History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.742

v4.c63.742

It is interesting to note that the ancient Dharmasūtras of Gautama, Āpastamba and Baudhāyana are silent about partnerships, that Manu (VIII. 206-210) lays down rules about the distribution of fees among the priests at a sacrifice and that in one verse (VIII. 211) he remarks that the same principles are to be applied in all matters where men work conjointly (i.e. each is to be paid according to the importance and volume of the work he does). The rules about sacrificial priests in Manu are: If a priest chosen to do work in a sacrifice abandons his work a share only of the fee in proportion to the work (done) shall be given to him by those conjointly working with him; if a priest leaves after the fees are distributed (as at the time of midday extraction of Soma in the great sacrifices like Jyotiṣṭoma) then he keeps the whole of it and shall cause the remaining work to be performed by another (who will be paid by the sacrificer, acc. to Medhātithi). When specific fees are prescribed to be paid to individual priests at the performance of the several parts in a complicated sacrifice, the individual priests are to receive them and all are not to participate; as for example, the adhvaryu takes the chariot, the brahmā priest takes the horse in Agnyādhāna, the hotṛ also takes the horse and the udgātṛ the cart used in purchasing the soma plant. The four chief priests are entitled to one half of the fees, the first group of their assistants will get half of what the chief ones get, the 2nd group ⅓ and the fourth ¼. Nār. VI. 10 and Bṛ. (in V. R. p. 120) state that sacrificial priests are of three kinds viz. one hereditary and honoured by the ancestors of the sacrificer, one appointed by the sacrificer himself and one who performs the functions of his own accord through friendship and that (VI. 9 and 11) if an officiating priest forsakes a sacrificer who is free from any fault and who has caused no harm or if a sacrificer abandons a priest who is faultless, they both shall be punished but this does not apply to the third kind of priest. Śaṅkha-Likhita, as quoted in V. R. pp. 117 and 120-121 and Sm. C. II. p. 188, give elaborate rules about sacrificial priests dying or leaving work and the fines to be imposed on them. Kauṭ. III. 14 lays down rules for the receipt of fees by priests when they leave off at different stages of such solemn sacrifices as the Agniṣṭoma and also when the sacrificer dies without completing the sacrifice. The Vy. Nir. (pp. 284-285) quotes a few sentences from Kauṭ. III. 14.