History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.838.3

v4.c63.t2.838.3

134-135.¹⁸¹⁴ Therefore the words of the Ādityapurāṇa apply only to a dvija who habitually engages in a sea voyage either as a trader or as a helmsman or sailor. When Nārada (Dāyabhāga 21) states that even an aurasa son who is hostile to his father or who is patita (guilty of one of the five great sins) or is impotent or is 'apayātrita' he does not get a share of ancestral wealth, the Vyavahāramayūkha explains the last word as 'one who goes to another continent (other than Jambudvīpa) through mid ocean by means of a vessel for purposes of trade' and relies on this passage (dvijasyābdhau &c.) for support. So according to the author of the V. Mayūkha only that dvija who constantly undertakes sea voyages for trade is here declared to be unfit for social intercourse though he may have taken a prāyaścitta, and not one who casually or once in a life undertakes a sea voyage. No text prescribes a prāyaścitta merely for going in a vessel on the sea. If that were intended in this passage the text would have read differently viz. 'samudre naugamanābhāve &c.' Even śiṣṭas have been crossing the sea to Ceylon for purposes of trade. In dramas like the Ratnāvali (where the *kañcukin* Bābhravya undertakes a sea voyage and a merchant from Kauśāmbī is said to have gone to Ceylon) and in romances like the Daśakumāracarita frequent references are made to sea voyages to Ceylon and other countries.