History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c20.105

v2.c20.105

5. 95) asks the king to treat as śūdras brāhmaṇas who engage in rearing cattle, in the sale of commodities, who are artisans and actors, who are mere servants and money-lenders. Vide Manu X. 92 quoted above (p. 127). Parāśara (VIII. 24) says ²⁹⁴ that a brāhmaṇa who does not repeat the Gāyatrī *mantra* is more impure than even a śūdra and that brāhmaṇas who do not offer oblations to sacred fires, who are bereft of saṁdhyā adoration and who do not study the veda are all śūdras and that therefore one should study at least a portion of the veda if he cannot study the whole. Manu (V. 4)²⁹⁵ sums up in one place the reasons why brāhmaṇas are seized by Death before the allotted span of human life 'on account of not studying the Vedas, on account of giving up the rules of conduct prescribed for them, through idleness and through the faults arising from (partaking forbidden) food, Death desires to kill brāhmaṇas.'