History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c40.148

v3.c40.148

The Viṣṇupurāṇa III. 11. 94 remarks that after taking the mid-day meal one may do acts that would not cause exertion to the body. Dakṣa (II. 68-69) says that after¹⁹⁰⁹ taking dinner one should sit at ease and allow the food to be digested and should read and listen to itihāsa and purāṇas in the 6th and 7th parts of the day, and in the 8th part of the day the householder should look into his private worldly affairs and then perform the evening adoration (sandhyā) outside the house. That the higher and middle classes of society attended in the afternoon the recitation of the Mahābhārata (the itihāsa *par excellence*) and the purāṇas in the 7th century follows from Bāṇa's statement in the Kādambarī (para 54) that even queen Vilāsavatī on hearing from the Mahābhārata that the sonless do not reach heaven (which was recited in the temple of Mahākāla at Ujjayinī) became¹⁹¹⁰ extremely dejected and the fact that Bāṇa is said in the Harṣacarita (III) to have listened after the midday meal to the recitation of the Vāyupurāṇa by the reader Sudṛṣṭi. Yāj. (I. 113-114) directs that the rest of the day (till evening) should be spent in the company of śiṣṭas (learned and respectable people) and of dear relatives and then having performed the evening prayer and offered oblations into the three sacred fires (if he has kept the three Vedic fires) or into gṛhya fire, the householder should feed guests if they come at night, then he should take his evening meal surrounded by (his children) and servants, should not eat too much in the evening and then go to sleep. Dakṣa (II. 70-71) says that after evening he should perform homa, then take his meal, do other household work, then repeat some part of his Veda and sleep for two watches (six hours) and he should devote some time in the first and last watches of the night to reciting the Veda already learnt.