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1. This is another Ananite custom borrowed from rabbinic Judaism, possibly due to ignorance of its origin. Among the Ananites, however, the practice of freeing a slave to complete a minyan (ritual quorum of ten) is quite different in character from OTL. On the very few occasions when rabbis did this in OTL, it was done for the sake of the observance rather than the slave. In contrast, by the third century, it is common for the Ananites of India to invite a slave to a deliberately deficient minyan as a form of manumission. Not only does this practice invest the manumission ceremony with religious significance, but it ensures that there will be reputable witnesses.

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