History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c72.115.3

v5.c72.115.3

121 quotes the Ādipurāṇa that if a kṣatriya or vaiśya cremates the dead body of a poor brāhmaṇa or of a kṣatriya who has lost everything or of a poor vaiśya, he secures great merit and becomes pure at once after a bath. Even now generally (particularly in villages) men of the same caste carry or follow a dead body and are held to be purified by a bath with clothes on. The medieval commentaries like the Mitākṣarā stuck strictly to the extreme exclusiveness of caste by prescribing 'if a man⁵⁰² carries a dead body through affection, eats food in that family and dwells in their house he is under impurity for ten days; if he simply stays with the dead man's family but does not eat their food he is impure for three days; these rules apply when the carrier is of the same caste as the dead person But if a brāhmaṇa carries a śūdra's corpse, the brāhmaṇa is impure for a month, but if a śūdra carries a brāhmaṇa's body the śūdra is impure for ten days.' The Kūrmapurāṇa prescribes that if a brāhmaṇa carries the dead body of a brāhmaṇa for a fee or from other interested motive he becomes impure for ten days, a kṣatriya, vaiśya and śūdra doing the same becomes impure for 12, 15 or 30 days and the Viṣṇupurāṇa says that the person carrying a dead body for a fee has to become impure for the period of impurity prescribed for a man of that caste.