History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c45.51

v3.c45.51

Apart from suicide for purposes of penance or at holy places the smṛtis allowed, as said above, a forest hermit to start on the great journey to meet death and also allowed in certain circumstances death by entering fire, or by drowning or by fasting or by throwing oneself from a precipice even for those who were not hermits. Gautama (14. 11) prescribes that no mourning need be observed for those who wilfully meet death by fasting, or by cutting themselves off with a weapon, or by fire, or poison or water or by hanging or by falling from a precipice. But Atri (218-219) states some exceptions viz. 'if one who is very old (beyond 70), one who cannot observe the rules of bodily purification (owing to extreme weakness &c.), one who is so ill that no medical help can be given, kills himself by throwing himself from a precipice or into fire or water or by fasting, mourning should be observed for him for three days and śrāddha may be performed for him.²¹³⁶ Aparārka (p. 536) quotes texts of Brahmagarbha, Vivasvat and Gārgya about an householder 'he who suffering from serious illness cannot live, or who is very old, who has no desire left for the pleasures of any of the senses and who has carried out his tasks may bring about his death at his pleasure by resorting to mahāprasthāna, by entering fire or water or by falling from a precipice. By so doing he incurs no sin and his death is far better than *tapas*, and one should not desire to live vainly (without being able to perform the duties laid down by the śāstra).[<blank>]'²¹³⁷ Aparārka (p. 877) and Par. M. (I. part 2, p. 228) quote several verses from Ādipurāṇa about dying by fasting, by entering fire or deep water or by falling from a precipice, or by going on mahā- prasthāna in the Himālayas or by abandoning life from the branch of the vaṭa tree at Prayāga, the verses declaring that not only does such a man not incur sin but he attains the worlds of bliss. In the Rāmāyaṇa (Araṇya, chap. 9) Śarabhaṅga is said to have entered fire. We find that the Mṛcchakaṭika (I. 4) speaks of king Śūdraka as having entered fire. In the Gupta Inscriptions No. 42, the great Emperor Kumāragupta is said to have entered the fire of dried cowdung cakes. The editor remarks that there is necessarily no reference to the fact that the emperor voluntarily embraced death by fire. But it appears that there is no great propriety in the description if all that is meant is that the Emperor's corpse was burnt with 'karīṣa'.