The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s6.134

c2.s6.134

* The Sūtra-rules, with similar but not always identical ritual, are given Āçv. G. S. i. 7; Gobh. G. S. ii. 1; Āp. G. S. ii. 4, 5, etc. The first notes as a prefatory remark that the rituals are very different in detail; the incorporation of the ‘seven steps’ is shown, e. g. Āp. loc. cit. ii. 4. 17; Çāṅkh. G. S. i. 14. 5; Pār. G. S. i. 8. 1. The loose expression of the Epic is given in iii. 297. 23, sāptapadam māitram; xiii. 51. 35, id.; and often. As the ritual embodies a pan-Aryan rite (for circumambulation of fire, stepping upon a stone, and other details, are shared by other Aryan peoples), we may perhaps see in the seven-steps rite a foreign element incorporated later into the Aryan community. The steps are strictly not round the fire, but to the north. According to rule, the pair take hands only when of equal caste; as otherwise a woman of warrior-caste holds an arrow; of people-caste, a goad; of slave-caste, the hem of the groom’s garment. In practice, however, in the case of a king wedding a priest’s daughter, the expression ‘takes her by the hand and lives with her’ is indicative of an informal marriage: jagrāha vidhivat pāṇāv uvāsa ca tayā saha (çakuntalayā), i. 73. 20 : cf. ib. 47. 5. A most interesting view of the pan-Aryan ritual has appeared of late (1888), Die Hochzeitsbräuche der Esten, etc., by Schroeder. For India especially, compare Haas (Ind. Stud. v. 321), who thinks the seven steps are first of general character to solemnize any pact, as of friendship between two men (so above), but regards this also as pan-Aryan. See above, on xiii. 44. 55.