History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c73.t1.12.2

v5.c73.t1.12.2

135–137 and 145–147) lays down that the main or best rule to be followed is to present śrāddha food to those who are devoted to spiritual knowledge, that between a man who has studied one whole recension of the Veda but whose father was not a śrotriya and one who is himself not a śrotriya but whose father had studied a whole recension of the Veda (i. e. whose father was a śrotriya) the latter is the more worthy of the two, that one should strive to feed at a śrāddha an adherent of the Ṛgveda who has studied one entire recension of that Veda or a follower of the Yajurveda who has studied one Śākhā thereof or a singer of sāmans who has finished one recension of the Sāmaveda and that if one of these preceding three is honoured and dines at a śrāddha, the ancestors of the performer will be gratified up to the seventh generation for a very long time. Hārīta (q. by Hemādri on śrāddha p. 392 and Kalpataru on śr. pp. 66–67) describes the qualifications of those who are pāṅkteya brāhmaṇas viz. they must be born in a high family (possessing four characteristics), must be endowed with learning (of six kinds) and *śīla* (character of 13 kinds) and good conduct (of 16 kinds). Śaṅkha-Likhita⁸⁶³ give a long list of pāṅkteya (fit to be associated with in a *paṅkti* i. e. row of diners) brāhmaṇas, viz he who knows the Veda and the Vedāṅgas (viz. phonetics, kalpa or śrauta ritual, grammar, Nirukta, metrics and astronomy); one who keeps the five fires;