[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Reference works](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference) › [Vedic Index of Names and Subjects](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912) › v2.c4.s7.284 # Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v2.c4.s7.284 Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v2.c4.s7.284 - **Language:** English ### [v2.c4.s7.284](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.284) ⁸³ Vāsiṣṭha Dharma Sūtra, xiv. 1 \*et seq.\*; Gautama Dharma Sūtra, xvii. 17; Āpastamba Dharma Sūtra, i. 6, 18, 16 \*et seq.\*; ii. 4, 9, 7, with Bühler's note; Manu, iv. 210 \*et seq.\*; Viṣṇu, 41, 7 \*et seq.\*; Fick, \*op. cit.\*, 30-33, who points out that the Jātakas contain little evidence on the practice. Senart, \*Les Castes dans l'Inde\*, 48 \*et seq.\*, 212 \*et seq.\*, attributes great importance to the question of eating together, and compares the sacrificial meals of the \*gens\* at Rome, where strangers were excluded (Fustel de Coulanges, \*La Cité Antique\*, 117). But this is not conclusive; a caste is not a \*gens\*, and the \*gens\* excluded strangers only at a solemn festival, when the whole \*gens\* renewed its blood kinship. If we have no evidence exactly establishing this for the Gotra in early Vedic literature, we need not hesitate to believe that in the earliest Vedic period the Gotra had solemn festivals of union, and of communication with the dead, but that again does not explain or amount to the caste prohibition of taking food from an inferior. - [Previous: v2.c4.s7.283](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.283) - [Next: v2.c4.s7.285](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.285) - [Up: v2.c4.s7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.284](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.macdonell-keith-1912.v2.c4.s7.284) · Pramāṇa