Skandapurana 4.36
English (machine translation) 4.36
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4.36.1
Skanda said:
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"I will state further particulars of right conduct, O pot-born [Agastya],
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Having heard which even an ordinary man becomes wise and does not enter the darkness of ignorance.
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Brahmins, kṣatriyas, and vaiśyas—the three classes are known as the twice-born:
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First born from the mother, and second from the upanayana.
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Their rites are Vedic, beginning with conception and ending at the cremation ground.
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The wise man should deposit the semen during the fertile season, avoiding Mūla and Maghā.
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Before quickening, the puṃsavana [is done], then the sīmantonnayana
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In the sixth or eighth month; and then, once born, the birth rite (jātakarma).
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The naming on the eleventh day; taking out from the house in the fourth month;
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The first feeding of food in the sixth month; tonsure in the [third] year, or according to family tradition.
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In this way the sin arising from the seed and born of the womb is pacified.
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For women, these rites are performed silently, but marriage is accompanied by mantras.
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In the seventh or eighth year a brahmin is fit for the Sāvitrī [initiation];
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A king in the eleventh, and a vaiśya in the twelfth, or according to family tradition.
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For the increase of Vedic radiance, a brahmin is fit in the fifth year;
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A king desiring strength should take the muñja-girdle in the sixth, and a vaiśya in the eighth.
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And the guru should teach the Veda preceded by the great vyāhṛtis,
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And having initiated that student, he should engage him in purification and right conduct.
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He should perform purification according to the rule declared before, and likewise the sipping of water,
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Having cleaned teeth and tongue, and having purified bodily impurities.
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Having bathed with mantras to the water-deities, carefully having restrained his breaths,
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And having performed the standing worship of the sun at both twilights,
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And having then performed the fire sacrifice, he should salute the brahmins,
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Saying: 'I of such-and-such gotra salute [you].'
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For one devoted to salutation and devoted to serving elders,
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Life span, fame, strength, and intellect increase day by day.
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Called by the guru, he studies; he should offer to him what he has received;
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In action, mind, and speech, he should always act for his welfare.
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Those who should be taught are: one who asks out of righteousness, not for wealth; the virtuous, the trustworthy, the giver of knowledge, and the giver of wealth.
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[and those who are] capable, grateful, pure, free from malice, and free from envy. (15)
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He should wear a girdle, a staff, a sacred thread, and an antelope skin;
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he should beg alms for his subsistence among irreproachable brahmins. (16)
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For a brahmin, a kṣatriya, and a vaiśya, at the beginning, middle, and end,
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the begging of alms should respectively be marked by the word bhavat. (17)
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Restraining his speech and permitted by his teacher, he should eat his food without despising it;
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he should not eat food provided by a single person, [except that] he may eat [it] at a śrāddha and in times of distress. (18)
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Overeating produces unhealthiness, shortens life, and bars heaven;
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it destroys merit and is hated by the world; therefore, one should avoid it. (19)
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The best among twice-born should nowhere eat twice during a single day;
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knowing the rules of the agnihotra, a twice-born should eat in the evening and morning. (20)
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Honey, meat, injury to living beings, gazing at the sun, applying collyrium,
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[consorting with] women, stale food, remnants of meals, and slander he must avoid. (21)
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The maximum time for initiation for a brahmin, a kṣatriya, and a vaiśya
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is up to the sixteenth, the twenty-second, and the twenty-fourth year [respectively]. (22)
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Beyond this they are not to be consecrated; they are fallen, devoid of dharma.
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By means of the sacrifice called Vrātyastoma one may rid oneself of that fallen state. (23)
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One should not enter into relations with those who have fallen from the Sāvitrī. / For the twice-born, the skin [should be] of a black antelope, a ruru deer, and a goat, respectively. (24)
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The skins of the twice-born are, in order, black antelope, deer, and goat.
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They should wear, in order, hempen, linen, and woolen garments. / The girdle of a brahmin should be made of muñja grass; of a kṣatriya, bowstring; (25)
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The girdle of a twice-born is made of muñja grass, and that of the arm-born is of bowstring bowstring-hemp.
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it should be threefold, smooth, and even; but that of a vaiśya [should be] made of hemp threads. (25)
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In the absence of muñja, it should be made of kuśa grass, aśmantaka, or balvaja,
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furnished with one knot, or with three, or with five. (26)
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The sacred thread should be, in order, of cotton, hemp, and wool;
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it should be three-stranded and twisted upward for the increase of life. (27)
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The staff of a brahmin should be of bilva or palāśa; of a king,
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of nyagrodha or a young branch [of badara]; of a vaiśya, of pīlu or udumbara. (28)
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In height, it should reach up to the crown of the head, to the forehead, or to the nose;
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the staff for a brahmin, a kṣatriya, and a vaiśya should have intact bark and not be marred by fire. (29)
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Having circumambulated the fire from left to right and worshiped the sun,
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equipped with a staff, skin, and sacred thread, he should beg alms as prescribed. (30)
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Beginning with his mother, mother's sister, sister, and father's sister,
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these should be begged from first; he should utter the solicitation to them. (31)
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As long as he studies the Veda, observing the Vedic observances,
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so long should he remain a student; thereafter, having bathed, he should become a householder. (32)
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This [student] is declared to be the upakurvāṇa; the second among them is the naiṣṭhika.
