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More than two centuries before the time of Asoka, ‘ Bimbiséra and Ajatasatru had extended the limits of the Magadha empire, east and west, when Gau- tama Buddha was still living and preaching his reli- gion. Asoka’s grandfather, the powerful Chandra Gupta, had, afterthe retreat of Alexander the Great, extended the limits of the Magadha empire over the whole of Northern India. Asoka’s father Bindusara upheld the glory of Chandra Gupta, and young Asoka was ‘sent during his father’s lifetime to be Viceroy of Ujiayini. Ifwe may rely on the writer of the Asofa Avadina,* . Asoka was born of a Brahmani queen, named Subhadrang?. ‘The same authority tells us that Asoka was. turbulent in his younger days, and had to . be sent to the western frontier to quell a mutiny which had broken out in Takshasila, which he did with emin- ent success.. After the death of Bindusdra, Asoka ascended the throne; and the date of his coronation is generally believed to be 259 or 260 B.C. The works both of the Northern and the Southern Buddhists contain little that is authentic about Asoka’s reign. The Ceylonese accounts have it that Asoka put to death 90 of his brothers (only 6 according to Tara- natha) before ascending the throne; while the Asoke Avadéna, states that the emperor killed his officers and their wives, and subjected crowds of innocent people to * Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitva’s Wapalese Buddhist Literature, p. 38 CHAP. X.] DOMESTIC LIFE, &. 16 should live there and serve him menially, while receiv: ing instruction from day to day and from year to year, The ceremony of Kesania or shaving was performed for a Brahman in the’ sixteenth year, for a Kshatriya: in the twenty-second, and for a Vaisya two years later. i The time for learning the three Vedas is. 36 ‘years or 18 years or even 9g years or until the student has per- fectly learnt them. We are not told of any’ fourth Veda here (III, 1), nor isany time allotted for learning the Atharvan. And having concluded his studies and bathed, the student became a Snataka returned home, married and settled ‘down as a householder. The sacred fire was- to, be.lighted at the wedding ; and the householder , was enjoined to perform his © domestic ceremonies, and the five great sacrifices all through his life. These great sacrifices. were - (3) teaching and studying, ee called a sacrifice to the Supreme An bd (Brahman) ; (2) offerings of water to the, depar ted pir its ; (3) burnt offerings to the minor gods ;! ito ghosts ; and (5) an ever hospitable recepr. irts described as a sacrifice to men. (1H, 67 aie ares. 1 The last duty was a most important onel and Nerd: ngages are never tired of impressing on pious Hinds? ris great duty. to their fellow-men. ' The Mas ew ‘great sacrifices spoken of above are the same . as were enjoined in the Sdtra Period.as Deva- yajoa, Bhitayajna, Pitriyajna, Brahmayajna and Manu shyayaina, (Asvalayana Gays Sutra III, 1). The’ 26 DAs taagE. rs ' 162 ' BUDDHIST PERIOD. [Book Iv. ancient and cardinal idea was that man should not look to his own needs and comforts before he had done his duty to all beings above and around him. Accord- ingly it was ordained that these five sacrifices should be daily performed. Apart from the daily offering to departed spirits, there was the monthly Pinda-Pitriyajna (III, 122), Pindas or cakes were prepared on this occasion and were offered to the manes. Brahmans were fed at the daily offerings to departed spirits, as well as at the monthly funeral offerings, and Manu is as bitter as the Sfitrakaras were, against feeding ignorant Brahmans. ““As a husbandman reaps no harvest when he has sown the seed in barren soil, even so the giver of sacrificial food gains no reward if he presented it toa man unacquainted with the Richas.” (III, 142). “As many mouthfuls as an ignorant man swallows at a sacrifice to the gods or to the manes, so many red-hot spikes, spears and iron balls, must the giver of the repast swallow after death.” (III, 133). Elsewhere. we are warned against offering even water “to a Brahman who ) acts like a cat, or like # heron.” And it would sound irreverent to modern. Hindus if we quoted the words in which Manu indignantly stig- “ matized the cat-like and heron-like Brahinans of his day! (IV, 192, 195, 196). With regard to sacrifices we are told that a Brahman should always offer the Agnihotra morning and evening ; CHAP, X.] . DOMESTIC LIFE, &C. 163 that he should perform the Darsa. and Paurnaméasa.- Ishtis at the new and fult moon ;. that he should do the Chaturmdsya sacrifices at the end of the three seasons ; that he should perform animal sacrifices at the solsti- ces, and a soma sacrifice at the end of the year. When the new grain was reaped he should perform an Agra- yana Ishti and an animal sacrifice. (IV, 25 to 27.