History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.875

v4.c63.t2.875

22. 'The act of offering an animal with the recital of Vedic *mantras* to the bridegroom, to a guest and in honour of pitṛs' (l. 16).¹⁸³⁴ Madhuparka was offered in ancient times on several occasions and to several persons such as to *ṛtviks* at sacrifices, to the king, to a *snātaka*, to one's ācārya, father-in-law, paternal or maternal uncle and to a bridegroom. Vide H. of Dh. vol. II. pp. 542–546 for details about Madhuparka. Originally a cow or a bull was killed for an honoured guest, later on when the cow came to be extremely sacred the flesh of some other animal was offered; when flesh-eating itself came to be looked down upon then only *pāyasa* and other vegetarian eatables came to be prescribed. Vide H. of Dh. vol. II pp. 777–782 on flesh-eating. This half line forbids the offering of flesh to a bridegroom or to an honoured guest (in madhuparka) and the feeding of brāhmaṇas with flesh at śrāddhas. Comparatively so late a writer as Yāj. (I. 258-259) extols the high gratification that the *Manes* feel when flesh of various animals is offered in śrāddhas. This one prohibition includes in itself several prohibitions that are separately mentioned in other texts such as 'govadha' (in notes 1797 and 1799), the killing of an animal in a Madhuparka (in n. 1798), 'gavālambha' and 'palapaitṛka' (in note 1802). It is noteworthy that even so late as the first half of the 17th century Viśvanātha, a great logician, takes up the cudgels on behalf of flesh-eating by brāhmaṇas in sacrifices, śrāddha, madhuparka, in danger to life and when ordered by a brāhmaṇa and charges those who totally forbid flesh-eating with being the followers of the doctrines of Bauddhas, while the latter at the same time prescribe expiations for even murderers of brāhmaṇas through greed of money and marry their maternal uncle's daughters or other sapiṇḍas of their mother, though both of these latter are forbidden by the Kalivarjya texts.¹⁸³⁵