English (machine translation)

Translation of The old Devala law-book — fragments (Devalasmṛti (fragments))

Language: English
Extent: 84 passages, 2,587 words
Text: complete digital text
Source: pramana · English by Claude Opus 5.5 (Pramāṇa, L2), not reviewed · CC BY 4.0

1 Purity and conduct — 22 parts
2 Food — 8 parts
3 Marriage and the family — 10 parts
4 Inheritance and women's property — 7 parts
5 Vows, the calendar and gifts — 19 parts
6 Ancestral rites — 9 parts
7 Impurity and expiation — 9 parts

Text

Purity and conduct

1.1

First, facing east, he should wash his feet slowly — facing north for a rite to the gods, south for one to the ancestors; having tied his top-knot and put on two clean washed garments, silent and composed, (he should sip water,) not rising and not looking about.

1.2

In the morning he should always void excrement and urine facing north, in the evening facing south; at the twilights he should avoid it.

1.3

Not in a pond, well or river, a cow-pen, a shrine, water, a road or ashes, in fire, a pleasant place or a cremation ground should he void excrement or urine.

1.4

One who knows dharma should not use the right hand for cleaning below, nor clean above the navel with the left hand.

1.5

Such purification is prescribed after discharging semen, urine or excrement, after eating and after the fatigue of a journey; elsewhere a lighter one is found.

1.6

After eating he should remove what sticks to the teeth and then sip water; what sticks to the teeth and cannot be removed he should regard like the teeth themselves. He should not try too often to remove it, for if a wound is made by pricking with a straw there is great impurity.

1.7

Woollen, silk, goat-hair, patterned silk, linen and fine cloth need little purification: by drying, sprinkling and the like.

1.8

A wise man should perform a religious rite in a garment washed by himself, never in one washed by a washerman, nor in an unwashed new one.

1.9

A man who touches one who has touched an impure person, or a second (in the chain), is purified by washing hands and feet with water and sipping.

1.10

If one touches another's human bone, fat, excrement, menstrual blood, urine, semen, marrow or blood, he becomes pure by bathing, wiping off the stains and sipping; touching his own, he is purified by wiping.

1.11

Having touched a Śvapāka, an outcaste, a cripple, a madman, a corpse-bearer, a woman who has given birth, a midwife, a menstruating woman, or village dogs, cocks and pigs, a man is purified at once by bathing with his clothes and head.

1.12

Water on the ground that does not smell, has taste, is clear and is not exhausted by a cow's drinking is held the purest; or water drawn duly in pure vessels is praised; but water drawn and kept overnight one should throw away.

1.13

If a putrid or burst corpse is seen in a well (after drinking from it), one should drink milk for three days; for a human corpse three times as much. A Brahmin who knowingly drinks water from a Caṇḍāla's well or vessel should perform the Sāntapana; if by mistake he is purified in three days.

1.14

Impure ground is purified in five or four ways, defiled ground in two or three, soiled ground in one. Burning, digging, smearing, sowing and washing by rain: these are the five kinds of purification of the ground.

1.15

Where a woman gives birth, where someone dies or is burnt, where Caṇḍālas have lived, where there is excrement and the like: such ground, full of filth, is called impure.

1.16

He should not curse himself in anger, nor sleep by day when healthy, nor scratch the ground with his nails, nor lie down among cows at night; he should not speak of another river at a river, of another mountain on a mountain, nor praise another (place) when at a holy ford or shrine.

1.17

Wood for the fire is not theft, grass for cattle is not theft, wild fruit is not theft, water from the ground is not theft.

1.18

Untruth is of two kinds, falsehood and breach of word: stating otherwise what one has learnt, seen, heard or done is falsehood; not acknowledging what one has earlier agreed to is breach of word.

1.19

One should not, from hatred or greed, abandon father, brother, son, daughter, sister, daughter-in-law, or a wife who has not fallen. The abandonment of a mother is nowhere taught in the treatises: even fallen or accused, a mother does not deserve to be abandoned.

1.20

The householder is of two kinds, the wanderer and the settled; of these the wanderer is superior, because he avoids officiating, teaching, accepting gifts and hoarding wealth; the settled one keeps to the six works, has servants, cattle, a house, village, wealth and grain, and follows the world.

