Book Title: Vinaya Texts
Author(s): T W Rhys Davids, Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford

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Page 2317
________________ 416 LAWS OF MANU. X, 62. 62. Dying, without the expectation of a reward, for the sake of Brahmanas and of cows, or in the defence of women and children, secures beatitude to those excluded (from the Aryan community, vahya). 63. Abstention from injuring (creatures), veracity, abstention from unlawfully appropriating (the goods of others), purity, and control of the organs, Manu has declared to be the summary of the law for the four castes. 64. If (a female of the caste), sprung from a Brâhmana and a Sûdra female, bear (children) to one of the highest caste, the inferior (tribe) attains the highest caste within the seventh generation. 62. Vi. XVI, 18. 63. Gaut. VIII, 23; Yâgñ. I, 122; and above, IV, 246, V, 107. Nand. reads sarvavarne, for all castes,' instead of kâturvarnye, for the four castes.' 64. Ấp. II, IO-II; Gaut. IV, 22 ; Yâẽ. I, 96. According to Medh., Gov., Kull., and Râgh., the meaning is that, if the daughter of a Brâhmana and of a Sudra female and her descendants all marry Brâhmanas, the offspring of the sixth female descendant of the original couple will be a Brahmana. While this explanation agrees with Haradatta's comment on the parallel passage of Gautama, Når. and Nand. take the verse very differently. They say that if a Parasava, the son of a Brahmana and of a Sûdra female, marries a most excellent Parasava female, who possesses a good moral character and other virtues, and if his descendants do the same, the child born in the sixth generation will be a Brâhmana. Nand. quotes in support of his view Baudhayana I, 16, 13-14 (left out in my translation of the Sacred Books of the East, II, p. 197), nishâdena nishadyâm â paskamag gâter apahanti [gâto 'pahanti] sûdratâm i tam upanayet shashtham yâgayet, '(Offspring), begotten by a Nishâda on a Nishadi, removes within five generations the Sudra-hood; one may initiate him (the fifth descendant), one may sacrifice for the sixth.' This passage of Baudhâyana, the reading of which is supported by a new MS. from Madras, clearly shows that Baudhâyana allowed the male offspring of Brâhmanas and Sadra females to be raised to the level of Aryans. It is also not impossible Digitized by Google

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