History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.90.1

v5.c71.s1.90.1

*Mahāpātakasaṁsarga*—Association with those who are guilty of the four mahāpātakas has already been described in H. of Dh. vol. III. pp. 614, 944. Gaut. 21.3, Vas. I. 21–22, Manu XI. 180 (=Śāntiparva 165. 37), Yāj. III. 261, Viṣṇu Dh. S 35.3, Agnipurāṇa 170. 1–2 prescribe briefly that one who closely associates or dwells with any one of the four grave sinners for one year himself incurs mahāpātaka⁶⁰ and they add that this applies when a man occupies the same conveyance or same seat (as the sinner) or dines in the same row (with the sinner), but that if a person enters into spiritual relationship (such as that of teaching the Veda to the sinner or learning it from him or of officiating as a priest for him or allowing him to officiate as a priest for himself) or into a sexual or matrimonial alliance with him (i. e. a man who cohabits with a woman that is a grave sinner or if a woman cohabits with a male that is a great sinner or if a man marries the daughter of a *patita* or if a woman marries a bridegroom that is *patita*) that person becomes guilty of mahāpātaka at once. Bṛhaspati speaks⁶¹ of nine kinds of *saṁsarga* (contact or association) out of which the first five were treated as light sins, but the other four were serious viz.