History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c46.70

v3.c46.70

One of the principal rules for a *yati* was that he was to leave wife and home and never to think of sexual matters or to revert to the life of a house-holder. Atri²¹⁷¹ (VIII. 16 and 18) declares 'I see no penance (expiation) for that twice-born man, who, after having resorted to the duties of a celibate (sannyāsin), falls off from that stage; he is neither a dvija nor a śūdra, his children become cāṇḍālas called Vidūra'. Saṁkara on V. S. (III. 4. 42) explains that these words are only intended to emphasize the great effort required to remain celibate as a sannyāsin and that expiations are as a matter of fact prescribed for a *bhikṣu* having sexual intercourse. Dakṣa VII. 33 requires the king to brand on the forehead with the mark of dog's foot and banish from the kingdom a person who after becoming a sannyāsin does not abide by its rules (of celibacy &c.). It has been seen above that a man who falls away from the order of sannyāsins became a slave of the king for life (p. 185). Atri requires a sannyāsin not to stay even for a day in the place where live his father and mother, brother and sister, wife or son or daughter-in-law, his agnates or cognates or friends, or his daughter or her sons (Sm. Mu. p. 206).