Garudapurana 2.39

English (machine translation) 2.39

Language: English

2.39.21 — 1 part

2.39.1

Tārkṣya said: / Tell me the rule regarding impurity, O Lord, taking pity upon me, / for the discernment of the mind and for the welfare of men.

2.39.2

Śrī Kṛṣṇa said: / In death and birth, O King of Birds, impurity is of four kinds; / for all four castes, avoidance is common [to them].

2.39.3

In both cases one should avoid the food of the family for ten days; / giving, receiving gifts, homa, and Vedic recitation cease.

2.39.4

Having ascertained the place, time, oneself, the material, the purpose of the material, / the possibility, and the condition, one should perform the rite.

2.39.5

When entering a cave or fire, and when people die in another country, / bathing with clothes on must be performed; immediate purification is ordained.

2.39.6

Those living beings that are unformed fetuses and those that have issued from the womb [as miscarriages], / for them there is no cremation rite, no impurity, and no water-libation rite.

2.39.7

Artisans, craftsmen, physicians, maidservants and manservants as well, / kings, and Vedic scholars are proclaimed to be immediately purified.

2.39.8

A performer of a sacrificial session, a vow-observer, one purified by mantras, an agnihotrin, and likewise a king— / for these there is no impurity, nor for anyone whom kings desire [to be exempt].

2.39.9

At childbirth, a twice-born person should not cause mingling among sapiṇḍas; / the mother becomes pure after ten days, the father is pure after bathing.

2.39.10

In marriages, festivals, and sacrifices, if impurity due to death or birth occurs in between, / the food [prepared from] previously dedicated wealth may be eaten; so said Manu.

2.39.11

Such is the impurity for all, but birth-impurity belongs to the mother and father; / birth-impurity belongs only to the mother; the father is pure after performing ablutions.

2.39.12

If another death or birth should occur within the ten days, / the brāhmaṇa remains impure for as long as that [first period] remains unfinished within the ten days.

2.39.13

When an observance or gift is undertaken, he should present it to a brāhmaṇa in need; / so it has been declared by the sages: according to the proper time, it is not corrupted.

2.39.14

With an earthen vessel, with water mixed with sesame seeds, / and likewise at the end with clay, a man, having bathed, becomes pure.

2.39.15

One should give a gift to the assembly: gold, a cow, and a bull to a twice-born person; / a kṣatriya [should give] double, and a vaiśya threefold,

2.39.16

and fourfold wealth must be given by a śūdra to a brāhmaṇa; / in this sequence the four castes are purified.

2.39.17

When one has died between seven and eight [years] and is destitute of domestic rites, / the impurity for him is remembered as lasting for one day for each year [of his age].

2.39.18

For those who perish for the sake of a brāhmaṇa, or for women, or in the seizure of cattle, / and for those who perish in battles, the impurity lasts for a single night.

2.39.19

There is no inauspiciousness for them in any auspicious rite of the brāhmaṇas; / those best of men who perform the funeral rites of a destitute corpse,

2.39.20

no inauspiciousness accrues to them or to the brāhmaṇa assisting them; / their immediate purification is declared to come from immersion in water.

2.39.21

When the śūdras have returned and stood at the edge of the water, / then they may be looked upon by the brāhmaṇa: so know the knowers of the Veda.

Thus ends the thirty-ninth chapter in the Pretakalpa in the Dharmakāṇḍa, the second part of the Uttarakhaṇḍa in the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa, in the dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Garuḍa, entitled 'Ascertainment of the Period of Impurity and Related Matters'.

Linked texts (1)

Garuḍapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit