The Laws of Manu

by The Laws of Manu (retail) (epub)

  [156] An alakṣaṇa is literally a non-mark, the lack of a good distinguishing mark that bodes good fortune.

  [192] The metaphors of the cat (baiḍāla) and the heron (baka) are glossed at 4.195–6.

  [195] The hypocrisy of the cat is explained by a well-known story: A cat pretended to be an ascetic, standing in a yogic position all day outside the cave in which a family of mice lived. The mice trusted the cat, thinking that an ascetic must be a vegetarian. But as the days went by, and the numbers of the mice dwindled steadily, the mice realized that the cat was a false ascetic. This story, which is illustrated on a frieze at Mamallapuram from the seventh century A.D., is told in the Tantropākhyāna, tale #1.

  [196] The hypocrisy of the heron may derive from observation of the heron’s deceptive somnambulance or fastidiousness. In Indian beast fables, the heron often pretends to be asleep and thus lures to him the fish that he devours; ‘heron’ came to be a common term for a hypocrite. See Pañcatantra 1.6.

  [203] The ‘natural’ waterholes are literally ‘dug by the gods’.

  [204] The verse turns on a distinction between restrictions (yama), more serious prohibitions, and restraints (niyama), minor observances. Here, as elsewhere, the fall may be from caste in this life or into hell in the next, or, most likely, both.

  [212] ‘Dreaded’ (ugra) is the name of a mixed caste described at 10.9, 13, and 15; or it may simply refer to a man who is dreaded.

  [213] The woman without a man is, according to the commentaries, a woman without a husband or sons.

  [215] A ‘Hunter’ (niṣāda) is a member of a particular mixed caste, defined at 10.8 and 10.18.

  [222] The ‘Painful’ vow (kṛcchra) is described at 11.212.

  [227] The ‘proper receptable’ is a suitable recipient.

  [229] Most of these statements depend upon the assumption of implicit connections (bandhus) between the object given and the abstract entity achieved by the gift. Some depend upon verbal puns: thus silver (rūpya) leads to beauty (rūpa), and the gift of a horse (aśva) leads to the world of the Divine Horsemen (aśvins).

  [231] The chestnut horse is the sun; the summit of the chestnut horse (bradhnasya viṣṭapa) is the highest world of the sun.

  [234] The manner (bhāva) may be a frame of mind as well as a particular sort of gift. The commentators say he obtains the appropriate reward for that gift in the next life.

  [253] ‘Sharecropper’ (ārdhika) is, literally, someone who works the land for half the crop.

  [259] ‘Lucidity’ (sattva) is one of the three qualities (guṇas) of matter. The fact that Manu here refers to the householder explicitly as a priest confirms one’s suspicion that all the rules in this chapter apply primarily to priests, and that, indeed, the term ‘twice-born’ generally refers only to the ‘best of the twice-born’ (dvijottamas), the priests.

  CHAPTER 5

  [1] When the sages had heard these duties of a Vedic graduate thus declared, they said this to the great-souled Bhrgu, who was born of fire: [2] ‘My lord, how can Death have power over priests who know the teaching of the Veda and who fulfil their own particular duty as it has just been described?’ [3] Bhrgu, the son of Manu, who was the soul of religion, replied to the great sages:

  Listen to the fault through which Death tries to kill priests. [4] Through failure to study the Vedas, the neglect of proper conduct, inattentiveness to duties, and eating the wrong food, Death tries to kill priests.

  [5] Garlic, scallions, onions, and mushrooms, and the things that grow from what is impure, are not to be eaten by twice-born men. [6] The red sap of trees, and any exudations from a cut (in a tree), the ‘phlegmatic’ fruit, and the first milk of a newly-calved cow – you should try not to eat these. [7] (And do not eat) a dish of rice with sesame seeds, or a spice cake made of flour, butter, and sugar, or a cake made of rice, milk and sugar, if these are prepared for no (religious) purpose; or meat that has not been consecrated; or food for the gods, or offerings; [8] or the milk of a cow within ten days of calving, or the milk of a camel or of any animal with a whole, solid hoof, or of a ewe, or of a cow in heat or a cow whose calf has been taken from her; [9] and avoid the milk of women, the milk of all wild animals in the wilderness except the buffalo, and all foods that have gone sour or fermented. [10] But among foods that have gone sour or fermented, yogurt can be eaten, and all foods made with yogurt, as well as whatever is extracted from auspicious flowers, roots, and fruits.