1.21

The Brahmin by birth only, the Brahmin, the learned one, the expounder, the bhrūṇa, the one like a seer, the seer and the sage: these eight kinds of Brahmin are declared in the Veda; each later one is better than the former by distinction of learning and conduct.

1.22

He should not live by medicine, astrology, acting, carting, oil-pressing, liquor, scales, or by being his son's teacher; nor by lac, madder, meat, honey, metal or poison; by such work even an Ārya becomes a Vṛṣala.

Food

2.1

One who, having bathed and washed his feet, pure, adorned with garland and perfume, eats what remains of the five sacrifices, eats ambrosia.

2.2

A wise man should not eat seeds except in illness, for he destroys their endless fruits. He should not take food with milk at night, nor, having eaten (it), sleep at night; he should not reject milk offered, for milk is held pure.

2.3

Of water creatures, snails, oysters, nail-shells, porpoises, frogs and fish of misshapen form are not to be eaten.

2.4

Of vegetables, śleṣmātaka, vajraphalī, safflower, lotus tops and gṛñjana are declared not to be eaten; one should avoid onion, garlic, soured things and exudations altogether, and kucunda, white eggplant and gourd.

2.5

Food that has turned sour or been kept overnight they always call unfit, except honey, barley-meal, sweetmeats, ghee and molasses. What has been licked by dogs, cats, crows, cocks or mice he should not use for eating, for by dharma it is impure.

2.6

One's own slave, the barber, the cowherd, the potter and the ploughman: these five of Śūdra birth are men whose food even Brahmins may eat.

2.7

Whoever feeds a Brahmin without ghee when there is ghee in the house goes without doubt to a terrible hell hereafter.

2.8

Taking a little of every leaving of the meal, before sipping, he should offer it with water on the ground to those whose share is the leavings.

Marriage and the family

3.1

These four marriages, (given) with a libation of water, are lawful, without bride-price, fit for Brahmins, and save both families. The four (others) they know as marriages with bride-price, common (to all); the Rākṣasa only for the Kṣatriya, as approved (for him).

3.2

When one adorns a well-bred, virtuous maiden of good family and right age and gives her to a worthy man, that marriage is called Brāhma.

3.3

When the maiden is given duly after a bride-price has been paid, this marriage for money is called the sixth, the Āsura.

3.4

When one carries off a maiden asleep or intoxicated, or in distress, that marriage by negligence is called the eighth, the Paiśāca.

3.5

In Gāndharva marriages the wedding rite is to be performed again by the three classes, by agreement, with the fire as witness.

3.6

A father who duly gives three daughters in marriage, having brought them up and settled them properly, does not go to hell, nor does a woman who has borne only daughters.

3.7

If one who is well does not approach his wife when she has bathed after her season …

3.8

Of twins, the one whose face they see first when born: in him are established the line, the ancestors and seniority.

3.9

These twelve sons are declared for the continuance of the line: born of oneself, born of another, acquired, and come by chance; of them the first six are kinsmen and heirs, the other six (heirs) of the father only.

3.10

All these sons of a man without a son of his body are held to be heirs; but when a son of his body is born, seniority does not belong to them.

Inheritance and women's property

4.1

When the father has died, the sons should divide the father's property; while the father is alive and without fault, they have no ownership.

4.2

When the father is dead, the impotent, the leper, the madman, the idiot, the blind, the outcaste, the outcaste's child and one bearing (an ascetic's) emblem do not share in the inheritance; to them, except the outcaste, food and clothing are to be given; their sons, if free from the defect, receive the share of their father's inheritance.

4.3

For kinsmen living together, divided or undivided, there may be a fresh partition of the inheritance down to the fourth (generation); this is the rule.

4.4

Among sons, even of equal (class), a middle share is approved; to the eldest, if of upright conduct, he should assign a tenth part (in addition).

4.5

To the daughters the wealth for their marriage is to be given from the father's property; and for a sonless man his own lawfully born daughter is like a son.

4.6

Or the daughters equally; or the father too, when dying …

4.7

Maintenance, ornaments, the bride-price and gains are woman's property; she herself enjoys it, and the husband has no right to it except in distress. If he gives it away or enjoys it without need, he must repay it to the woman with interest; but he may use the woman's property to relieve a son's distress.

Vows, the calendar and gifts

5.1

The lunar day on which the sun rises is to be taken as the whole day for bathing, gifts, vows and the like; the lunar day on which the sun sets is (likewise) to be taken as the whole day for bathing, gifts, vows and the like.

