History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c72.131

v5.c72.131

prescribe that water and piṇḍa were to be offered to the deceased for ten days.⁵¹² The Śuddhiprakāśa (p. 202) quotes verses from Gṛhya-pariśiṣṭa, one of which says that some declare that only ten añjalis were to be offered, some say 100 were to be offered and others that 55 were to be offered and that one should follow the usage settled in one's vedic śākhā. The Āśv. gṛ. pariśiṣṭa 3. 4 has a similar rule in prose The Garuḍapurāṇa (Pretakhaṇḍa chap. 5 verses 22-23) also refers to the offering of 10, 55, or 100 *añjalis*. Some smṛtis prescribed that the number of añjalis of water were dependent on the caste of the deceased. Pracetas (q. by Mit. on Yāj. III. 4) provides that 10, 12, 15, 30 añjalis should be respectively offered to a deceased person of the brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya or śūdra varṇa. Yama (verses 92-94) states how water is to be offered to the deceased standing in navel-deep water and (98) prescribes that water is to be offered in water to gods and pitṛs but on the ground to those that died without upanayana being performed. In a smṛti quoted by Devayājñika⁵¹³ it is stated that six piṇḍas were to be offered from the day of death as follows: at the place where the death occurred, at the door of the house, where four roads meet, where the funeral procession on the way to the cemetery rested, on the pile of wood arranged for burning (*citā*), and at the time of the collection of the burnt bones. It was further provided that for the benefit of the departed a lamp fed by sesame oil was to be kept burning continuously for ten days after death and an earthenware vessel was to be kept filled with water and a handful of cooked rice was to be offered on the ground at the time of the mid-day meal after uttering the name and gotra of the departed. This was called *pātheya śrāddha* because it helped the departed to go on his way from the earth to the world of the departed (vide Dharmasindhu p 463). According to some of the digests a śrāddha called Nagna-pracchādana was to be performed on the day of the death of a person after his sapindas undergo shaving and bath, enter the village and the house. It consists in filling a jar with grains of rice wound round with a piece of cloth and putting clarified butter in a vessel of bell-metal and some gold (or coins) thereon according to one's ability. The whole was to be given to a poor brāhmaṇa of good family after remembering Viṣṇu for the benefit of the departed. Vide Smṛti-muktāphala (on śr.) pp. 595-596, Sm. C. (on Āśauca p. 176).