35 - The education of Alarka (continued).

An exposition of things permitted and forbidden.

Madalasá describes what food may be eaten and what how various things are to be cleansed when impure, and what things are always pure-how one who has contracted imepurity should purify himself-what actions and conduct one should avoid-

She insists on the necessity of maintining the daily sacrifice- She mentions what holidoys are allowed the various castes-She describes certain post-funeral ceremonies--and purification after leaths and births. 

Madálasá spoke.

1       Next do thou hearken to the remedial measures for things forbidden and permitted. Rice should be eaten that has been

2 kept awhile, mixed with oil, and long stored; and wheat, barley, and butter-milk and preparations thereof unmixed with oil. The hare, the tortoise, the go-sámp,* the porcupine,

* Godhá, the Go-sámp a very large kind of lizard found in jungle, 

3 and the rhinoceros, my son,-these indeed may be eaten; and the domestic pig and fowl should be eschewed. The remains of food at a śhráddha after the pitris and gods and other recipents have been satisfied may be eaten at the desire of the

4 bráhmans. A man who eats flesh that has been killed for the purpose of medicine is not defiled. 

5 Shells, stones, gold, and silver, ropes, and garments, and vegetables, roots and fruits, and wieker-work vessels and leather,

6 and gems, diamonds, and coral, and pearls, and men’s bodies are best cleansed with water; just as iron things with

7 water, and stone by scrubbing. Oily vessels are cleansed with Warm water, and winnowing baskets, grain and antelope-skins,

8 and the pestle and mortar for husking rice, and thick cloths, and a store by sprinkling; and all kinds of bark-made things

9 are best cleansed with water and earth. Grass, wood and medicinal herbs are best cleansed by sprinkling; and all

10 woollen things and hair have ceremonial purity. White mustard is cleansed with oily sediment or the sediment from sesamum seed. Things that are injured are always cleansed

11 with water, my son. So also cotton things are cleaned with water and ashes. Timber, ivory, hone and horn are best

12 cleaned by scraping. Earthen pots are purified ceremonially by re-burning. 

Pure are alms, a workman’s hand, wares for sale, and a 

13 woman’s face, whatever passes along the high-road, what unknown, what is brought by slaves and other menials, what admirable for its sound, what is long past, what is screened by

14 many, what is light, what is extremely abundant, what is young, and what is done by the old and the sickly, kitchen when the business in them is ended, women who are suckling

15 children. Pure also are running water, and odourless bubbles The ground is cleansed through time, by the rubbing of

16 bodies, and the passage of cattle, by smearing, by digging by watering, by houses, by sweeping and by worship. 

Things infested with hair-lice, or sniffed at by cattle, or

17 infested with flies should be sprinkled with earth water an ashes to be cleansed, my son; things made of udumbara

18 wood* with vinegar; tin and lead with salt. Brass thing are cleaned with ashes and water; and the over-flows of fluids are pure. A thing soiled by ordure is cleaned with earth and

*Udumbara, Ficus glomerata, Roxb.; a large tree, common about village (Roxb. p. 646.) 

19 water and by removing the smell; and other sach-like thing by removing the colour and smell. 

Water is pure that has satisfied cattle, that is in its naturel

20 state, that is lying on the earth; and likewise flesh that ha been slain by Chandálas, Kravyádas and others. And clothe and other things lying on the high-road are said to be made

21 pure by the wind. Dust. fire, a horse, a cow, the shade, th rays of the sun and moon, the wind, the earth, drops of water and mosquitoes and other insects inflict no contamination though they may have been in contact with what is corrupt.

22 A goat and a horse are pure as regards their face; but the face of a cow or calf is not pure when the mother is in milk; a hawk

23 is pure when it knocks fruit down. A seat, a bed, a carriage boats, and grass on the road-they are purified by the rays the the moon and sun and by the wind, in the same way as article of trade.

24 After walking along the high road, and after matters bathing, hunger, drinking, and weariness, one should change 

25 one’s clothes and duly rinse out one’s mouth. Bad roads,* mud, and water, when one comes into contact with them, are cleaned by leaving them alone; and things made of mud or brick† are cleansed by contact with the wind. 

*vi-rathyá; not in the diotionary.

††For upashamena read upashamaya?

26 On taking up a morsel of rice-food that has been damaged through over-maturity, he should discard it, and should rinse out his mouth with water and earth, and should sprinkle the

27 remainder with water. One who has eaten bad food whether wittingly or unwittingly, should fast for three nights in order to assuage†† that fault. 

†Ishta, brick? 

