History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.910

v4.c63.t2.910

33. 'The rule that a pupil should habitually observe the same behaviour towards the wife of the *guru* as towards the guru himself' (l. 27). Āp. Dh.¹⁸⁵² S. I. 2. 7. 27, Gaut. II. 31-34, Manu II. 210, Viṣṇu Dh. S. 32. 1-2 prescribe that a student should perform the same acts of honour and obedience towards the wife or wives of his teacher as towards the teacher (except holding her feet in doing obeisance and eating the leavings of the food). As students were often grown-up young men and the teacher's wife might often be a young lady, Manu II. 212, 216, 217 (that are the same as Viṣṇu Dh. S. 32. 13-15) provide that a pupil full twenty years old should not show honour to the young wife of his teacher by clasping her feet, but that he may prostrate himself on the ground before the teacher's young wife in performing obeisance and that he may hold her feet in obeisance only (once) when he returns from a journey. This text accepts the principle underlying the special rules laid down by Manu and Viṣṇu and prohibits the daily touching of the feet of the guru's wife on the part of the pupil. The Sm. ¹⁸⁵³ Kau. and Dharmasindhu (III p. 358) hold that this sets aside the rule laid down in Yāj I. 49 that a perpetual student may stay till his death with his teacher or with the teacher's son or (in default of both) with the teacher's wife.