Dhammapada

SR No.: 007674
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2540
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 1873

XXI, 10.
PENANCES.
III
7. If (a wife) has held an improper) conversation (with another man), she must perform the same penance during a month. After (the expiration of) the month, (the husband) shall offer four times eight hundred burnt-oblations, (reciting) the Savitri (and the Mantra called) Siras, while she is immersed in water. It is declared in the Veda that she becomes pure (thereby).
8. But if (a wife) has actually committed adultery, she shall wear during a year a garment smeared with clarified butter, and sleep on a mat of Kusa grass, or in a pit filled with cowdung. After the expiration of) the year, (the husband) shall offer eight hundred burnt-oblations, (reciting) the Sâvitri (and the Mantra called) Siras, while she is immersed in water. It is declared in the Veda that she becomes pure (thereby).
9. But if she commits adultery with a Guru, she is forbidden (to assist her husband) in (the fulfilment of) his sacred duties.
10. But (these) four (wives) must be abandoned, (viz.) one who yields herself to (her husband's) pupil or to (his) Guru, and especially one who attempts
a number of burnt-oblations with the Siras, i. e. (the words) “Om, ye waters, who are splendour, juice, and ambrosia," &c., which are joined to the Gayatrî.'--Krishnapandita. The Siras, or 'head,' is again mentioned below, XXV, 13; see also Vishnu LV, 9. This and the following two rules refer to offences committed with males of equal caste.
9. Yâgñavalkya I, 70. Colebrooke IV, Dig. LXXVI, where a different reading, vyavâyatîrthagamanadharmebhyah, has been adopted, and the Satra has been combined with the next. The first clause may also be translated, 'If she actually commits adultery, (and especially) if she converses with a Guru.'
10. Colebrooke loc. cit.; Manu IX, 80; Yâgñavalkya I, 72.
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