} The reader is referred to Chapters VII and VII of the. Third Book for an account of these and similar rites as described in the older Satra works. All these injunctions to continue the daily, monthly, : and periodical rites prescribed in the ancient Braéhmanas and Sfitras, shew that Manu sought to- perpetuate the old Vedic rites which were fast. falling into disuse. Such expressions as “A Brahman who keeps‘ sacred fires” (IV, 27) would indicate that to keep such fires was becoming rather the exception than the. rule ; and bitter expressions against. heretics. would indicate that. the influence of Buddhists and others was telling on the ancient forms and. rites. A householder i is forbidden to honor, even by greeting, heretics and logicians arguing against the Veda (IV, 30); he is directed to avoid atheism and cavilling at the Veda (IV, 163); and women who have joined a heretical sect are classed with ; lewd women living with many men, with drunken ~ women, with murderesses of their husbands, and with - women who have caused abortion (V, 90). — ; We shall probably never know exactly in what wayand 164 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK Iv. by what degrees the Vedic rites and forms of the Epic and Rationalistic Periods were changed into the forms of modern Hinduisni. But we may be quite certain that at the very time at which the Institutes of Manu were compiled, the ancient domestic sacrifices (Grihya) at the house-holder’s hearth and the more pompous sacrifices (Siauta) performed by priests v were falling into disuse, and were being supplanted by those very temple priests whom Manu contemptuously classes with sellers of meat and wine, with shopkeepers and userers (III, 152,180). The Institutes are a vain attempt to perpetuate the past against the innovations of the present, and the historian has little difficulty in noting in what direction the tide was turning. The ‘forms of marriage recounted by Manu are the ‘same that we e find in the Dharma Sitras. He enu- ‘merates the Brdhma, the Daiva, the Arsha, the Prajé- patya, the Asura, the Géndharva, the Rékshasa, and the Paishcha forms; but his sense of decorum rebels against some of the forms ; “the Paisacha (seduction),and the Asura (sale), must never be used ” (IIT, 25). And again we are emphatically told, that “ No father who knows the law must take even the smallest gratuity for his daughter ; for a man who, through avarice, takes a gratuity, is a seller of his offspring” (III, 54). <As if to leave no’doubt whatever on the subject, we are told that even a Sddra should not take a nuptial fee; and | that such a transaction has never been heard of (IX, 98 CHAP. X.] DOMESTIC LIFE, &c. 165 and 100). But nevertheless a nuptial fee was probably received among the low people in ancient times as it is done to this day in India, and Manu in one place in- cautiously lays down a rule that if one damsel has been shewn and another is given to a bridegroom, he Similarly Manu is indignant against eiiow nemnes. which ancient custom was becoming “unpalatable to the later Hindus; but he unguardedly informs us of the fact,—-and the fact is more valuable to the historian than Manu’s opinions,—that widow-marriage stil! pre- vailed in his time, although it was not approved by the orthodox. We are told in (V,157) that a widow must never even mention the name of another man after her husband has died, and again that a second husband is nowhere prescribed for virtuous women {V, 162). But nevertheless we are told of husbands of re-married women (III, 166), and of sons of re-married widews (III, 155 and 181; IX, 169, 175 and 176). Virgin wi dows were expressly . permitted_ to re-marry. Such widow “is worthy to perform with her second husban the nuptial ceremony ” (IX, 176). Intermarriage, as we have already seen before, was free- ly allowed, provided that a man of a lower caste did oe marry a woman of a higher caste.. How far this pro- hibition was faithfully observed we do not know. Houen Tsang, after speaking of the four castes, the Brahman, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya and the Sidra, 166 BUDDHIST PERIOD. [BOOK Iv. adds that “ When they marry, they rzse or fall in posi- tion according to their new relationship.” . Marriage between relations was strictly prohibited in Manu’s time. “A damsel whois neither a Sapinda on the mother’s side, nor belongs to the same family on the father’s side, is recommended to twice born men for wedlock and conjugal union” (III, 5). And Houen Tsang also tell us that “they do not allow promiscuous marriages between relations.” ‘With regard to the age at which girls were married, we should infer from Manu’s rules that though girls were sometimes married before they reached their puberty, this was by no means obligatory, and they often married later. We are told that a man of thirty should marry a girl of twelve, and that a younger man should marry girls still younger (IX, 94).