English (machine translation)
Translation of The Law Code of Devala (Devalasmṛti)
- Language
- English
- Extent
- 95 passages, 2,281 words
- Text
- complete digital text
- Source
- pramana-mt · Machine translation by Gemini 3.8 Flash (2026-10-21) of in.niti.dharma.upasmrti.devala*alt · Machine output without human authorship: no copyright is claimed (CC0 1.0). The original text keeps its own…
Contents
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- 90 — 1 part
Text
p1
Oṃ Tat Sat. Salutation to Brahman.
p2
Now begins the Devalasmṛti.
p3
Salutation to glorious Gaṇeśa.
p4
Now the exposition of penance:
1
Having approached Devala, best of sages, / who was seated comfortably on the bank of the Indus, all the sages spoke these words:
2
“Revered sir, how indeed may Brahmins, Kṣatriyas, / Vaiśyas, and Śūdras in order attain purification when carried off by Mlecchas?
3
How should their bathing, how their cleansing, how their penance be? / What conduct should they adopt? Tell us that in full detail.”
4
Devala said: / “One should avoid the whole country of Triśaṅku for twelve yojanas, / to the north of the Mahānadī and to the south of Kīkaṭa.
5
I shall explain the penance in detail, O great sages.
6
At a death or a birth, for female slaves, / and for wives taken in natural order of castes, / purification is equal to that of the master; when the master dies, it is by uterine kinship.
7
If what is undrinkable has been drunk, and what is inedible has been eaten, / and intercourse with an illicit woman has been performed by a Brahmin carried off by Mlecchas,
8
I shall declare his purification up to a duration of one year: / a Cāndrāyaṇa combined with a Parāka is ordained for a Brahmin;
9
one Parāka together with a Pādakṛcchra for a Kṣatriya; / half a Parāka for a Vaiśya; and five days for a Śūdra.
10
He should have the penance performed [by them] after they have shed nails and hair; / for of all four castes there is otherwise impurity.
11
When their body has been devoid of penance, / the rite of passage is to be performed there without the girdle and staff.
12
If the staff and girdle were lost while carried off by Mlecchas or by Śūdras, / all his rites starting with the rite of passage should be performed according to rule.
13
At the conclusion of the rite of passage, gifts to Brahmins and a milch cow as a fee / should be given by those desiring purification, [along with] a horse, cattle, land, and gold.
14
Then indeed he enters into the row of his kin, not otherwise; / and approaching his own wife according to rule, he becomes pure.
15
Now, when he has been carried off by Mlecchas for more than a year, / once the penance has been completed, he is purified by bathing in the Gaṅgā.
16
Having gone to Sindhu, Sauvīra, Saurāṣṭra, or the inhabitants of the frontier, / or to Kaliṅga, Koṅkaṇa, and Vaṅga, he is worthy of the rite of passage.
17
Those who have been forcibly enslaved by Mlecchas, Cāṇḍālas, or Dasyus, / and made to perform impure acts such as killing cattle and other living creatures,
18
cleaning leftovers and eating the same, / and consuming the flesh of donkeys, camels, and village hogs,
19
as well as intercourse with their women and dining together with them, / if he has stayed for a month, a Prājāpatya penance purifies a twice-born person.
20
A Cāndrāyaṇa or a Parāka is [prescribed] for one who keeps the sacred fire; / one who has stayed for a year should perform both a Cāndrāyaṇa and a Parāka.
21
A Śūdra who has stayed for a year should drink barley gruel for half a month; / a Śūdra who has stayed for only a month is purified by a quarter-Kṛcchra.
22
Beyond a year, a penance is to be prescribed by the best of the twice-born; / and after four years he assumes that [Mleccha] nature.
23
For that wicked person whose penance admits of no diminution, / shaving of the hair on the private parts, armpits, head, and brows must be performed.
24
Having undertaken the penance, he should carry out the penance: / he should bathe at the three periods of the day, wearing washed garments, with his senses subdued,
25
with kuśa-grass in hand, speaking the truth—thus has it been declared by Devala— / for a year, or half a year, or a month, or half a month.
26
What is the purification of one who was forcibly carried off by Mlecchas? / If a Śūdra has stayed for a year, purification is by a Cāndrāyaṇa;
27
for half a year, a Parāka; for three months, half a Parāka; / for a month, a Pādakṛcchra, shorn of nails and hair.
