
This entire impurity has been declared for normal times; / in a birth-and-death impurity, there is no birth-and-death impurity for anyone who has fallen into distress.
6.18.p1
Thus ends the sixth chapter in the legal treatise of Dakṣa.
Linked texts (1)
- Dakṣasmṛti — Dakṣa, Sanskrit