History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c73.t1.144

v5.c73.t1.144

The greatest divergence has prevailed about the employment of flesh at śrāddhas among writers from the earliest times. The subject of flesh-eating in general has been discussed at great length in the History of Dharmaśāstra, vol. II. pp 772-782. A few remarks about flesh in relation to śrāddha will not be out of place here. The Āp. Dh. S. prescribes⁹⁵⁰ that the obligatory śrāddha (to be performed every month) must contain food mixed with fat, the best course (for supplying fat) is to employ clarified butter and flesh; on failure of these two, sesamum oil and vegetables may be employed. The same sūtra also provides⁹⁵¹ that the pitṛs are gratified for a year by the offering of cow's flesh in a śrāddha, that by the flesh of a buffalo the gratification of pitṛs extends to more than a year, that this rule extends to the flesh of wild animals (like hares) and village (or domesticated) animals (like goats) that are declared to be fit for being sacrificed, that the gratification of pitṛs extends to endless time if the flesh of a rhinoceros is offered to brāhmaṇas seated on rhinoceros skin, so also by the flesh of the fish called ‘śatabali’ and the flesh of a Vārdhrīṇasa. Vas. XI. 34 contains the following remarkable verse: ‘an ascetic, when invited in a rite for the gods or pitṛs, who avoids (does not partake of) flesh, dwells in Hell for as many years as the number of hair (on the body of the animal whose flesh he avoids).’ Even the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa (I. 140. 49–50) emphatically asserts that he who does not partake of flesh-food in a row of diners at a śrāddha which has been properly employed goes to hell Manu V. 35 and Kūrma II. 17.40 contain a similar verse applicable to all those who are invited as brāhmaṇas at a śrāddha The Kūrmapurāṇa II. 22.75 provides that the brāhmaṇa who is employed for the performance of a śrāddha and does not eat flesh offered therein becomes a beast for 21 births. Manu III. 257 states that the following are said to be proper offerings in a śrāddha by their very nature viz. food (prepared from *nīvāra* grain and the like) fit for a forest hermit, milk, soma juice, flesh that does not emit foul smell and unmanufactured salt. An ascetic was ordinarily required not to partake of flesh; but Vasiṣṭha insisted on his partaking of it when invited at a śrāddha.