History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.577

v4.c63.t2.577

Kumārila mentions certain practices of his times and concludes that they are to be condemned and not to be followed or regarded as authoritative. He says:¹⁶⁴⁵ even in these days brāhmaṇa women of Ahicchatra and Mathurā drink wine; northerners (northern brāhmaṇas) engage in such transactions as the gift and sale of horses and mules that have a mane, asses, camels and animals with two rows of teeth and eat from the same plate with their wives, children and friends; brāhmaṇas of the south enter into matrimony with the maternal uncle's daughter and take their meals while seated on a couch (of wicker work); both (brāhmaṇas of the north and south) take cooked food (kept in pots) that remains after their friends or relatives have partaken of it or that has been touched by them (at the time of eating); they chew betelnut leaves that have been touched by persons of all varṇas, do not perform sipping of water (*ācamana*) at the end of the chewing of betelnut, wear clothes washed by washermen and brought on the back of asses; they do not avoid contact even with persons guilty of grave sins (except of brāhmaṇa murder). There are everywhere an infinite number of very obvious transgressions of the subtle dictates of dharma laid down for each man, caste or family, that (transgressions) are contrary to śruti, smṛti and each other and that have a visible purpose behind them. It is not possible to regard such practices as authoritative.' Similarly Varadarāja, (1600-1660 A. D.) a pupil of Bhaṭṭojī Dīkṣita, in his work styled the Gīrvāṇapadamañjarī in a dialogue between a Kānyakubja brāhmaṇa and a *sannyāsin* hailing from Vijayanagara makes the brāhmaṇa host say that each country has certain practices which are *durācāras* such as marrying a maternal uncle's daughter in the south, marriage of girls among southerners even before they are four years old, sitting down to a meal without bathing in Karṇāṭaka, in Mahārāṣṭra the marriage of a younger brother before an elder one, in the hilly country the practice of *niyoga* (*vide* Mr. P. K. Gode's interesting paper in 'Bhāratīyā-vidyā' vol. VI pp. 27-30).