History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c40.120.3

v3.c40.120.3

6 about hiring a brāhmaṇa for drinking the dregs of the surā offered in the sacrifice. The Śat. Br. contrasts soma and of surā by saying 'soma is truth, prosperity, light and surā is untruth, misery, darkness' (V. 1. 5. 28). The Śat. Br. V. 5. 4. 21 expresses dread¹⁸⁹³ of mixing up the libations of soma and of surā together. The Kāṭhaka Saṁhitā XII. 12 contains the following interesting remark. "Therefore an elderly person or a youngster, the daughter-in-law and father-in-law drink liquor and remain babbling together; foolishness (or thoughtlessness) is indeed sin; therefore a brāhmaṇa does not drink surā with the thought 'otherwise (if I drink it) I may be affected by sin'; therefore this is for kṣatriya; one should say to a brāhmaṇa that surā, if drunk by a kṣatriya, does not harm the latter."¹⁸⁹⁴ This passage makes it clear that at the time of the Kāṭhaka Saṁhitā public opinion had come to this stage that brāhmaṇas had generally given up drinking surā. This passage read with the Tai. Br. quoted above establishes that it had become difficult to find a brāhmaṇa willing to drink even the remnants of surā left after being offered in a sacred Vedic rite like the Sautrāmaṇī. The above passage from the Kāṭhaka is quoted by the Tantravārtika on Jaimini I. 3. 7 (p. 210) and explained by it as referring to *sīdhu* (rum) and liquor prepared from honey. Śaṁkarācārya in his bhāṣya on the Vedāntasūtra III. 4. 31 quotes¹⁸⁹⁵ this passage expressly from the Kāṭhaka Saṁhitā. In the Ait. Br.