History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c29.33

v2.c29.33

The orthodox pandits further rely upon Āp. Dh. S. I. 3. 10. 6, its explanation in the Mit. on Yāj. III. 17 and the explanation of the Mit. in the commentary, Bālambhaṭṭī. Āpastamba's sūtra is delivered when the context is about cessation of Veda study (anadhyāya). Āp. says '(the student) shall cease studying Veda for 12 days if his mother, father or teacher dies. In the case of the death of these he must also bathe for the same number of days. Persons who are younger than (the relation deceased) must shave their hair. ¹³⁸³ Some declare that students who have returned home on completion of brahmacarya shall never shave except when engaged in a śrauta sacrifice. In sattras even the top-lock must be shaved'. In this there is no reference to women, much less to widows and lesser still to the tonsure of widows. The reference to śrauta sacrifices, sattra, and śikhā indicates that only males are in view. The Mit. on Yāj. III. 17 explains at length Āp. Dh. S. I. 3. 10. 6. It gives two senses of 'anubhāvin' viz. those who experience sorrow on the death of a person i. e. his sapiṇḍas (from the root 'bhū' with 'anu,' to experience) and those who are born after the deceased i. e. who are younger than the deceased (from 'bhū' with 'anu' to be born after). The Mit. then combines ¹³⁸⁴ these and remarks 'those sapiṇḍas of the deceased who are younger than the latter have to shave themselves on the death of a relative'. This is its own view. It then refers to the view of some that 'anubhāvin' in Āp. means 'son' and those latter rely on a restrictive text 'shaving is declared on seven occasions only, viz. on the Ganges, in the Bhāskara-kṣetra, on the death of one's parents or teacher, at the time of consecrating śrauta fires, and at the time of a soma sacrifice'. It is clear that the Mit. does not expressly mention the wife or widow here. Supposing that she is impliedly referred to as a sapiṇḍa and as younger than her husband, this will at the most come to the requirement that on the death of the husband the wife had to undergo shaving, just as her son would have to do. But this passage cannot be used to support continual shaving of widows throughout life. Really 'anubhāvinām' in Āp. cannot include the wife; since if women were to be included by the rule of *ekaśeṣa* (vide Pāṇini I. 2. 67) the absurd conclusion would follow that the daughters of the deceased and his younger brother's wives (who are all sapiṇḍas and younger) would have to be shaved. The Nirṇayasindhu ¹³⁸⁵ (composed in 1612 A. D.) and the Bālambhaṭṭī (composed towards the end of the 18th century) were both familiar with the tonsure of widows and so they interpret Āp. and the Mit. as requiring shaving for the wife on the 10th day after the death of the husband and rely on a text of Vyāsa quoted in Aparārka. The Bālambhaṭṭī says "the words 'on the death of the mother and father' are only illustrative and so the same rule applies to the husband's death." Even conceding all this far-fetched interpretation, there is no authority for the continual tonsure of widows throughout their lives in these passages. It may be noted that the Madanapārijāta ¹³⁸⁶ which contains the verse (vidhavā-kabarī-bandho &c. quoted above) does not include the widow among 'anubhāvinām', but only male sapiṇḍas and sons.