Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c9.31

c9.31

§ 38. *Excommunication out of the caste.* Nobody can escape the performance of the prescribed penances if he does not wish to run the risk of being excommunicated out of the caste. The ceremonies of excommunication (*tyāga*), the outward sign of which is to overturn or break the water vessels and the victim of which becomes fallen (*patita*) and thereby forfeits all his rights, are according to M. 11, 183-188 and the parallel passages and commentaries somewhat as follows. If anybody has committed a great sin (*mahāpātaka*) and is therefore accused by his Guru, his relations or the king, he is, if he confesses his crime, ordered to approach an Ācārya who prescribes him the proper penance. If he does not comply with this and refuses to perform the penance inflicted on him, the ceremony of overturning water-pots takes place. His relations and his spiritual initiator hold a meeting on an inauspicious day, in which, just as if he were dead, they perform for him all the funeral ceremonies beginning with the offering of water. Upon this a slave or a servant or a kinsman of low lineage brings a broken pot from a heap of sweepings or an impure dish, fills it with water out of the water-pot of a female slave and upsets it with his left foot; on this the relations of the person who is going to be excommunicated touch it after loosening their hair; the female slave or even the relations themselves may upset the pot. In this act the name of the person who is going to be excommunicated is proclaimed and it is said that the offering is meant for him and that he is going to be deprived of water for all time to come (*anudakam karomi*).