188 - The rituals of Shrãddha

This is on the basis of contents. The tide actually given is Pindakalpashräddhotpattiprakaranam based on the statement at the close of the chapter.

Earth said:

1. O Mädhava, lord of the gods, lord of the worlds, I wish to know from you the rites to be done during the period of äšhaucha. Varäha said:

2. Listen, O auspicious one. I shall tell you about ašhaucha and how people are purified after it.

3. On the third day after the death (of the relative), bath should be taken in the river and pinda should be given together with three handfuls of water.

4. On the fourth, fifth and sixth days, there should be Pinda and one handful of water. On the seventh day this should be in a different place. This should be continued up to the tenth day.

5. On the tenth day, all those belonging to the gotra of the   departed should bathe taking oil of sesamum and myrobalan and wash the clothes with cleaning materials.

6. After giving pinda, they should get themselves shaven, bathe again according to rites, and return home along with the relatives.

7. On the eleventh day, the Ekoddishta ceremony should be done and after bath the (soul of) the dead person should be united in Brahmins.

8. This Ekoddista is to be done by all the four castes and Brahmin should be fed with all the materials prescribed.

9. After bath, the departed soul should be united with the departed.¹

1. Perhaps there is some confusion here. In verse 7 we get pretam vipreshu yojayet and here pretam preteshu yojayet.

10. Brahma has laid down that for the first three castes and also for Shüdras who were really doing service, cooked food should be used and for others uncooked food. 

11. On the thirteenth day Brahmins should be fed with well-cooked food.

12-13. Having in mind the name of the dead and with conviction that its aim is to make him go to heaven, the Brahmin should be sought in his house, and invited in all humility, uttering mentally the following mantra:

14. “You have gone to the celestial world and ordained by the god of death. Your mind has become the wind. So enter this Brahmin.”

15. The Brahmin should be approached soon after sunset, and after giving Pädya, should be prostrated before and his feet caressed, all for the sake of the departed.

16-17. So long as the Brahmin is having in his body the soul of the departed thus invoked, he shall not, O Earth, touch my images.

18. In the morning, soon after sunrise, proper shaving should be got done for the invited Brahmin. 

19. An oil bath should then be given for him which gives pleasure to the departed.

20. A small earthen pedestal by a heap of clods on a low clean place near a river or a pond, should be made as the place for the departed.

21-22. This may be marked into sixty-four parts. Then on the south-east in the shade or under a tree on the river bank, the rites for the departed are to be done in a place free from Chandalas and other outcastes and creatures like the fowl, dogs and pigs.

23-24. If Shräddha is done in a place, where the dog blocks (the people) by its moan, the pig by its grunt, the fowl by the wind wafted by its wings and the Chandäla (by his very presence), it brings about bondage to the departed (and not release). The wise should avoid such places for these rites.

25-26. O goddess, Devas, Asuras, Gandharvas, Pišhächas, Uragas, Rakshasas, Sacrifices and all beings moving and non-moving are set on your surface.

27. And I hold this universe full of Vishnu-maya and with the Chandala upwards and all the good and evil of the people.

28. Therefore, let the libation be made in the clods on the pedestal.

29. Those who do libation without these earthen clods, make what remains impure.

30. Neither gods nor manes accept such offerings and that leads only to the ghastly hell.

31. The offering for the departed should be made in the earthen pedestal in the forenoon uttering the name and gotra and saying that the pinda is offered.

32. After this, all in the family and those in the same gotra are to partake of the remains (after the offering). This food should not be given to those belonging to other gotras for whom it is not permissible to take it.

33. This is what is ordained for all the four castes and those that are departed get propitiated by this.

34. He who eats it before offering to the departed, shall go to a great river and bathe there along with the clothes he wears (as expiation).

35. (Then for feeding the Brahmins), first calling to mind all the tirthas, water should be thrice sprinkled on the floor, and thus getting the place purified, the Brahmins should be quickly brought there and, when they have come, the ritual of welcome should be made for them.

eating vessel) should not be thrown away. With his permission it should be disposed of in a blemishless manner.

