History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c73.130.1

v5.c73.130.1

Tai. S. I. 8. 5. 1, Tai. Br. I. 6. 9 (which will be quoted later on) show that śrāddha was offered to three immediate ancestors, father, grand-father, great-grand-father. The Baud. Dh. S. (I. 5. 113-115) states that there is a group of seven persons closely knit together that is called *avibhaktadāya sapiṇḍas* viz. great-grand-father, grand-father, father, the man himself (who offers piṇḍas to the preceding three), his full brothers, his son from a wife of the same caste, the grandson and great grandson; that sakulyas are those that are called 'vibhaktadāyādas', that the wealth of the deceased descends to those who are born of the body of the deceased⁸³⁴. Manu IX. 137 (= Vas. 17.5 = Viṣṇu Dh. S. 15. 46) solemnly⁸³⁵ affirms: 'by (the birth of) a son a man wins the worlds (heaven &c.), he secures immortality by a grandson and by the grandson of a son he reaches the abode of the Sun'. This verse shows that all the three descendants of a person confer equally great spiritual benefit on him. Yāj. also (in I. 78) lumps the three together (without making any distinction between them) when he says 'since a man secures perpetuation of lineage and heaven by means of son, grand-son and great-grand-son'. Therefore when Manu (IX. 106) says that by the birth of a son a man discharges his debt to his progenitors the Dāyabhāga (XI.