Essay name: Brahma Purana (critical study)
Author:
Surabhi H. Trivedi
Affiliation: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda / Department of Sanskrit Pali and Prakrit
This is an English study of the Brahmapurana—one of the eighteen major Puranas which occupies an important place in the Pauranic literature. This study researches the rich an encyclopaedic material for social, religious, philosophical, mythological, political, geographical and literary study found in the Brahma-Purana.
Social and Economic Life
70 (of 75)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
464
After touching a menstruous woman, a horse, a jackal and other
animals, or a woman recently delivered of child, or people of
low caste one should take bath for the sake of purification.
and also after carrying a corpse. After touching an oily
human bone a man becomes clean when he has bathed, after
touching a dry human bone a man becomes clean by rinsing his
mouth, or by touching the cow, or by gazing at the Sun. One
should not disregard blood, spittle and ungents for body
(221.134-136).
Without taking up five pindas, one should
not bathe in another man's water, one should take bath in holy
ponds, in the Ganges, lakes and rivers. Aftor touching or
conversing with the blasphemers of the gods, pitrs, and holy
sastras, sacrifices, prayers and other sacred objects, one
should purify one's self by gazing at the Sun. And after
looking at a menstruous woman, a sadra, an outcaste, or a dead
body, the unrighteous, a woman recently delivered of a child,
a eunuch, a naked person, and persons of low caste, and on
those who give away children and on the paramours of other
men's wives, the wise must indeed perform this purification
of themselves. After touching the forbidden food, a woman
recently delivered, a eunuch, a cat, a rat, a dog, a cock and
an outcaste or what is caste away, a Candalas and those who
carry away corpses, one is purified by taking bath. One who
touches a woman in her periods, and the domestic hogs, and
even two men who have been contaminated by the impurity of a