71. After purification with sacred waters sanctified by šhäntimantras, the performer should go to the place of libation and bow to the earth.

72. He should utter mantras and praises full of devotion for

the earth.

73. “I bow to you again and again, O Earth, mother of the world, holding big mountains. I bow again and again to you in whom the whole universe rests.”

74. Then uttering the name and gotra of the departed, water with sesamum should be poured.

75. Kneeling down and prostrating before the Brahmins, they should be raised up holding their hands with mantra.

76. A bed should then be given and also ornaments and collyrium. The Brahmin should receive them and occupy the bed.

77. After awhile, going to the place of libation, a cow should be given to the Brahmin by holding its tail.

78. The vessel made of Udumbara wood containing water and black sesamum should be taken and mantras relating to the cow should be recited.

79. The cow should be gifted holding its tail and sprinkling it with this water sanctified by the mantras and capable of removing sins.

80. Then the departed (who was invoked earlier) should be released and gifts given to Brahmins. The balls of rice offered to the manes should be given to the crows, because of their impurity after the Offering.

81. Then the performer should go to his house with other Brahmins and feed them all with cooked food.

82. Food should be scattered also for tiny beings like the ants for propitiating the departed.

83. When all these are thus made happy, happiness accrues to him who has departed to the world of the dead.

84. All the food thus distributed becomes an inexhaustible store for him. These are the rites to be done for the departed to enable change from that state (to become manes).

85. This Will be adopted by all the four castes since it is something revealed to Svayambhü.

86. Now you need not have any fear, O son, for having done the obsequial rites to your son.

87. I have now told you everything in detail and in the presence of Närada.

88. You have now set the precedent for the sacrifice for the departed son. Hereafter, this Pitriyajña will be established in the world.

89. The rules of the rites for the manes were thus told by Ätreya (the father) ¹.

1. This is possibly an interpolated passage.

90. The oblations should be done in the third, seventh, ninth and eleventh months after death, and at the end of one full year the annual rites should be performed.

 91. Getting pure in body and mind and with concentration of mind, the departed should be invoked and cooked food offered according to the rules.

92. This should be done with mantra for all the castes, except the Shüdras for whom it should be without mantra.

93. When the rites for the departed-are over at the end of the year, some get full release and some return (to be re-born in the world).

94. Although there may be the grandfather, daughter-in-law, wife, and relatives close and distant, we should realise that this world is like a dream.

95. All of them mourn f or a while, but soon turn themselves away. The bond of affection and attachment is there for a moment, but that is broken soon.

96. Whose is the mother, whose is the father, whose the wife and whose the sons? In life after life they are there and have attachment by bond of delusion.

97. But the rites for the dead should be done with a feeling of attachment, though it is true that we are having thousands of parents and hundreds of wives and sons in the numerous cycles of birth and death.

98. (What I told you) is the rules of obsequies laid down by Svayambhü.

99. When the rites relating to the departed (Pretakärya) are over, the status of manes (pitrutva) is attained, and so libation for manes (Pitrutarpana) should be performed on the new moon day every month.

100. The father, grand-father and great-grand-father (should be given libation), and if the Brahmin is fed on that day, they get permanently propitiated.

101. After describing the rites of Pitriyajña in this manner, Ätreya (the father) meditated for a while and soon disappeared.

Närada said:

102. “Having heard about the obsequies narrated by Ätreya for all the four castes, (you should now be convinced that) you have (really) established dharma.

103. The sages also perform Pitriyajña as part of Shräddha on a particular day every month. The Brahmins do it in this way and the Shüdras without mantra.

104. The Shräddha performed by Nimi is followed by the twice born and it has come to be known as ‘Nimišhräddha’.

105. O great sage, let good befall you. I take leave of You.”

 106. So saying, the great sage Närada returned to heaven spreading his lustre everywhere.

107. O Earth, this is the conception of pinda and the origin of Šhräddha and they are established among the Brähmanas by the sage Ätreya himself.