History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c39.2.2

v3.c39.2.2

3) shows that a guest was honoured by having a lit lamp placed before him and then food was served to him.¹⁷⁸⁹ The Ait. Br. (25. 5) says that a guest should not be refused in the evening.¹⁷⁹⁰ The Śat. Br. (II. 1.4. 2. S. B. E. vol. 12, p. 291) remarks that 'it would be unbecoming for a person to take food before men who are staying with him as guests have eaten'. The Śatapatha shows that an ox or a goat was cooked for a guest, either a king or a brāhmaṇa (III. 4. 1. 2). Vide also Ait. Br. 3. 4 for the offering of an ox or barren cow to a king or another deserving person coming as a guest. Yāj. I. 109 also says that a big ox or a goat was to be kept apart for a guest learned in the Veda. But the Mit. and other¹⁷⁹¹ medieval writers to whom flesh-eating was an anathema and an unspeakable sin for a brāhmaṇa remark that an ox or a goat was to be understood as set apart for the guest to flatter him (with the words 'this ox is yours') just as one says in humility 'all this house is yours' and that the ox or goat was not meant to be given in gift or to be killed since it would be impossible to find an ox each time a śrotriya guest came. The Ait. Ār. I. 1. 1 remarks 'whoever is good and has attained eminence is a (real) guest, people do not treat with hospitality one who is undeserving.'¹⁷⁹² In the Tai. Up. (I. 11. 2) one of the exhortations of the teacher to the pupil returning home is 'atithi-devo bhava' (honour guests). The same Upaniṣad says elsewhere (III. 10.