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He should remain in the teacher's house for as long as his life lasts. (33)
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He who, having entered the householder stage, again observes student celibacy,
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is neither an ascetic nor a forest hermit; he is excluded from all life stages. (34)
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A twice-born should not remain even for a single day without an āśrama;
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for one who remains without an āśrama must perform expiation. (35)
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Recitation, oblations, vows, gifts, personal study, and libations to the ancestors—
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performing [these] while fallen from his āśrama, he does not obtain their fruit. (36)
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The girdle, skin, and staff are the distinguishing marks of the student;
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Vedic sacrifices and the like of the householder; [untrimmed] nails and hair of the forest dweller; (37)
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the triple staff and so forth are declared to be the marks of the ascetic.
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Lacking these marks, one must perform expiation day after day. (38)
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A worn-out water pot, staff, sacred thread, and antelope skin—
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throwing these into the water, he should take other ones with mantras. (39)
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One should perform the ceremony of shaving the hair in the sixteenth year, and in order,
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in the twenty-second and twenty-fourth [for the others], for the attainment of the householder state. (40)
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Above austerity, sacrifice, vows, and every auspicious rite,
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the Śruti alone is the cause of the prosperity of final beatitude for twice-born men. (41)
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At the beginning and completion of the Veda, one should always utter the praṇava;
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for what is recited without 'oṃ' is fruitless and does not lead to accomplishment. (42)
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The three-footed supreme Gāyatrī is declared to be the mouth of the Veda,
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together with the three great vyāhṛtis preceded by the praṇava. (43)
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A self-controlled man who repeats this triad a little over a thousand times
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outside [the village] every day for a month is released even from a great sin. (44)
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He who practices this every day throughout the year with undivided mind,
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having a body of ether and a purified self, attains the supreme Brahman. (45)
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The three syllables of the oṃkāra, the triad 'bhūḥ, bhuvaḥ, svaḥ',
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and the three lines of the Sāvitrī were milked by the three Vedas. (46)
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If a Veda-knowing brahmin recites this syllable and this [verse] preceded by the vyāhṛtis
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at the two twilights, he is endowed with the merit of the Vedas. (47)
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He enjoys ten times the fruit of a ritual sacrifice of prescribed rules.
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A sacrifice of recitation is declared to be ten times greater than a prescribed rite. (48)
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A whispered recitation is a hundred times that, and a mental recitation a thousand times that. (49)
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Having studied the Vedas, or two Vedas, or one Veda according to his ability, a twice-born
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reaps the fruit of the gift of the earth filled with gold. (50)
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To practice austerity, the best of the twice-born should constantly study the Śruti alone;
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for the study of the Śruti is declared to be the supreme austerity of a brahmin. (51)
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He who, having abandoned the study of the Śruti, wishes to read something else,
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abandons a milch cow and wishes to milk a village sow. (52)
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And when a twice-born performs the initiation of a student and teaches him the Veda,
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along with the ritual manuals and secret teachings, the wise know him as an ācārya. (53)
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He who teaches a portion of the Śruti, or its auxiliary limbs,
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for the sake of a livelihood, is called an upādhyāya by the learned. (54)
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That twice-born who performs rites according to the rule, beginning with the impregnation rite,
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and nourishes him with food, is celebrated here as the guru. (55)
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He who, being chosen by someone, performs the establishment of the sacred fire, the cooked offerings, and sacrifices such as the Agniṣṭoma,
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is called his officiating priest (ṛtvij) here. (56)
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An ācārya exceeds ten upādhyāyas, and a father exceeds a hundred ācāryas;
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but a mother exceeds a thousand fathers in venerability. (57)
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Seniority among brahmins is through knowledge, but among the arm-born (kṣatriyas) through valor;
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among vaiśyas it is through grain and wealth, but among the foot-born (śūdras) through age alone. (58)
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Just as an elephant made of wood, just as a deer made of leather,
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so is a brahmin who does not study: these three merely bear the name. (59)
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If a celibate twice-born involuntarily discharges semen in a dream,
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he should bathe, worship the sun, and recite three times the verse beginning with 'punar mām'. (60)
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In the houses of those devoted to their own duty and engaged in Vedic rites and sacrifices,
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a celibate student, restrained, should beg for food daily. (61)
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If, without being sick, he does not go begging and does not kindle the sacred fire
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for seven nights, he must perform the vow of an avakīrṇin (one who has broken his vow of celibacy). (62)
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He should not behave as he pleases within the sight of his guru;
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he should not utter his name without an honorific title, even in his absence. (63)
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Where censure of the guru takes place, or where there is slander,
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one should either cover both ears or depart from that place to elsewhere. (64)
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By slandering the guru one becomes a donkey; a censurer of the guru becomes a dog;
