History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.214.3

v4.c63.t2.214.3

This is a śrāddha rite performed one year after the death of a person or on the 12th day from his death. By this śrāddha the person recently deceased ceases to be a *preta* (a departed spirit) and is elevated to the rank of *pitṛs* (Manes). The widow and daughter can perform only the ekoddiṣṭa śrāddha, while sons, grandsons and great-grandsons can perform the pārvaṇa śrāddha also. The Dāyabhāga refers (XI. 1. 34 p. 162) to the fact that the three male descendants, by performing the pārvaṇa śrāddha, confer great spiritual benefit on the owner (compare note 1342 above). Elsewhere (XI. 7. 17 p. 211) it designates the pārvaṇa as ‘traipuruṣika’ (i. e. performed for the benefit of three ancestors). When speaking of the right of the widow to inherit it emphasizes (XI. 1. 43 p. 165), by quoting verses from Vyāsa,¹⁴²⁶ that a widow by leading a chaste life, by offering water mixed with sesame every day to her deceased husband, by making gifts and observing fasts saves himself and her husband in the next world. It adds that if the widow misbehaves she makes her husband fall, as husband and wife share in the fruits of each other's good and evil deeds. Therefore the widow takes her husband's wealth for his benefit. Bṛhan-Manu (q. by the Dāyabhāga XI. 1. 7 and by the Mit.) declares that a sonless chaste widow should offer piṇḍa to her husband and take his entire estate. Similarly Prajāpati (cited above on p. 709 and quoted by even the V.