History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c72.458

v5.c72.458

Practices observed among ancient and modern primitive tribes show that the most important *tabus* were those on the dead, on women in child-birth and women in their monthly illness Among the ancient Israelites all that were unclean through the dead were put outside the camp and they were not allowed to offer an offering at the Passover (Numbers V. 1-4 and IX 6). Among the Syrians those who belonged to the family of the dead man were *tabu* for 30 days and could then enter only with shaven heads Child-birth made a woman unclean and the number of days that she was to be unclean depended on whether the child was a male or a female (Leviticus 12 2-5). In India also the ancient Aryans probably inherited their ideas about uncleanness on death and child-birth from their remote ancestors If one may surmise one can say this it must have been found out by the remote ancestors of the Vedic Aryans that if a person touched a dead body or used the clothes worn by the dead man when living, he also suffered from the same disease (particularly in the case of contagious diseases like plague, cholera, typhoid &c.) and that segregating such a person for ten days from other members of the tribe or community made the latter immune from the attack of such diseases. Therefore, those who touched the dead or carried the corpse for cremation or burial and the members of the family were thought to be unclean and were segregated for ten days. Gradually the ideas about the uncleanness on death and the necessity of segregation were made applicable to death due to all diseases or causes whatever. The uncleanness on child-birth might have been a case of extension by analogy derived from the *tabu* on death At all events smṛti writers put both on the same level (e. g. Manu V 61 "Just as impurity on death is ordained for ten days in the case of sapindas the same holds good in the case of birth"). Rules about women in their monthly illness were prescribed as early as the Tai. S. and have been already dealt with in H of Dh. vol. II pp. 802-805.