History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t1.118

v4.c63.t1.118

*Putrikāputra*. The two meanings of this word given by the Mit. and others relying on Vas. have been stated above (p. 647). Kauṭ. III. 7, Yāj. II. 128, Manu IX. 134 declare the putrikā or putrikāputra to be equal to the aurasa son. The conception underlying the putrikā has a hoary antiquity. There are traces of the putrikā in the Ṛgveda itself. Vas.¹²⁴⁵ XVII. 16 refers to Ṛg. I. 124. 7 in connection with putrikā. That verse contains four similes in describing the advent of Uṣas (Dawn) 'As a woman that has no brother comes back to (her) male relations,... like a smiling damsel the Dawn unmasks objects (or her beauty)'. The Nirukta (III. 5) explains the first quarter as meaning that a brotherless maiden (after marriage) comes back to her paternal line for continuing that line and for offering *piṇḍas* (to her paternal ancestors) and does not go to her husband's line. The Ṛg. in several places refers to the difficulty of getting brotherless maidens married and to the fact of their remaining in their father's house as old maidens; vide Ṛg. II. 17. 7 '*amājūr-iva pitroḥ sacā satī*' and IV. 5. 5. The Atharvaveda I. 17. 1 states 'like brotherless sisters let these stand still with their splendours gone'. Yāska explains that, as brotherless maidens, when married, bar the way to the continuance of the family of their husbands and to offering of piṇḍas (through their son), so are these red arteries &c. Yāska (Nirukta III. 4) relies for the appointment of a brotherless daughter as a son upon another very obscure verse of the Ṛg. (III. 31. 1)¹²⁴⁶ 'the husband declares (or promises) that the father may regard (the daughter's son) as his son's son'. The Nirukta¹²⁴⁷ (III. 5) quotes a Vedic text 'one should not marry a brotherless (girl), for she becomes (her father's) son' and holds that it expressly prohibits marriage with a brotherless maiden and also declares that such a girl becomes a son to her father. The brotherless maiden is appointed as a son by express agreement, but according to Gautama 28. 17 the opinion of one school (which he does not approve) was that a brotherless girl became a putrikā by the mere unilateral intention of the father and therefore one should not marry a brotherless maiden for fear that the father (without expressly stipulating so) might intend her to be putrikā. Manu III. 11 contains a similar caution. This recommendation not to marry a brotherless maiden continued down to the days of Yāj. (I. 53 '*arogiṇīm bhrātṛmatīm*'), though in modern times many would prefer to marry such a girl, provided the father was well-off. Manu IX. 140 states that the three piṇḍas that the putrikāputra offered were respectively to his mother, to the mother's father and to the mother's paternal grand-father.