History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c93.623

v7.c93.623

The 12th chapter deals with the topics of *prasaṅga*, *vikalpa* and the like. Prasaṅga occurs when something done in one place is helpful in another place also, just as when a lamp is lighted in a mansion it illumines the public road also.²²⁰³ In connection with the Agniṣomīya animal sacrifice an offering of *paśupuroḍāśa* (a cake of the meat of the animal sacrificed) in the words ‘having offered the omentum of the animal to Agni and Soma one offers a paśupuroḍāśa cooked on eleven potsherds to Agni and Soma’. The question is whether the details such as *prayājas* should be performed afresh for this or whether those details performed at the time of offering the omentum will suffice. The established conclusion is that the details already performed at offering paśu (omentum) will serve for the offering of the meat cake also.²²⁰⁴ In such cases the place or time and performer are to be the same. This conclusion is relied upon in the Prāyaścittaviveka which says that when a man performs the expiation for twelve years in connection with grave sins of different kinds or of the same kind, there is no necessity of a separate expiation for venial sins on the analogy of paśupurodāśa.²²⁰⁵ Vide H. of Dh. vol. IV. pp. 88-91 for twelve years' expiation for brāhmaṇa-murder.