28 After touching a menstruous woman, a horse, a jackal, and other animals, or a woman recently delivered of a child, or people of low caste, one should bathe for the sake of purification;

29 and so should those who have carried a corpse. After touching an oily human bone a man becomes clean when he has bathed; after touching a dry human bone he becomes clean by rinsing out his mouth, or by touching a cow, or by gazing

30 at the sun. Moreover, one should not disregard blood, spittle, aud unguents for the body. 

A wise man should never stand in gardens and other

31 places in the afternoons. Nor should one hold converse with a woman hated by the populace or with a widow. 

One slould cast remnants of food, ordure, urine and the water used for washing the feet, outside the house. 

32 Without taking up five piņdas one should not bathe in another man’s water; one should bathe in holy ponds, and in the Ganges, in lakes and rivers. 

33 After touching or holding converse with blasphemers of the gods, pitris, and holy shástras, sacrifices, prayers and other sacred objects, one should purify one’s self by gazing at the

34 sun. And after looking at a menstruous woman, a shúdra, an outcaste, or a dead body, the unrighteous, a woman recently delivered of a child, a eunuch, a naked person, and persons of low caste, and on those who give away children, and on the paramours of other men’s wives, the wise must indeed

36 perform this purification of themselves. One conversant with righteousness, after touching forbidden food, a woman recently delivered, a ennuch, a cat, a rat, a dog, or, cock, and an outcaste, what is cast away, a Ch’andála, and

37 those who carry away corpses, is purified by bathing; and also one who has touched a woman in her courses, and the domestic hog, and even two men who have been contaminated by the impurity of a newly-delivered woman.

38 ‘The base man, both he who daily neglects the continual ceremony, and he who is abandoned by bráhmans, is polluted

39 One should never allow the continual ceremony to cease; but if it is neglected, there is a stoppage to the re-birth of his deceased relatives. 

40 A bráhman should spend ten days, exempt from alms-giving the Homa sacrifice and other pious acts: and a kshatriya

41 should spend twelvo days: and a vaisya half a month; but shúdra should remain a month, exempt from his peculiar occupation: pation: thereafter all should pursue their own occupation, as already expounded.

42 Water ought to be presented to a departed person, after his body las been burnt outside by his relatives,* on the first

* Gotrika,

43 and fourth, seventh and ninth days of the moon. His relatives should gather together the ashes and bones on the fourth day; it is prescribed that after gathering them together, they 

44 should touch their limbs with them. But the sahodakas should perform all the ceremonies, after the gathering togother of the remains.

† For mritáhani read mrijá-hánis.

45 If a person dies directly of his own free will, by the sword by water, by hanging, or by fire, by poison, by a fall, in any other unnatural way, or by religious fasting to death or by fasting to death from vindictive motives;†† or if he 

††For verse 45 of the text read- 

Anvaksham ic’c’haya shastra-toyodbandhana-vahnishu Visha-prapatádi-mrile prayonashanayor api.

The text appoars to be corrupt. This amended reading is taken from a private MS, consulted by the pandit of the Bengal Asiatic Society for me, but prayanas anayor seems preferable.

46 dies as a child, or as a sojourner in a foreign country, or as a malicious mendicant, purification will be effected at once; and others say the period of impurity* is declared to be three days

*A-shanch’akam; not in the dictionary.

47 for the sapiņdas; but if, after tho other person is dead, the sapinda also dies, in this case the ceremonies must be performed during the days called the period of the first impurity. 

48 This same ordinance is applied also to the impurity caused by the birth of sapindas, among sapindas and properly among

49 sahodukas also. When a son is born, the father must bathe with his clothes on. And if, after one child has been born

50 there, another should be born, the purification in that case also is prescribed according to the days of tho elder-born child. 

When ten or twelve months or half a month have elapsed,

51 all the castes should duly perform their respective rites and ceremonies. Next the ekoddishţa shráddha should be performed

52 for the departed person. And men of undorstanding must give gifts to the bráhmans; whatever is most desired in the world, and whatever is prized at home, those very things

53 therefore, inust one who hopes for immortality give to a bráhman endowed with good qualities: but at the end of the days, after they have touched water, a chariot, a weapon, a goad

54 and a rod, and after they have performed the ceremonies, they should make the oblation† ordained by the laws of their

  † For upádanam read upadánan? 

55 respective castes, and perform all pure acts that confer bliss in the next world and in this. 

A wise man must study the three Vedas, and must be continually

56 occupied therein; he must amass riches righteously, and strenuously perform sacrifices; and he must fearlessly do

57 whatever does not entail censure on the soul of him who does it, my son, and whatever ought not to be concealed in public. The good man that so does, my child, brings splendour to his home by acquiring righteousness wealth and love.