5.2

When a difficult and critical situation arises, how should one break the fast on the twelfth?

5.3

For the householder the wise hold the 'night-meal' (nakta) to begin at the sight of the stars; for the ascetic it is in the eighth part of the day, since for him (eating) at night is forbidden.

5.4

What is eaten under a vow when half the day has passed, less by three mouthfuls, is called the single meal (ekabhakta).

5.5

Eating one meal on the tenth, avoiding meat and intercourse, he should fast on the eleventh in both fortnights.

5.6

Without taking the morning meal, having bathed and sipped water, composed, he should announce it to the Sun and the other deities and then undertake the vow.

5.7

A fast is destroyed by sleeping by day, by dice and by intercourse; but by drinking water in an emergency the fast is not destroyed.

5.8

Chastity, purity, truthfulness and abstaining from meat: these four are the most important things in vows; this is settled.

5.9

Fear of any creature, illness, inadvertence and a teacher's command: these, once, are declared by the treatises not to break a vow.

5.10

One who keeps the sacred fires, a draught-ox and a student: these three succeed only by eating; there is no success for them by fasting.

5.11

The moment of the solar transit is subtle and hard to know for fleshly eyes; thirty nāḍīs before and after its occurrence are sanctified.

5.12

As bathing and giving are prescribed at an eclipse of the sun by day, so at an eclipse of the moon at night.

5.13

The Gaṅgā, the Yamunā, the Sarasvatī that rises at the Plakṣa, and the others called nada (male rivers) are not defiled by the (rivers') menses.

5.14

The 'great night' is to be known as the two middle watches; in it one should not bathe, except for optional and occasional rites.

5.15

The auspicious bright third of Vaiśākha joined with Rohiṇī, the thirteenth of Nabhasya joined with Maghā … these are held to be the beginnings of the ages, making what is given imperishable.

5.16

Now we shall explain the rule of giving. Wealth bestowed with faith on a worthy recipient who has been named is called a gift; its explanation will be given.

5.17

Of all gifts the gift of food is the highest; who else is better than the giver of food, the giver of life?

5.18

On the fifteenth, the fourteenth and the eighth a wise man should avoid oil, meat, intercourse and the razor.

5.19

When (many) come to the holy places together, they should go (to bathe) in the order of Brahmins and the rest; and, to protect those without sons, in the order of their arrival.

Ancestral rites

6.1

By this rule he should perform the śrāddha once a year, or twice or four times as his faith allows, or every month, or every day.

6.2

Likewise the giver, having invited (the Brahmins), bathed in the morning with his clothes on, should begin with new vessels, together with his kinsmen.

6.3

When the rite for the ancestors is over, covering the lamp with his hand, sipping water and washing his hands, he should feed his kinsmen with what remains; when they have eaten he should feed his own servants; afterwards he himself and his wife should eat the rest of the śrāddha.

6.4

If a Brahmin who has performed a śrāddha does not eat of it at all, the gods do not accept the offerings, nor the ancestors theirs.

6.5

At a śrāddha he should not shed tears, nor chatter or laugh together, nor be distracted, angry or anxious about anything.

6.6

One should never make a śrāddha begin with the gods nor ever end with the gods; (but) a śrāddha occasioned by a death one should begin and end with the gods.

6.7

If an obstacle arises when the single-person śrāddha is due, he should give it carefully on the same lunar day in another month.

6.8

Even with a single Brahmin one should perform the śrāddha of six rice-balls; he should have six guest-offerings given there, and likewise give the oblation to the six.

6.9

The gods drink (the water wrung) from the head (of the bather's garment), the ancestors from the mouth, the gandharvas from the eyes, and all creatures from below.

Impurity and expiation

7.1

At a birth or a death impurity always pursues the sapiṇḍas and the mother's kin, wherever they may go.

7.2

(The impurity incurred by) touching (a dead man) of the Śūdra, Vaiśya, Kṣatriya and Brahmin classes is to be known as a third of their own period of impurity, as the treatises prescribe.

7.3

When impurities overlap, purification is prescribed by the later one; if (the second) occurs after an equal day, it is governed by the former. When impurities coincide, purification is to be known by the heavier; when a death and a birth coincide, the death is the heavier.