  [11] Do not eat carnivorous birds or any birds that live in villages, or any whole-hoofed animals that have not been specially permitted; or little finches, [12] the sparrow, the aquatic bird, the goose, the waterbird, the village cock, the crane, the wildfowl, the moorhen, the parrot, and the starling; [13] birds that strike with their beaks, web-footed birds, the paddy-bird, birds that scratch with their toes, and birds that dive and eat fish; or meat from a butcher or dried meat; [14] or the heron or the crane, the raven or the wagtail; or (animals) that eat fish, or dung-heap pigs, or any fish. [15] Someone who eats the meat of an animal is called an eater of that animal’s meat; someone who eats fish is an eater of every animal’s meat; therefore you should avoid eating fish. [16] But sheat-fish and red fish may be eaten if they are used as offerings to the gods or the ancestors, and ‘striped’, ‘lion-faced’, and ‘scaly’ fish can always be eaten.

  [17] You should not eat solitary or unknown wild animals or birds, nor any animals with five claws, not even those listed among the animals that may be eaten. [18] They say that, among the animals with five claws, the porcupine, hedgehog, iguana, rhinoceros, tortoise, and hare may be eaten, as well as animals with one row of teeth, except for the camel.

  [19] Any twice-born person who knowingly eats mushrooms, a dung-heap pig, garlic, a village cock, onions, or scallions, will fall. [20] If he unknowingly eats (any of) these six, he should perform the ‘Heating’ vow or the ‘Ascetic’s Moon-course’ vow; and for (eating any of) the others, he should fast for a day. [21] A priest should perform the ‘Painful’ vow once a year in any case, in order to clean himself from anything (forbidden) that he has unknowingly eaten; but (he should do it) specially for (anything that he has eaten) knowingly.

  [22] Wild animals and birds that are permitted (to be eaten) may be killed by priests for sacrifices and for the livelihood of dependants; for Agastya did this long ago. [23] Indeed, in the ancient sacrifices of the sages that were offered by priests and rulers, the sacrificial cakes were made of edible wild animals and birds. [24] Any food that is permitted (to be eaten) and is not despised may be eaten if oil is added to it, even if it has been kept overnight; and so can what is left over from an oblation. [25] But the twice-born may eat anything that is made of barley and wheat, or dishes cooked with milk, without adding oil, even when they have been standing for a long time.

  [26] The list of what can be eaten and cannot be eaten by the twice-born has thus been declared, leaving nothing out. Now I will tell the rule for eating and not eating meat.

  [27] You may eat meat that has been consecrated by the sprinkling of water, or when priests want to have it, or when you are properly engaged in a ritual, or when your breath of life is in danger. [28] The Lord of Creatures fashioned all this (universe) to feed the breath of life, and everything moving and stationary is the food of the breath of life. [29] Those that do not move are food for those that move, and those that have no fangs are food for those with fangs; those that have no hands are food for those with hands; and cowards are the food of the brave. [30] The eater who eats creatures with the breath of life who are to be eaten does nothing bad, even if he does it day after day; for the Ordainer himself created creatures with the breath of life, some to be eaten and some to be eaters. [31] ‘Eating meat is (right) for the sacrifice’: this is traditionally known as a rule of the gods. But doing it on occasions other than this is said to be the rule of ogres. [32] Someone who eats meat, after honouring the gods and ancestors, when he has bought it, or killed it himself, or has been given it by s
omeone else, does nothing bad.

  [33] A twice-born person who knows the rules should not eat meat against the rules, even in extremity; for if he eats meat against the rules, after his death he will be helplessly eaten by them (that he ate). [34] The guilt of someone who kills wild animals to sell them for money is not so great, after his death, as that of someone who eats meat for no (religious) purpose. [35] But when a man who is properly engaged in a ritual does not eat meat, after his death he will become a sacrificial animal during twenty-one rebirths. [36] A priest should never eat sacrificial animals that have not been transformed by Vedic verses; but with the support of the obligatory rule, he may eat them when they have been transformed by Vedic verses. [37] If he has an addiction (to meat), let him make a sacrificial animal out of clarified butter or let him make a sacrificial animal out of flour; but he should never wish to kill a sacrificial animal for no (religious) purpose.