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an envious person becomes a petty insect; one who enjoys his property becomes a worm. (65)
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A guru's wife who is a young woman should not be greeted by touching her feet
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anywhere by one who is twenty years of age and knows virtues and faults. (66)
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The nature of women is fickle, and that is remembered as a danger for men;
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wise men are never careless with women. (67)
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Because they thoroughly subdue both the wise and the unwise,
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and bring them under their control like a bird tied with a string. (68)
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One should not remain in solitude with a mother, a daughter, or a sister;
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the senses are powerful in this world and delude even the learned. (69)
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Just as one who digs with effort reaches water in the ground,
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so the disciple reaches knowledge through service to the guru. (70)
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If the sun should rise or set over a celibate student
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while sleeping due to negligence, he should fast for the day while reciting [sacred verses]. (71)
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The suffering that parents endure at the birth of a son
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cannot be repaid even in a hundred years. (72)
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Therefore, one should always do what is pleasing to the two of them and to the guru;
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when those three are thoroughly pleased, all austerity is fulfilled. (73)
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Service to those three is said to be the supreme austerity;
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whatever one does while transgressing them can never succeed. (74)
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Only by honoring these three may the wise person conquer the three worlds. (75)
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He shines in heaven like a god, increasing their delight.
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Through devotion to his mother [he conquers] the earth; likewise through devotion to his father, the mid-region;
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and by serving his guru, the successful man likewise conquers heaven.
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This indeed is declared to be the four aims of human life for men,
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namely, the satisfaction of these [three]; any other duty is called secondary.
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Having studied the Vedas, or two Vedas, or even one Veda in due order,
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with his celibate studenthood unswerving, the twice-born should then enter the householder stage.
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Celibacy remains unbroken through the grace of the Lord of All;
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and the supreme grace of the Lord of All brings about the attainment of Kāśī.
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Through the attainment of Kāśī knowledge arises, and from knowledge one attains nirvāṇa;
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for right conduct among the wise is an endeavor directed toward nirvāṇa.
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Just as right conduct exists in the household, it does not exist in any other stage of life.
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Having studied all the branches of knowledge, one should finally enter the householder stage of life.
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There is nothing superior to the householder stage if the wife is obedient;
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for harmony between husband and wife is the cause of the flourishing of the three ends of life.
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If a wife is compliant, what need is there even for heaven?
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If a wife is hostile, what need is there even for hell?
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The householder stage is for the sake of happiness, and a wife is the root of that happiness;
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and she is a [true] wife who is modest; modesty is surely [the basis of] the three ends of life.
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Women are compared to leeches by the dull-witted;
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upon reflection, there is a vast difference between doe-eyed women and leeches.
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A poor leech draws only blood,
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whereas a woman constantly takes away the mind, wealth, strength, and happiness.
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Skillful, prolific in children, virtuous, pleasant in speech, and obedient—
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endowed with these qualities, she is Śrī herself in female form.
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Having bathed with the guru's permission and having completed his vow and Vedic study,
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he should then marry a wife of equal class, endowed with auspicious marks.
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She who is not of the father's gotra and also not a sapiṇḍa of the mother
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is fit for marriage for twice-born men, for the increase of dharma.
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In making a marital alliance, one should avoid a family afflicted with epilepsy, consumption, or leukoderma;
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likewise, one should avoid one under public reproach, and one producing only daughters.
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Free from disease, having brothers, slightly younger than himself,
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gentle-faced, and sweet-spoken—such a wife a twice-born man should marry.
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Not named after a mountain, a constellation, or a tree, nor bearing the name of a river or a serpent,
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nor bearing the name of a bird, a snake, or a servant: the wise man should marry one with a gentle name.
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Nor should she have redundant or missing limbs; she should not be too tall or emaciated,
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neither hairless nor overly hairy, nor having rough or thick hair on her head.
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He should not out of infatuation marry a maiden of a low family;
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from marrying a low woman, even his offspring falls into debasement.
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Having examined the bodily marks first, he should then marry the maiden.
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A maiden of auspicious marks and right conduct increases the lifespan of her husband.
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Thus the conduct of a celibate student has been fully expounded to you.
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O Pot-born Sage, in this context I shall now describe the bodily marks of women.
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Thus ends the thirty-sixth chapter in the first half of the Kāśīkhaṇḍa in the fourth part of the glorious Skandapurāṇa, containing eighty-one thousand verses.
Linked texts (1)
- Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit