Ashaucha
(“impurity”) Name for the ritual impurity
caused by contact with any source of pol-
lution; these sources come in many dif-
ferent guises, both physical and social.
Purity and impurity are religious
categories and thus fundamentally dif-
ferent from cleanliness and dirtiness,
which are hygienic categories. For
example, cow dungis considered a
pure substance in traditional Hindu
society and is smeared on patches of
ground to purify it. It is also important
to realize that impurity is a natural part
of life—as just one example, everyone
goes to the bathroom every day—and
that becoming impure carries no sense
of moral imperfection or lapse.
Most bodily fluids are considered pol-
luting; one becomes impure through any
activity involving them, such as urination,
defecation, sexual activity, giving birth, or
being born. One can become polluted
through contact with people or things
deemed impure, such as people of lower
social status, animals, any sort of ordinary
filth, or even the dust from the road.
Impurity can also be caused by social con-
nections. The impurity from childbirth
(sutakashaucha) obviously affects the
mother and child because of the bodily
fluids involved, but it also affects all other
members of the immediate family.
If a person has come into contact
with something polluting, the solution
is to remove the source of impurity. The
most common means of purification is
to bathe in running water, which
removes less virulent impurities by car-
rying them away with the water’s flow.
The purifying power of bathing (snana)
makes it a prelude to many religious
rituals, in which one of the general pre-
conditions is scrupulous purity, both
for the person performing the ritual
and the place where it is performed.
The most polluting substance of all
is a corpse, which is one reason why
bodies are destroyed by cremationon
the day of death. The impurity from
death (maranashaucha) is the most
violent impurity of all, and contact with
a corpse affects the entire family for ten
days after the death.Ashaucha
Men wash the body of a deceased man to prepare it for cremation.
A dead body is considered to be a potent source of ashaucha, or impurity.