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187
inverse order, the (three) mentioned first in the direct order.
XII, 108.
MIXED CASTES.
106. Sacraments, beginning with the boiling of gruel, three times seven in number (shall be performed) by them. The son (of a Brahman) with a Brahman woman is equal in caste (to his father). The son (of a Brahman) with a Kshatriya woman is an Anantara.
107. An Ambashtha and an Ugra are begotten in the same way by Kshatriya men and on Vaisya women respectively. An Ambashtha is an Ekântara, the son of a Brahman with a Vaisya woman.
108. In the same way, a son called Nishâda
Of these, one is born in the inverse, and two are born in the direct order. 106 b. A Sûta and the other Pratilomas (men born in the inverse order), who are begotten contrary to order, are declared to partake of the series of three times seven sacraments, beginning with the Pâka ceremony (cooking food). 106 c. The son,' &c.
106. The meaning of the first half of this paragraph is somewhat obscure. The term trih sapta, 'three times seven,' has been connected with samskârâs, 'sacraments.' The sacraments are peculiar to those mixed castes, which are procreated in the direct order of castes. See Manu X, 41. The boiling of gruel' (karupâka) being mentioned as the first sacrament, it appears that the sacraments here referred to are identical with the yagñas, 'sacrifices,' of which there are twenty-one according to the usual theory. See Gautama XVIII, 18-20, and Professor Weber's paper on Vedic Sacrificial Rites, Indische Studien, X, p. 320. It is also possible to connect the clause' three times seven' with 'them.' The number of twenty-one mixed castes procreated in a direct order is received by adding the fifteen castes springing from a further mixture between the mixed castes (Manu X, 31) to the six principal mixed castes procreated in a direct order. For vai matâh, as I have conjectured, the MSS. read koshihatah, which might be rendered '(The twenty-one sacraments, beginning with the boiling of gruel, have to be performed by them) out of a pot.' However, the correctness of this reading is liable to considerable doubt. The Nepalese MS. reads, te samskârâska pakâdyâs teshâm trih saptako ganah. This is perhaps the original reading. See the preceding note.
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