Second Book

Section on Ritual Procedures

original: "Karmakanda Khanda" — the portion of the text dedicated to the performance of religious rites and ceremonies.

The timing of marriage and the selection of a bride; Sapindata the calculation of degrees of kinship to avoid incestuous unions; the purification of lineage and ancestral clans Gotra and Pravara; exceptions to these rules; prohibition of siblings marrying into the same family; step-parents and kinship ties; regional variations in kinship rules; the prohibition of marrying a maternal uncle’s daughter and the Prayashchitta ritual penance or atonement required if such a union occurs; girls deemed unsuitable for marriage; the prohibition of eating at a daughter's house; the rule against worshipping two Shaligrams sacred stones representing Vishnu in a single household; the necessity of performing the mother’s ancestral rites alongside the father’s; considerations regarding the three eldest siblings; the twelve types of sons; the procedure for adopting a son; specific rules for Shraddha ancestral offering ceremonies; rules for the donation of land and houses; the conduct of widows and mendicants; the rights of a daughter's son; Upanayana the sacred thread initiation ceremony; special rules for life-cycle rituals; rules regarding remarriage; the festivals of Shravani and the initiation rites; considerations for Great Night of Shiva, the eleventh lunar day, Krishna’s birthday, the Infinite Fourteenth, the Day of the Sages, and the Fourteenth of Hell; solar eclipses and ancestral rites; the effects of an intercalary month Adhimasa — an extra month added to the lunar calendar to align with the solar year when a period of ritual impurity occurs during a marriage or funeral rite; auspicious moments during the sun's entry into a new sign; rules for eating and ritual hand gestures; the preparation of cooked offerings in ancestral rites; prohibited activities during pregnancy; specific conduct at pilgrimage sites; special rules for a woman after her menstrual period; purification after sexual intercourse, urination, and meals; the wearing of the ritual ring; the chanting of the Gayatri mantra during ancestral rites; prohibited days for offering rice balls to ancestors; the specific effects of the twelve astrological houses; rules for the lords of the trines and angles; the specific effects of the North and South Nodes of the Moon Rahu and Ketu; the specific effects of Saturn; the inauspicious nature of the period of the lord of an angle; how malefic planets can also grant auspicious results; great happiness during the periods of the North and South Nodes; the identifying and "killer" planets for various ascendants; specific formulas for predicting the future; the astrological combination for illegitimacy; and the combination for destruction by fire.