History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c73.t1.271
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c73.t1.271
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Some of the other rules are: The Prajāpati-smṛti (verses 57-62) states who should cook the food for the śrāddha dinner. The wife, any fortunate (or handsome) woman of the performer's gotra whose husband is living and who has a son or brother and is devoted to waiting upon her elders, the performer's teacher's wife, his maternal uncle's wife, paternal or maternal aunt, his sister, his daughter or daughter-in-law, all of them having their husbands alive, should engage in the cooking of the food for śrāddha. Women of good family, who have a large progeny, whose husbands are alive and who are about 50 years old or these women if they have become widows, and the wife of one's paternal uncle or brother, one's mothers (natural or step-mothers) and the mothers of one's father may cook the śrāddha food and also a woman of the same gotra who is mild by temper. In the Anuśāsana parva (92.15) it is stated that a woman belonging to a gotra other than that of the deceased should not be employed for cooking śrāddha food. One's brother, paternal uncle, brother's son, sister's son, one's son, pupil, one's daughter's son or daughter's husband may also engage in cooking the śrāddha food, but not a woman who wears a white and wet garment, who has let her hair loose, who does not wear a bodice, who is ill or who has bathed her head. Before the brāhmaṇas begin to eat, the food should be first served in the plates for the Vaiśvadeva brāhmaṇas and then in those of the *pitrya* brāhmaṇas (Viṣṇu Dh S.
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73 13-14), but once the brāhmaṇas have begun to eat there is no such precedence, whatever each brāhmaṇa may be noted as requiring should be served to him (as indicated by Manu III. 231). The performer of the śrāddha when serving food to the brāhmaṇas (including pitrya) wears his sacred thread in the upavīta form. Though it is said that the food should be hot, that does not apply to such eatables as curds, fruits and roots and flavoured ¹⁰³⁵ drinks (as Śaṅkha XIV.13 and Skandapurāṇa say). As Hemādri (śrāddha p. 1371) points out, the serving of food in a śrāddha rite should be done with the right hand supported by the left; besides, nothing should be served with the bare hand or with a single hand, but with a wooden ladle or other utensil (but not an iron one). All cooked food, all side dishes and ghee should be served with a ladle (and not with the bare hand) but not water or eatables like *laddus*. No salt was to be directly served (Viṣṇu Dh S. 79. 12). In Kātyāyana's Śrāddha-sūtra it is provided ¹⁰³⁶ "The food that remains after *agnaukarana* should be served in the plates of the *pitrya* brāhmaṇas and the performer should touch each plate for those brāhmaṇas after repeating the mantra 'the earth is thy vessel, the sky is the cover, I offer nectar in the brāhmaṇa's nectar-like mouth; svāhā'. Then the performer plunges the (right) thumb of the *pitrya* brāhmaṇa in the food (the remains of the homa in fire) with the ṛk or yajus addressed to Viṣṇu;
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and after scattering sesamum grains all round the place where the dinner is to go on with the mantra 'the asuras and rākṣasas) are struck and driven away' he (the performer) should serve hot food very much liked (by the departed or by the brāhmaṇas)". Yāj. I. 238 briefly refers (as translated above) to the mantras and the item of plunging the thumb of the brāhmaṇas in the food; and so does the Baud. Dh. S. also (II. 8. 15-16). The Kālikā-purāṇa prescribes¹⁰³⁷ that the thumb of the brāhmaṇa should be moved about in the food covered with ghee and honey with the mantra 'the earth is thy vessel &c.' because Viṣṇu in the form of the thumb protects food meant for sacrifices to gods and manes. The Baud. Pitṛmedhasūtra provides that while plunging the thumb of the brāhmaṇa in the food served it should be so arranged that the nail of the thumb is not smeared with food.¹⁰³⁸ Vasiṣṭha provides that the brāhmaṇas eating śrāddha food should always hold the plate from which they are eating with (the left) hand till the end of the dinner. Śaṅkha-Likhita provide¹⁰³⁹ that brāhmaṇas (eating śrāddha food) should not declare the good or bad points of the food served, should not say what is untrue, should not praise each other, nor should they say 'there is plenty of food and drink (and so do not serve more food), except by signs made with the hand.' Whatever is offered in a brāhmaṇa's hand (by way of agnaukarana) and whatever food is placed in the plates should be mixed up and eaten.
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Hemādri quotes passages from the Maitrāyaṇīya-sūtra and from the Skandapurāṇa setting out the mantras wherewith certain articles were to be served; e. g. the Skandapurāṇa says that *pāyasa* should be served with the verse 'namo vaḥ pitaro' (Vāj. S. II. 32, Tai. S. III. 2. 5. 5), clarified butter with the mantra 'Tejosi śukram', curds with the mantra 'dadhikrāvno' (Ṛg. IV. 39. 6, Vāj. S. 23. 32, Tai. S. 1. 5. 11. 4). Ap Dh. S. (II. 8. 18. 11) provides that the leavings of a śrāddha dinner should not be given to one who is inferior to the invited brāhmaṇas in qualities and Manu III. 249 states that the man who after eating śrāddha dinner gives the leavings to a śūdra falls in the Kālasūtra Hell.