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The Sacred Laws of the Âryas: Vasishtha - Chapter XV
1. Man formed of uterine blood and virile seed proceeds from his mother and his father (as an effect) from its cause.1
2. (Therefore) the father and the mother have power to give, to sell, and to abandon their (son).
3. But let him not give or receive (in adoption) an only son;2
4. For he (must remain) to continue the line of the ancestors.3
5. Let a woman neither give nor receive a son except with her husband's permission.4
6. He who desires to adopt a son, shall assemble5 his kinsmen, announce his intention to the king, make burnt-offerings in the middle of the house, reciting the Vyâhritis, and take (as a son) a not remote kinsman, just the nearest among his relatives.
7. But if a doubt arises (with respect to an adopted son who is) a remote kinsman, (the adopter) shall set him apart like a Sûdra.6
8. For it is declared in the Veda, 'Through one he saves many.'7
9. If, after an adoption has been made, a legitimate son be born, (the adopted son) shall obtain a fourth part,8
10. Provided he be not engaged in (rites) procuring prosperity.9
11. He who divulges the Veda (to persons not authorised to study it), he who sacrifices for Sûdras, (and all those) who have fallen from the rank of the highest caste (shall be excommunicated by the ceremony of) emptying the water-vessel.10
12. A slave or the son of a wife of a lower caste, or a relative not belonging to the same caste, who is destitute of good qualities, shall fetch a broken pot from a heap of vessels unfit for use, place Kusa grass, the tops of which have been cut off, or Lohita grass (on the ground), and empty the pot for the (outcast, overturning it) with his left foot;11
13. And the relatives of the (outcast), allowing their hair to hang down, shall touch him who empties (the pot).12
14. Turning (when they leave) their left hands towards (that spot), they may go home at pleasure.13
15. Let them not afterwards admit the (excommunicated person) to sacred rites.14
16. Those who admit him to sacred rites become his equals.
17. But outcasts who have performed (the prescribed) penance (may be) readmitted.
18. Now they quote also (the following verse): 'Let him walk before those who readmit him, like one gamboling and laughing. Let him walk behind those who excommunicate him, like one weeping and sorrowing.'
19. Those who strike their teacher, their mother, or their father may be readmitted in the following manner, either after being pardoned by the (persons offended) or after expiating their sin.
20. Having filled a golden or an earthen vessel (with water taken) from a sacred lake or river, they pour (the water) over him, (reciting the three verses) 'Ye waters are' &c.15
21. All the (other ceremonies to be performed on the) readmission of one who has bathed (in this manner) have been explained by (those ordained an) the birth of a son.16
Footnotes
1. Vyavahâramayûkha IV, 5, 16; Colebrooke V, Digest CCLXXIII; Dattakamîmâmsâ IV, 14; V, 31-40.
2. Colebrooke, Mitâksharâ I, II, 11; Dattakamîmâmsâ IV, 2-3.
3. Dattakamîmâmsâ IV, 4. I.e. to offer funeral sacrifices to his ancestors and to have sons who do it after him.
4. Dattakamîmâmsâ I, 15; IV, 9.
5. Colebrooke, Mitâksharâ I, II, 13, and note; Dattakamîmâmsâ II, 51; Dattakakandrikâ II, 11. 'To the king,' i.e. to the person who holds the village, either to the king of the country or to the feudal chief (Thâkor) who holds it under the sovereign. 'Reciting the Vyâhritis,' i.e. saying with the first oblation Om bhûh svâhâ, with the second Om bhuvah svâhâ, with the third Om svah svâhâ, and with the fourth Om bh., bh., sv. svâhâ; see Vyavahâramayûkha IV, 5, 42. 'A not remote kinsman, just the nearest among his relatives,' i.e. a boy as nearly related as possible, in the first instance a Sapinda, on failure of such a one, .a Samânodaka or a Sagotra.
6. Dattakamîmâmsâ II, 18; Dattakakandrikâ II, 11. If a doubt arises,' i.e. if the adopter afterwards feels uncertain regarding the caste or other qualifications of his adopted son. 'Set him apart like a Sûdra,' i.e. shall neither have him initiated nor employ him for any sacred rites.
7. Dattakakandrikâ II, 11.
8. Colebrooke, Mitâksharâ I, 11, 24. Dattakamîmâmsâ X, 1; Dattakakandrikâ II, 11; V, 17. For the explanation of the term 'a fourth part,' see Colebrooke, Mitâksharâ I, 77.
9. 'Rites procuring prosperity,' i.e. Srâddhas, expiatory rites, &c. See also above, III, 71, and Gautama XI, 17. According to Krishnapandita the estate is in this case to be divided equally between the legitimate son and the adopted son. An entirely different explanation, 'Provided (the estate) may not have been expended in acts of merit,' is given Dattakakandrikâ V, 17-18. It is doubtlessly erroneous, for 'the estate' is nowhere mentioned in the preceding Sûtras.
10. Gautama XX, 1.
11. Gautama XX, 4. 'For the (outcast),' i.e. pronouncing his name, and saying, 'I deprive N. N. of water.'
12. Gautama XX, 5. Krishnapandita takes the Sûtra differently, but his explanation is refuted by the parallel passage of Gautama and Haradatta's commentary thereon.
13. Gautama XX, 7.
14. Gautama XX, 8-9.
15. Gautama XX, 10-14. I read 'punyahradât,' instead of 'pûrnâhradât,' as the MSS. and Krishnapandita have. The passage of the Veda referred to occurs Rig-veda X, 9, I.
16. I.e. the person readmitted shall receive all the various sacraments just like a new-born child.
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