  [38] As many hairs as there are on the body of the sacrificial animal that he kills for no (religious) purpose here on earth, so many times will he, after his death, suffer a violent death in birth after birth. [39] The Self-existent one himself created sacrificial animals for sacrifice; sacrifice is for the good of this whole (universe); and therefore killing in a sacrifice is not killing. [40] Herbs, sacrificial animals, trees, animals (other than sacrificial animals), and birds who have been killed for sacrifice win higher births again. [41] On the occasion of offering the honey-mixture (to a guest), at a sacrifice, and in rituals in which the ancestors are the deities, and only in these circumstances, should sacrificial animals suffer violence, but not on any other occasion; this is what Manu has said.

  [42] A twice-born person who knows the true meaning of the Vedas and injures sacrificial animals for these (correct) purposes causes both himself and the animal to go to the highest level of existence. [43] A twice-born person who is self-possessed should never commit violence that is not sanctioned by the Veda, whether he is living in (his own) home, or with a guru, or in the wilderness, not even in extremity. [44] The violence to those that move and those that do not move which is sanctioned by the Veda and regulated by the official restraints – that is known as non-violence, for the law comes from the Veda.

  [45] Whoever does violence to harmless creatures out of a wish for his own happiness does not increase his happiness anywhere, neither when he is alive nor when he is dead. [46] But if someone does not desire to inflict on creatures with the breath of life the sufferings of being tied up and slaughtered, but wishes to do what is best for everyone, he experiences pleasure without end. [47] A man who does no violence to anything obtains, effortlessly, what he thinks about, what he does, and what he takes delight in. [48] You can never get meat without violence to creatures with the breath of life, and the killing of creatures with the breath of life does not get you to heaven; therefore you should not eat meat. [49] Anyone who looks carefully at the source of meat, and at the tying up and slaughter of embodied creatures, should turn back from eating any meat.

  [50] A man who does not behave like the flesh-eating ghouls and does not eat meat becomes dear to people and is not tortured by diseases. [51] The one who gives permission, the one who butchers, the one who slaughters, and the one who buys and sells, the one who prepares it, the one who serves it, and the eater – they are killers. [52] No one is a greater wrong-doer than the person who, without reverence to the gods and the ancestors, wishes to make his flesh grow by the flesh of others. [53] The man who offers a horse-sacrifice every year for a hundred years, and the man who does not eat meat, the two of them reap the same fruit of good deeds. [54] A man who eats pure fruits and roots, or who eats what hermits eat, does not reap fruit (as great as that) of refraining from eating meat. [55] ‘He whose meat in this world do I eat will in the other world me eat.’ Wise men say that this is why meat is called meat. [56] There is nothing wrong in eating meat, nor in drinking wine, nor in sexual union, for this is how living beings engage in life, but disengagement yields great fruit.

  [57] Now I will explain the cleansing for the dead and then the cleansing of things, in proper order for each of the four classes.

  [58] When a child dies when he has just got his teeth, or after he has his teeth, or when he has had his first ceremonial haircut, all of his relatives become unclean, and also, it is said, on the occasion of a childbirth. [59] It is the rule that among co-feeding relatives the pollution caused by a corpse lasts for ten days, or until the bones are gathered, or three days, or one day. [60] But the relationship of co-feeding relatives stops with the seventh person (in the lineage, both past and future), and the relationship of co-watering relatives stops when no one knows the man’s birth or name. [61] The very same pollution caused by a corpse that is the rule for co-feeding relatives should also apply in case of a birth, for people who aspire to perfect cleansing. [62] The pollution caused by a corpse affects all (co-feeding relatives), but (the pollution of) a birth affects the mother and father. (The pollution of) a birth is just for the mother, for the father becomes unpolluted by washing. [63] But when a man has shed his semen he is cleaned by washing; a sexual connection involving semen afflicts a man with inauspiciousness for three days.

  [64] (Co-feeding relatives) who have touched a corpse become clean after a day and a night plus three periods of three days and nights, but co-watering relatives (become clean) after three days. [65] And a pupil who performs the sacrifice to the ancestors for his dead guru also becomes clean after ten nights, just the same as those who carry away the corpse. [66] When there is a miscarriage, (a woman) becomes clean after the same number of nights as the months (since conception), and a menstruating woman becomes clean by bathing after the bleeding has stopped.

