[243] With the permission of the priests (who have been invited), he should revere, to the best of his ability, a priest or a beggar who comes around to be fed. [244] Mixing together all the varieties of food and sprinkling it with water, he should pour it all out, strewing it on the ground in front of those who have finished eating. [245] The leftovers and the food strewn on the sacrificial grass are the proper portion of those who have died without undergoing the transformative ritual, renouncers, and spinsters. [246] What is left over on the ground at the ritual for the ancestors is regarded as the proper portion of the sort of slave who is not crooked or hypocritical.
[247] If the ritual called the ‘Joining with those who share the same balls’ has not yet been done for a twice-born man who has died, only one priest should be fed at the ceremony for the dead and only one ball scattered, without any ritual to the gods. [248] But if the ritual of ‘Joining with those who share the same balls’ has already been performed for him, in keeping with duty, then the sons should scatter the balls in the other way (i.e. as described above).
[249] The fool who enjoys a meal at a ceremony for the dead and then presents the leftovers to a servant goes headfirst to the hell called ‘The Thread of Time’. [250] If a man climbs into bed with a servant woman on the same day he has enjoyed a meal at a ceremony for the dead, his ancestors have to lie in her excrement for a month.
[251] He should ask, ‘Have you eaten well?’ and then provide water for those satiated priests to rinse their mouths. After they have rinsed their mouths, he says ‘Please stay,’ and by doing so gives them leave to depart. [252] The priests should immediately reply, ‘Let there be refreshment for the dead,’ for saying, ‘Refreshment for the dead’ is the highest blessing in all rituals for the ancestors. [253] Then he should inform those who have finished eating about what remains of the food, and do with it what the twice-born advise. [254] At a ritual for the ancestors, he should say, ‘Have you eaten well?’; at a ritual for a cowpen, he should say instead, ‘Was it cooked well?’; at one performed on a joyous occasion, he should ask ‘Was it perfect?’; and at one for the gods, he should rather say, ‘Was it splendid?’
[255] The things that make everything go right at rituals in the ceremony for the dead are the afternoon, sacrificial grass, preparing the house, sesame seeds, generous dispensation (of food), wiping and polishing, and the highest sort of twice-born men. [256] These should be known as what makes everything go right at offerings to the gods: ceremonial grass, purifiers, the morning, all the kinds of food used for oblations, and the kinds of purifiers mentioned above. [257] What is said to be a natural oblation is food eaten by hermits, milk, Soma, undressed meat, and natural salt.
[258] When he has seen those priests off, he should turn to the south, and, purified and ritually prepared, filled with expectation, he should request these favours of his ancestors: [259] ‘May our generous donors prosper! And may the Vedas and our descendants also (prosper)! May our faith not dissipate and may there be much given to us that we might give to others!’
[260] When he has completed the scattered offering in this way, he should immediately feed those (remaining) balls to a cow, a priest, a goat, or the fire; or he may toss them into some water. [261] Some people put down the balls right after (the meal); others feed them to the birds, or toss them into the fire or into water. [262] A faithful wife, married in accordance with law and dedicated to revering the ancestors, may properly eat the middle ball from that (ritual) if she wishes to become pregnant with a son. [263] Then she will bring forth a son who will live a long time, who will have fame and wisdom, wealth and progeny, a man of lucidity and religion.
[264] When he has washed his hands and rinsed out his mouth, he should make the preparations for (food for) his paternal relatives. And when he has given it to his paternal relatives with all due honour, he should then also feed his maternal relatives. [265] But the leftovers should stay where they are until after the priests have dispersed; only then may one proceed with the propitiatory offering in the house. This is the established law.
[266] I will now explain, leaving nothing out, the oblations given, in accordance with the rules, to the ancestors – which ones are effective for a long time, and which ones are everlasting.