28
Three-quarters [of the twice-born penance] is stated for a Kṣatriya; one should assign half for a Vaiśya; / the penance stated for a twice-born, one-quarter of it one should assign for a Śūdra.
29
At the conclusion of the penance, a milch cow is considered the fee; / thus, seated at the end of the family [assembly], he is not tainted.
30
One who is eighty years old, or a child under sixteen, / women, and the sick are worthy of half the penance.
31
For one under eleven years and older than five years, / a brother, a father, or another guardian should perform the penance.
32
He should perform the entire vow himself; otherwise he is not purified at all. / He should perform an oblation with sesame seeds, and perform recitation tirelessly.
33
Through conversation, touch, breath, traveling together, sitting together, and eating together, / through officiating at sacrifices, teaching, and marital alliance, sin is transferred among men.
34
By officiating at sacrifices, forming marital alliances, study [together], and dining together / with an outcaste, one falls instantly; of this there is no doubt.
35
One falls after a year by associating with an outcaste, / performing sacrifices for him, sitting together, rituals, and the like for all desirable objects.
36
Hereafter I shall declare this auspicious penance / for women carried off by Mlecchas in the event of forced cohabitation:
37
When a Brahmin, Kṣatriya, Vaiśya, or Śūdra woman has been carried off by outcasts, / what proper penance is prescribed for the Brahmin woman?
38
If a Brahmin woman serves food to a Mleccha or eats inedible food, / purification is then by a Parāka, and by a quarter less for each successive caste.
39
If sexual intercourse was not had by them, and inedible food was not eaten, / then purification is by three nights [of fasting] if only Mleccha food was eaten.
40
When a menstruating woman is touched by a Mleccha or another, / having fasted for three nights and bathed, she is purified by the five products of the cow.
41
When a Brahmin woman and a Kṣatriya woman touch each other while menstruating, / purification takes place after three nights, according to the word of Devala.
42
When a Brahmin woman and a Śūdra woman touch each other while menstruating, / she is purified after five nights without food, by the five products of the cow.
43
The Brahmin woman should fast, the Kṣatriya woman should bathe; / for women of the Vaiśya caste, [a bath] with clothes on; for a Śūdra woman, a nighttime meal should be prescribed.
44
Eating Mleccha food, touching a Mleccha, and dwelling together with a Mleccha / for a year or more than a year is purified by three nights [of fasting].
45
For those dwelling in wildernesses, abducted by Mlecchas or thieves, / having eaten edible or inedible food out of hunger or fear,
46
the expiation of the four castes upon regaining their own country: / a Brahmin should perform one Kṛcchra, a Kṣatriya half of that, / a Vaiśya three-quarters, and a Śūdra is purified by a quarter.
47
If a woman taken forcibly by Mlecchas has been made pregnant, / the pregnant woman does not attain purification; the other is clean after three nights.
48
The woman who bears a child from a Mleccha, willingly or unwillingly, / whether a Brahmin, Kṣatriya, Vaiśya, Śūdra, or of other castes,
49
[If] she should consume forbidden food, how could her purification take place? / The Sāṃtapana penance is the purification, and cleansing the womb with clarified butter.
50
When a fetus is discharged into the womb of women by a man of a different caste, / that woman remains impure until she expels that dart [of the womb].
51
Once that dart has come forth, or upon the appearance of menses, / then that woman becomes pure, like spotless gold.
52
That child is to be given away to another; it should never be taken as one's own. / For one should shun [it] in one's caste; otherwise, there would be intermixture.
53
For one who was seized by force by Mlecchas for five, six, or seven years, / up to ten or twenty [years], his purification is prescribed.
54
A pair of Prājāpatya penances is prescribed as his purification. / Beyond this there is no purification; a penance indeed is for one who has dwelt together [with them].
55
He who has dwelt together with Mlecchas from five up to twenty / years—his purification is stated to be two Cāndrāyaṇas.
56
Having clipped the hair of the armpits, the privities, the head, the beard, and the eyebrows, / [and] then trimmed the nails and hair of hands and feet, he becomes pure.
57
The best of the twice-born who does not know how to grant penance / does not give purification to another; he becomes a partaker of that impurity.
58
And if one should sit down together with a Mleccha in an assembly or by touch, / one should bathe with one's clothes on and fast for one day.
59
If a mother or father should somehow become a Mleccha, / there is no death-impurity for one who is lost, according to the word of Devala.