  [67] The cleansing of (the relatives of dead) male children who have not had their ceremonial haircut is traditionally regarded as taking one night, but when the ceremonial haircut has taken place, a cleansing of three nights is recommended. [68] When a child dies before he is two years old, his maternal relatives should adorn him and deposit him outside (the village) on unpolluted ground, without gathering up the bones (afterwards). [69] No transformative ritual of fire should be performed for him, nor any rite of libation, but they should leave him in the wilderness like a piece of wood and fast for three days. [70] When a child dies before he is three years old, his maternal relatives should not perform any rite of libation for him, but if he has his teeth or has been ceremonially given a name, (such a libation) may be performed.

  [71] When a fellow-student of the Veda has died, a fast of one day is traditionally prescribed; and cleansing is said to be achieved three nights after the birth of co-watering relatives. [72] The maternal relatives (of the family of the bridegroom) of women (who die) unmarried are purified after three days, and the ‘umbilical’ relatives are purified after the same period. [73] They should eat food with no alkalines or salt, and they should bathe (in rivers and ponds) for three days, abstain from eating meat, and lie on the ground, separately.

  [74] The preceding set of rules for the pollution caused by a corpse has been prescribed (for those who live) near (the dead person); the following is the rule for relatives and in-laws who do not (live) near (the dead person).

  [75] When someone who is staying in a distant country dies, a (relative) who hears of it within ten days (after the death) should remain polluted just for whatever remains of the ten-night period. [76] If ten days have passed, he should remain polluted for three nights; but if a whole year has passed, he is cleaned just by washing. [77] Someone who hears of the death of a relative or the birth of a son after ten days is cleaned by plunging into water with all his clothes on. [78] If a baby or a relative who is not a co-feeder dies in a foreign land, a person is cleaned immediately by plunging into water with all his clothes on.

  [79] If another death or birth occurs within the ten-day period (of pollution), a priest remains polluted only for the exact period of the ten days. [80] When a man’s teacher has died, they say the pollution lasts fo
r three nights; and when his son or wife dies, it lasts for a day and a night; that is a fixed rule. [81] When a neighbouring priest who knows the Veda by heart dies, the pollution lasts for three nights; and upon the death of a maternal uncle, a pupil, or a maternal relative, it lasts for a night plus the preceding and following days. [82] On the death of the king of the country where a man is staying, (he is polluted) as long as the light (of the sun or the stars shines); but on the death of a priest who does not know the Veda by heart, or of a guru who can recite the Vedas and supplements to the Vedas, it lasts for a whole day. [83] A priest becomes clean ten days after (a death), a king after twelve days, a commoner after fifteen days, and a servant after a month. [84] One should not increase the days of inauspiciousness, nor interrupt the rites performed in fires; for not even an ‘umbilical’ relative remains polluted if he performs that ritual.

  [85] If a man has touched a ‘Notorious by Day’ Untouchable, a menstruating woman, anyone who has fallen (from his caste), a woman who has just given birth, a corpse, or anyone who has touched any of these objects, he can be cleaned by a bath. [86] When a man sees (any of the above) polluting things after he has already become purified by rinsing out his mouth, he should always recite the Vedic verses to the sun, as much as he can, and the purifying Vedic verses, to the best of his ability. [87] If a priest touches a human bone that has fat on it, he is cleaned by a bath; if it has no fat, (he is cleaned) by rinsing out his mouth and (then) touching a cow or looking at the sun. [88] A man who has undertaken a vow should not pour the libation (for the dead) until he completes his vow; but when it is complete and he has performed the libation, he becomes clean after only three nights. [89] No ritual of libation should be poured for those who are born in vain or born from a wrong mixture of classes, or for those who live among renouncers or have taken their own lives; [90] nor for women who have joined a heretical sect, or who live on lust, or have abortions, or harm their husbands, or drink liquor. [91] A person who has made a vow and who then carries away his own dead teacher or instructor or father or mother or guru does not violate his vow. [92] A dead servant should be carried out through the southern gate of the town, but twice-born men through the western, northern, and eastern gates, as is appropriate.