History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.864

v4.c63.t2.864

20. 'Pollution through contact with a sinner' (1. 15). Manu XI. 180 (= Śānti 165. 37 = Baud. Dh. S. II. 1. 88),¹⁸²⁵ Viṣṇu Dh. S. 35. 2-5 provide that if a person continues for one year in close association (*saṁsarga*) with one guilty of the grave sins (enumerated in Manu XI. 54), in respect of occupying the same conveyance or seat with him or dining in the same row with him he becomes patita; but he becomes patita immediately if he officiates as a priest for such a sinner or performs his upanayana for teaching him the sacred Gāyatrī and the Veda or if he enters into a matrimonial alliance with him. Parāśara (I. 25-26) states that in the Kṛta age a person became patita by speaking with a patita, in Tretā by seeing him, in Dvāpara by partaking of food prepared in his house, but in Kali by actually committing a (sinful) deed and that when a grave sin was committed by a man, in the Kṛta age the whole district in which he lived was to be abandoned, in Tretā the village, in Dvāpara his family alone and in Kali only the perpetrator.¹⁸²⁶ Parāśara (XII. 79) no doubt¹⁸²⁷ says that 'sins (i. e. pollutions are caused) are transferred, as a drop of oil (spreads) on water, by sitting or sleeping together or by using the same conveyance, by speaking with or by dining in the same row with a sinner'; but this only means that to associate with a sinner is bad, but it does not mean that to associate with a *patita* immediately makes the associator himself a patita. The Mit. on Yāj. III. 261 quotes Devala¹⁸²⁸ and Vṛddha-Bṛhaspati to the effect that *saṁsarga* arises in nine ways viz. by talk, by touch, by breathing the same air (i. e. by being in the same room), by being in the same conveyance or on the same seat or bed, by dining in the same row, by being a sinner's priest or vedic teacher or entering into matrimonial alliance with him. The Par. M. says that Parāśara held the view that there was no *pātitya* by the various kinds of contact in Kali and so provided no prāyaścitta for *saṁsarga*. The Nirṇayasindhu¹⁸²⁹ and Bhaṭṭoji make similar remarks. The Udvāhatattva says that Parāśara I. 25 is to be interpreted in this way that merely speaking or touching a *patita* or receiving money from him does not make another liable to any prāyaścitta, but that if the association with a patita goes quite beyond these, then sin may be incurred by association. So almost all the digests are agreed that the rigour of the very strict rules about saṁsarga in Manu and Baud. was modified by declaring that speech with or sight of a sinner involved no sin in Kali.¹⁸³⁰