History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.452

v5.c71.s1.452

Prāyaścittas are of two kinds, *prakāśa* (undergone openly) and *rahasya* (undergone secretly). A few words must be said about the latter. Gaut. (24 1-11), Vas. (25 1-3), Manu XI. 248-265, Yāj. III. 301-305, Viṣṇu Dh. S. 55 and other smṛtis lay down rules about secret prāyaścittas. Where a man's²⁸⁵ sin is not known to anyone except himself he may perform secret expiation. In the case of adultery and in the case of association with one guilty of a grave sin, one may still perform a secret penance, even though the adultery is known to the adulteress and even though the man guilty of a mahāpātaka is aware of the association. Vas.²⁸⁶ 25. 2 states the general rule that secret penances are meant for those who have consecrated the Vedic fires, who are disciplined, old or learned and that the openly undergone penances are meant for others. If such a man is himself aware of the proper penance, he should perform it without going to an assembly (*parṣad*), but if he is not so aware he may consult some knowing person privately, asking him in a general way what the penance for a particular sin may be. Vas. 25.3 provides that those who are always intent on prāṇāyāmas, holy texts, gifts, *homas* and *japa* are released from sin. Manu XI. 226 states that those whose sins have not become public may be purified by *homas* and *mantras*. Even women and śūdras can perform penance in secret, since, though they cannot perform *homa* and repeat Vedic *mantras*, they can, as the Mit on Yāj III.300 says, perform expiation by means of gifts and *prāṇāyāmas*. Gaut 26 2 and Manu XI. 253 prescribe that one who desires to receive a gift which he should not accept or who receives such a gift should recite in water (navel-deep according to some) the hymn of four verses beginning with 'tarat sa mandi' (Ṛg X.58.1-4). For one who is guilty of brāhmaṇa murder Gaut. (24 6) prescribes that for the first ten days he should subsist on milk alone, on clarified butter for a further ten days, on water for another period of ten days, that he should partake of the articles specified only once in the morning, should wear wet clothes and should offer every day eight symbolic *homas* with clarified butter, of his hair on the body, nails, skin, flesh, blood, muscles, bones and marrow with the words 'I offer in the mouth of Death' added at the end.²⁸⁷ Yāj III.301 prescribes that the murderer of a brāhmaṇa should fast for ten days, should recite the Aghamarṣaṇa hymn (Ṛg X.190) while submerged in water, donate a cow yielding milk, while Viṣṇu prescribes that he should bathe for a month in a flowing stream or river, should perform every day 16 prāṇāyāmas, should eat only once a day sacrificial food and may then become purified. Viṣṇu provides that the drinker of *surā* becomes pure by observing the *vrata* (as stated) for brāhmaṇa murder and reciting Aghamarṣaṇa; while the thief of brāhmaṇa's gold becomes pure by fasting for three days and reciting the sacred Gāyatrī ten thousand times and one guilty of incest by the repeated recital of the hymn beginning with 'sahasraśīrṣā' (Ṛg X. 90).