History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.307

v7.c95.307

The Upanisad theory is that one must bear the consequences of all actions, good or evil. But sometimes an evil action is done without any previous thought, as, for example, when a man's gun goes off by accident and somebody is killed or seriously injured. This led to a discussion in Dharmasūtras and Smrtis and the doctrine of prāyaścittas (expiations) for sins was developed. From Vedic times some rites had been performed to counteract mishaps and irregularities in the course of religious ceremonies and for portentous phenomena or personal misfortunes such as a dog-bite. In these the idea was of ceremonial purity and the averting of evil results from such phenomena in which no question of sin as ordinarily understood entered. In the Gautama Dharmasūtra there is a discussion on this, which is probably the earliest clear exposition on expiations for sins. Gautama states that there were two views on the efficacy of expiations against sins. One view was that expiations should not be performed as regards sins, because a sin is not destroyed unless its consequences are experienced; the other view was that 'one should perform expiations since there are Vedic passages indicative of this, such as 'after performing the sacrifice called Punaḥstoma one can come back (i. e become fit for) Soma sacrifice (i. e for all Vedic rites in general)'; 'after performing the Vrātyastoma' (one becomes fit for vedic sacrifices), 'he who offers the Aśvamedha sacrifice crosses beyond all sin, beyond (even) ²⁵⁷⁰ brāhmaṇa murder.' Some held the view that only sins committed inadvertently were removed by expiations; ²⁵⁷¹ while others held the view that expiations were efficacious even against sins committed wilfully as there are Vedic indications to that effect (Manu XI. 45). Manu, however, appears to have held that a man is relieved of the lapses inadvertently committed by means of the study of the Veda, but sins wilfully committed can be removed only by various prescribed expiations (XI 46) and that a man must always resort to expiations for sins, since those who have not done so have to undergo a double retribution viz. the tortures of horrible hells for long terms of years and also being born in other human existences with bodily deformities and diseases (Manu XI. 48 and XII. 54). The subject of expiations and of Karmavipāka (fruition of evil actions by being born as a worm or lower animal, or having a short life and premature death and undergoing torments of Hell) has been dealt with at length in H. of Dh. Vol. IV. pp. 1–178).