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The Aurasa Son
133
As one might expect, even among those who accepted the fact that the son born to a duly wedded wife of a lower varna qualifies as aurasa, the question arose whether this extended meaning also applies to the case in which the husband was a twice-born and the wife a sudra26. The commentators disagree.
Rāmacandra (on Manu 9. 166), without explicitly excluding the son of a śūdrā, does so indirectly by referring to the aurasa as a dvija :
svakṣetre samskṛtāyām-ūḍhāyāṁ svayam-utpādayed dvijaṁ tam aurasam putraṁ... vijānīyāt |
In its comment on the term savarṇā at Āpastamba 2. 2. 3. 14, the Pārijāta (as quoted in the Vyavahāraprakāśa, p. 468) is willing to extend the meaning of the term to include any dvija female married to any dvija male-it is not clear whether or not both anuloma and pratiloma marriages are included, but for the son of a śūdra wife to be aurasa his father has to be a śūdrā :
savarṇātra dvijasya dvijā śūdrāsya śūdrā na tu brāhmaṇasya brāhmaṇī kṣatriyasya kṣatriyā vaiśyasya vaiśyā. anyathā brāhmaṇādipariņītakṣatriyādiputrāṇāṁ dvādaśa-vidhaputrāntarbhāvo na syat |
In the passage from the Mitākṣarā where Vijñāneśvara includes sons of anuloma marriages among the aurasas, and, therefore, allows them to claim the entire inheritance prior to any other kind of sons, he immediately follows up by declaring that sons born of a śūdrā wife, though aurasa, do not enjoy that privilege :
śūdrāputras tv auraso'pi kṛtsnam bhāgam-anyābhāve'pi na labhate | Apararka agrees, and adds a reason why this is so :
dharmapatni-sabdena śūdrā vyāvartate, tasyāḥ sahadharmacārity
ābhāvāt.
Bālambhaṭṭa, on the contrary, in the passage quoted earlier, holds that patnitvam mukhyam-avivakṣitam-iti śūdrāpi tādṛśī dvijānām (p. 538).
Nandapandita (on Visnu 15. 2) deals with this problem at length. He first mentions an objection to the effect that the son of a sudra cannot qualify
