History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c20.196

v2.c20.196

There are however faint traces that in ancient times this prohibition of Veda study was not so absolute and universal as the smṛtis make it. In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad IV. 1-2, we have the story of Jānaśruti Pautrāyaṇa and Raikva where the latter addresses Jānaśruti as śūdra and imparts to him the Saṁvarga (absorption) *vidyā*.³⁵⁹ It appears that Jānaśruti was a śūdra to whom the vidyā embodied in the Chāndogya (which is also Veda) was imparted. It is no doubt true that in the Vedāntasūtra³⁶⁰ (I. 3. 34) the word śūdra is explained not as referring to the class, but as meaning that sorrow (*śuc*) arose in Jānaśruti on hearing the contemptuous talk of the flamingoes about himself and he was overcome (from *dru*) by that (i. e. śūdra is derived from *śuc* and *dru*). But this far-fetched explanation had to be given because of the practice current in the times of the Vedāntasūtras that the śūdra is not entitled to study the Veda. Gaut. XII. 4 went so far as to prescribe 'if the śūdra intentionally listens for committing to memory the Veda, then his ears should be filled with (molten) lead and lac; if he utters the Veda, then his tongue may be cut off; if he has mastered the Veda his body should be hacked'.³⁶¹