60
The son, having discarded the mother and likewise the father, / should then offer the remaining funeral ball indeed to the grandfather.
61
To women, Śūdras, and likewise to outcasts, / the five products of the cow must not be given; it may be given without mantras.
62
Varuṇa is declared the deity in the cow's urine, Fire in the cow dung, / Soma in the milk, Wind in the curds, and the Sun in the clarified butter.
63
Cow urine is from a copper-colored [cow], and cow dung from a white one; / milk is from a gold-colored [cow], and curds from a dark-colored cow.
64
Clarified butter is from a black-colored one; the domains of colors are distinguished. / Water may be of any color; the color of which [water] is not grasped?
65
Six mātrās of cow urine and cow dung, and water with kuśa grass; / three mātrās of clarified butter and milk; curds should be ten mātrās.
66
In a rite, the five products of the cow by measure / must be given according to the stated penance by expounders of the Veda for all castes.
67
He who administers it otherwise, that twice-born person becomes liable to penance.
68
He who, having milked a tawny cow, drinks the milk warm from the stream, / this penance instituted by Vyāsa purifies even a dog-cooker.
69
One should offer a sesamum sacrifice and tirelessly murmur [mantras]; / with the 'Forehead of Viṣṇu' mantra, one performing penance becomes purified.
70
What is the use of saying much here? A sesamum sacrifice is prescribed. / Having given sesamum and eaten sesamum, one should effect the removal of sin.
71
When Brahmins perform bathing, the fruit of pilgrimage, and austerity, / sin departs from the performer, and its fruit is attained by him.
72
The penance has been expounded as stated by Devala / and by other sages; you should not consider it otherwise.
73
A gift of gold, a gift of a cow, a gift of land, and daily food for cows— / he should bestow [these] upon Brahmins; the penitent becomes pure.
74
By dwelling together for five days, conversing, and eating together, / one is purified by consuming the five products of the cow and giving a gift.
75
If the best of the twice-born should dwell in the habitation of Mlecchas / for one, two, three, or four years, [purification is] gradually by applying the substances:
76
On one day [he drinks] cow urine, on two days cow dung; / after three days mixed with milk; on the fourth combined with curds;
77
On the fifth filled with clarified butter: one should administer the five products of the cow. / For five, seven, ten, fifteen, and twenty days,
78
I shall proclaim [the expiation for] dwelling together and the bodily purification of the twice-born: / for five days it should be the five products of the cow; a Pādakṛcchra for ten days;
79
A Parāka for fifteen [days]; and an Atikṛcchra for twenty. / Into whose belly the five products of the cow enter according to the rule,
80
whatever misdeed belongs to that embodied being, all of it perishes. / For a Brahmin carried away by Mlecchas for five, seven, eight, ten, twelve days, or twenty, / the five products of the cow are the purification.
81
Having consumed the five products of the cow—cow's milk, curd, urine, clarified butter, [and dung]— / one should fast on the next day; one should observe the Sāṃtapana penance.
82
A separate Sāṃtapana with the substances for six days, accompanied by fasting [on the seventh]: / this seven-day penance is known as the Mahāsāṃtapana.
83
With the water of palāśa leaves, udumbara, lotus, bilva leaves, and kuśa grass, / drunk each day respectively, the Pūrṇakṛcchra is declared.
84
One should drink hot milk, hot clarified butter, and hot water, each one on successive days, / and fast for one night: the Taptakṛcchra is purifying.
85
With eating once [by day], eating at night, [eating] unasked-for food, / and with one fast, the Pādakṛcchra is declared.
86
The Kṛcchrātikṛcchra is [subsisting] on milk for twenty-one days; / the Parāka is proclaimed as fasting for twelve days.
87
Subsisting on oilcake, vegetables, buttermilk, water, and barley-meal on successive days / and fasting for one night is proclaimed as the mild penance (Saumyakṛcchra).
88
By repeating each of these for three nights in due order, / this fifteen-day [penance] is to be known as the Tulāpuruṣa.
89
According to the increase of the lunar day in the bright fortnight, one should eat balls [of food] the size of a peahen's egg; / one should decrease the balls one by one [in the dark fortnight]: one should perform the Kṛcchracāndrāyaṇa.
90
In whatever manner, [the total] of the balls is two hundred and forty. / Thus is proclaimed the Dharmaśāstra composed by Devala.
90.p1
Here ends the Devalasmṛti. / [Colophon text: […]].