done in the presence of a Shūdra or a menstruating woman, or in impure places.
When it is said that some things are impure it should not be considered that all the impure things are equally impure. Things which a Snātaka may regard as impure other Brāhmanas may not so regard. Again, one impure thing would be polluted by contact with things more impure; e. g., a Shūdra, who is more impure than a Brāhmana's corpse, may not carry it, though the corpse is an impure thing.
The purifying agencies were control of mind, austerities, fire, holy food, water, earth, the wind, the sacred rites, the sun, liberality, sacred text, etc. These agencies would purify from pollution or impurity, as the case may be. Our writer has given methods of purifying various inanimate things, like vessels made of gold, silver, and copper.
The purity or pollution of a Brāhmana was much more than what we may call physical purity and impurity. We may distinguish contamination or pollution from physical impurity, but our writer did not care to differentiate them sharply. If a Shūdra touches the food of a Brāhmana the Brāhmana feels that by some occult process the whole food has been spoiled and is rendered impure. Such food if eaten would make his body impure, at least just as much as food mixed with dirt or with articles that ought not to be eaten would do. All such ideas we can trace in the author before us.[1]
- ↑ The Brăhmanas have very strong ideas regarding the purity of their blood. which scarcely have a parallel anywhere else. Their purity of blood is not the same idea which ethnologists understand by these words. The racial purity is only a part of