[267] Sesame seeds, rice, barley, beans, water, roots or fruits given to the ancestors of men in accordance with the rules satisfy them for one month. [268] They are satisfied for two months when given the flesh of fish, (they are satisfied for) three months with venison, four with mutton, and five with the flesh of birds; [269] six months with goat meat, seven with that of the spotted deer, eight with the meat of the black antelope, and nine with that of the gazelle. [270] They are satisfied for ten months with the flesh of boars and buffalo, eleven months with the meat of rabbits and tortoises; [271] and for a whole year with cow’s milk and food prepared in it. For twelve years they remain satisfied with the meat of a ‘leather-nose’. [272] The sacred basil, the ‘large-scaled’ fish, the rhinoceros, the flesh of a red goat, and honey are effective forever, and so are all the kinds of food eaten by hermits.
[273] Whatever food mixed with honey one presents on the thirteenth day after the beginning of the monsoon, in July and August, under the constellation of Magha, is also incorruptible (in its effects). [274] (The ancestors say) ‘May there be born into our family one who will give us food mixed with milk, with honey, or with melted butter on the thirteenth day when the shadow of the elephant is cast towards the east.’ [275] Whatever a man filled with faith gives properly in accordance with the rules, that becomes the incorruptible and everlasting (food) of the ancestors in the other world. [276] The days of the lunar fortnight in which the moon is waning, beginning with the tenth and with the exception of the fourteenth, are recommended for the performance of the ceremony for the dead – these days, and no others. [277] A man who performs the ritual for all his ancestors on the even-numbered days and constellations obtains all his desires; if on the uneven (days and constellations), he gets wonderful progeny. [278] Just as the second lunar fortnight is better than the first, so too the later portion of the day is better than the earlier for the ceremony for the dead.
[279] He should perform the ritual for the ancestors tirelessly, properly, and according to the rules, grasping sacrificial grass in his hands right up to the end, wearing his initiatory thread to the front (on the right shoulder) and ending up towards the south. [280] A ceremony for the dead should not be done at night, for the night is said to belong to the ogres; nor should it be done at the two twilights, nor when the sun has just risen. [281] Following these rules, the ceremony for the dead should be given three times a year – in the winter, summer, and rainy season, in addition to the daily one that is included among the five great sacrifices. [282] Sacrificial oblations intended for the ancestors should not be put into an ordinary fire; a twice-born man who keeps three or five sacrificial fires should not offer a ceremony for the dead except on the new-moon day.
[283] Even when a priest satisifies the ancestors with offerings of water while he is bathing, through that alone he obtains the full reward of performing a sacrifice to the ancestors. [284] They call the fathers the Vasus, the grandfathers the Rudras, and the great-grandfathers the Ādityas – thus proclaims the eternal revealed canon. [285] He should regularly eat the leftover offerings and the ambrosia: leftover offerings come from what remains from feasts, but ambrosia comes from what remains from sacrifices.
[286] Everything about the procedure of the five great sacrifices has thus been described to you. Listen now to the rule about the livelihoods for priests.
End of Chapter 3
[3] The offering made from a cow is the madhuparka, the honey--mixture, referred to in 3.119–20.
[4] The period of Veda study culminates in the homecoming ritual discussed at 2.245–6.
[5] In Vedic times, and to some extent in present-day India among certain priests, men traced their descent through a ritual lineage (gotra) to one of the s
even mythical sages or ṛṣis to whom the Veda was first revealed.
[10] The goose (haṃsa) and elephant (vāraṇa) walk with a rolling gait that ancient Indian poets considered a sign of beauty in a woman.
[11] If she has no brothers, her father may ‘appoint’ her to raise sons to be his heirs, and so her sons would be her father’s heirs instead of her husband’s. If her father is not known, her natural parents may turn out to be related to the bridegroom too closely (i.e. wrongly, involving adharma).
[16] Here Manu argues with the authors of other dharmaśāstras. The fall may be from caste or into hell.
[18] A man can make certain sacrifices only with the assistance of a wife of the proper class. Offerings of oblations in the sacrificial fire to the gods, of water to the ancestors, and of food from the family’s meal to priests who are guests comprise three of the five obligatory daily ‘great sacrifices’ of the householder. The other two are the propitiatory sacrifice of rice-balls placed on the ground for the disembodied spirits and the sacrifice to the brahman or ultimate reality, which is the study and recitation of the Veda. See 3.69–83.
[25] ‘Here’ means ‘in this text’. The three marriages that are right (dharmya) among the last five are those of the Lord of Creatures, centaurs, and ogres.
[32] The centaurs (gandharvas in Sanskrit, possibly cognate with the Latin centaurus) are celestial patrons of music, horses, and sexual love. The term ‘Gandharva marriage’ became a euphemism in Sanskrit literature for an otherwise unsanctioned sexual union, i.e. one witnessed only by these creatures.
[33] The verse does not specify the object of this mayhem. Some commentators suggest that it is the people of the house who try to oppose the ogre bridegroom; others suggest that the first two verbs (kill and wound) apply to such people, while the last applies to the house itself, which is broken into.
[35] The first is the Brahmā marriage (3.27), and the second is the centaur (gandharva) marriage (3.32).
[45] The lunar junctures are the parvans, the new- and full-moon days (and, sometimes, the eighth and fourteenth day of each lunar fortnight; see 4.113–14). Traditionally, in Vedic ritualism, the sacrificer and his wife prepared themselves for the performance of the new- and full-moon sacrifices by various kinds of observances, including sexual abstinence.
[46] The special days are the first four after the beginning of her menstrual period.
[49] The final instance would be a child with no sexual organs at all, or a miscarriage, or no conception at all.
[68] These are slaughter-houses because small creatures are, often inadvertently, killed through their use.
[70] The propitiatory offering to the disembodied spirits (bhūtas) is the bali offering of portions of food scattered on the ground.
[72] The observant reader will note that this list of five differs from that given directly above. The dependants may be those whom he is bound to support, such as servants or aged relatives or animals, or the disembodied spirits (bhūtas) referred to in previous verses.
[73] These compounds roughly translate the technical terms in Sanskrit: the ahuta, the huta, the prahuta, the brāhmyahuta, and the prāśita.
[78] Knowledge (jnāna) here refers to the daily recitation of the Veda.
[79] ‘Feeble sensory powers’ (durbalendriya) may refer to general weakness or to the failure to control the sense organs. ‘Incorruptible’, in the seventeenth-century sense, seems the best word to capture the meaning of akṣaya, literally ‘not-decaying’, with the added meaning of transcending the inevitable dissolution of worldly things.
[83] The ritual to the All-gods (vaiśvadeva) is an offering of food to the gods that is to be performed daily at sunrise, noon, and sunset. The verse indicates that these two rituals are to be kept separate, and hence one should not feed the two sets of priests at once.
[84] The household fire (gṛhyāgni) is the fire set at the time of marriage (see 3.67), the fire in which the householder performs the domestic rituals and the five great sacrifices, as well as ordinary cooking. It should be distinguished from the householder’s fire (gārhapatyāgni) (2.231).
[85] Fire and Soma together form the dual deity to whom the agniṣṭoma is offered. Dhanvantari is the physician of the gods.
[86] Kuhu is the goddess of the new-moon day, Anumati the goddess of the full-moon day, and Agni Sviṣṭakṛt is the Fire of the Perfected Offerings.
[87] The offering is made clockwise, literally ‘to the right’ (pradakṣiṇam), proceeding from the east to the south (the south being called dakṣiṇa). The deities thus honoured are Indra in the east, Death (Antaka, ‘The Ender’, more often called Yama) in the south, the Lord of the Waters (Āppati, more often called Varuṇa) in the west, and the Moon (Indu, more often called Soma) in the north.
[88] The Maruts are storm gods, servants of Indra.
[89] The ‘head’ and ‘foot’ are most likely the top and bottom of the house, in contrast with the centre mentioned in the next part of the verse; but commentators suggest that these terms may refer to the head and foot of the marriage bed, or to the place where the Lord of the House (Vāstoṣpati, the benevolent spirit of the dwelling place) puts his head and foot. Śrī is the goddess of fortune, and Bhadrakālī a benevolent form of Kālī (the Dark Goddess).
[91] The spirit of All Food is Sarvānnabhūti; some manuscripts read Sarvātmabhūti, Spirit of All Souls.
[92] ‘Dog-cooker’ is generally a term of opprobrium for Untouchables; Manu uses it to designate a particular caste of Untouchables (9.19, 51–6). The evils that make a man ill may have been committed in this life or a previous life; smallpox and leprosy are particularly indicated in this way.
[95] The rule is that a student should give his guru a present (a gurudakṣiṇā), preferably a cow, at the end of his period of study of the Veda. See 2.246.
[97] See 3.168 for the metaphor of the priest whose sacrificial fire has been extinguished.
[100] That is, the mistreated guest takes away the bad host’s good credit for good past actions (and, as is stated in other texts, he transfers to that host his own bad credit for bad past actions). The one who makes offerings in five fires is the āhitāgni.
[103] The term translated as ‘convivial’ (sāngatika) may rather designate someone who comes on business or is a member of one’s own group. The house with a wife and sacrificial fires is the home of a householder who has established his sacrificial hearth.
[104] That is, in the other world, or in their next birth, they are reborn as animals who will be thus eaten.
[109] The name of the family is the kula, and the lineage of the sages is the gotra.
[115] He will be eaten like this after his death, or in the other world.
[119] The honey-mixture is the madhuparka, an offering of honey and milk given to certain guests.
[122] The ‘offering after the balls’ is the piṇḍānvāhārya. The word for ‘ball’ is piṇḍa, usually a rice-ball, often used to define not only this ceremony but the basic relationship between males in a family (sapiṇḍas, ‘co-feeders’). See 3.215–20.
[133] This could be the spirit of the dead person to whom the offering to the ancestors is being offered at this moment, or the spirit, when he dies in the future, of the person now making an offering to the gods.
[141] That is, it does not move on to the next world.
[146] The effect that the ceremony of the dead has upon seven generations is mentioned in 1.105 and 3.138. These seven generations are those joined through the designation of ‘co-feeder’ (sapiṇḍa).
[150] Klība, usually translated as ‘eunuch’, is not a eunuch; there is no evidence that there were eunuchs in India before the Arab invasions many centuries after Manu. The term designates a ‘non-man’ (na-puṃsaka is given by all the commentators on this verse as a synonym for klība), that is, a sexually dysfunctional male, who might be, according to the context, impotent, homosexual, a transvestite, or, in some cases, a man with mutilated or defective
sexual organs. (One commentator on this verse gives, in addition to na-puṃsaka, several glosses: a hermaphrodite, a man with blighted semen, and a ṣaṇḍa). One dictionary describes fourteen different kinds of klības, one of whom is a mukhabhaga (a man who allows his mouth to be used as a vagina) and resorts to boys. Male homosexuals are scorned in the Kāmasūtra, and female homosexuals are scorned by Manu (8.369).
[152] The ‘priests who attend on idols’ are the regular Hindu priests of the bhakti cults.
[153] A man who has abandoned his (sacrificial) fire might be an apostate or simply a renouncer. Mangled teeth and discoloured nails are evidence of crimes committed in former lives; see 11.49.
[154] The terms parivettṛ and parivitti (designating a man who usurps his older brother’s place, and that older brother) are defined at 3.171. The member of an association might belong to a religious sect or be a tradesman, the leader of a caravan, a village headman, or a man who (fraudulently) lives off the money that belongs to his guild.
[156] The last two are the kuṇḍa and golaka, defined at 3.174.
The Laws of Manu Page 15