History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.247

v4.c63.t2.247

A man offers only the leavings or remnants of the piṇḍas that stick to his hand (when offering piṇḍas to his three paternal ancestors) and that (leavings) are cast on kuśa grass to three paternal ancestors above the paternal great-grandfather (Manu III. 216). So also the three male descendants beyond the great-grandson offer the leavings (called *piṇḍalepa*) to the owner; these three remote paternal ancestors and the three remote male descendants (spoken of as 'vibhaktadāyāda in Baud. Dh. S. I. 5. 114) are designated *sakulya* by Baud., and the D. B.¹⁴³⁹ (XI. 1. 38). According to D. B. sakulyas succeed after all sapiṇḍas are exhausted. Just as a man participates after his death in the piṇḍas offered to his paternal ancestors so he would participate in the leavings also offered to his paternal ancestors from the 4th to 6th by their descendants (from 4th to 6th). The D. B. remarks that this difference between sapiṇḍas and sakulyas is made only in the matter of inheritance. But in the matter of the periods of mourning both the sapiṇḍas (strictly so called in the section on inheritance) and the sakulyas are designated sapiṇḍas by Manu (V. 60) and by the Mārkaṇḍeya-purāṇa (28. 4).¹⁴⁴⁰ According to Manu IX. 187 *sakulyas* succeed on failure of sapiṇḍas, while Viṣṇu Dh. S. (XVII. 9–11) prescribes¹⁴⁴¹ that on failure of bandhus, sakulyas succeed. It appears that Viṣṇu employs the word bandhu in the sense of sapiṇḍa. Nār. (dāyabhāga, 51) states that on failure of daughters and sakulyas, bāndhavas and persons of the same caste succeed. Here it appears that sakulya and bāndhava are employed in the sense of gotraja and bāndhava as done in Yāj. The Bālambhaṭṭī says that *gotraja* and *sakulya* are synonymous. The Dāyabhāga appears to be somewhat inconsistent in its references to sakulyas. In XI. 6. 15 and 23 it includes samānodakas among sakulyas, while in XI. 6. 21–22 it defines sakulya as stated above. The Mit. on the other hand comprehends the sakulyas of the D. B. (as defined in XI. 6. 21) under its gotraja sapiṇḍas.