History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c81.102.2

v6.c81.102.2

It is therefore that Śrīdatta (probably taking his cue from Śabara and the Mit.) in his Samaya-pradīpa defines vrata as 'a definite resolve relating to a certain matter held as obligatory' and proceeds to lay down that it may be positive (being in the form 'I must do it') or negative ('I must not do this'). He further holds that a resolve⁶⁰ made with the addition of a condition not enjoined by śāstras is not a vrata: e. g. if a man were to declare that he would observe a fast if his father would not forbid it and that otherwise he would not, this would not be a vrata and that, since saṅkalpa is the principal matter in a vrata, if a man of weak intellect or an ignorant man observes a fast without saṅkalpa, it would be simply so much physical hardship but no vrata. The Kṛtyaratnākara⁶¹ mentions several definitions of vrata given by its predecessors, one of which by Deveśvara was that 'a vrata is that which is included in the vratakāṇḍa'. This last is a desperate effort at definition and leaves the inquirer hardly wiser than before That saṅkalpa is closely connected with vrata cannot be gainsaid and follows from a verse of Laghu-Viṣṇu⁶² 'the choosing of *ṛtviks* is the starting point of a sacrifice, saṅkalpa that of vrata and of a *japa* of mantras (in honour of a deity)'. Śūlapāṇi defined vrata on almost the same lines as Śrīdatta Lakṣmīdhara in his Kṛtyakalpataru on vrata does not define vrata but begins his treatment of vrata with vratapraśaṁsā.