History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c40.110

v3.c40.110

In modern times a person is more lax in taking food prepared with oil or ghee or milk. He may take such food from members of certain castes other than his own. But ordinarily he would not take food cooked in water from any person belonging to another caste or even sub-division of the same caste. In towns and cities there is a strong tendency to considerably relax these restrictions. We saw above that in the times of Gautama and Āpastamba and others a brāhmaṇa was allowed to take food prepared in the houses of kṣatriyas, vaiśyas, and even śūdras. Gradually this latitude came to be restricted and most of the sūtras and early smṛtis restrict the liberty to take food from śūdras by saying that only from the following among śūdras a brāhmaṇa can take cooked food, viz. one who cultivates the brāhmaṇa's field on the system of paying half of the crops to the latter, a family friend, one's cowherd, one's barber, one doing personal service i. e. a dāsa (vide Gaut. 17. 6, Manu IV. 253, Viṣṇu Dh. S. 57. 16, Yāj. I. 166, Aṅgiras 120-121, Veda-Vyāsa III. 55 and Parāśara XI. 21). Manu and Yāj. add that any śūdra who declares to a brāhmaṇa that the former is going to be dependent on the latter and who declares what his actions have been and how he will serve the brāhmaṇa is also *bhojyānna* (one whose food may be eaten). The Mit. quotes a sūtra which includes the potter among these (on Yāj. I. 166) and Devala also does so.¹⁸⁸⁵ It may be stated that Parāśara (XI. 22-24) gives peculiar meanings to the words dāsa, nāpita, gopāla and ārdhika. The general rule forbidding the food of śūdras is stated by Vas. Dh. S. 14. 4, Manu IV. 211 and 223, Yāj. I. 160. Aṅgiras 121 says that he who takes cooked food from śūdras other than the five excepted above has to undergo cāndrāyaṇa penance. Atri (172-173) prescribes the same penance for a dvija eating the food of a washerman, an actor and a worker in bamboos and the penance of *parāka* for taking the food of or residing amongst *antyajas*. Vas. Dh. S.