Verse 1.103 [Institutes to be studied by the Brāhmaṇa]

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

विदुषा ब्राह्मणेनैदमध्येतव्यं प्रयत्नतः ।
शिश्येभ्यश्च प्रवक्तव्यं सम्यङ्नान्येन केन चित् ॥ १०३ ॥

viduṣā brāhmaṇenaidamadhyetavyaṃ prayatnataḥ |
śiśyebhyaśca pravaktavyaṃ samyaṅnānyena kena cit || 103 ||

This may he studied with care, and duly taught to pupils, by the learned Brāhmaṇa,—not by any one else.—(103)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

Adhyetavyam-pravaktovyam’—‘can be studied and can be taught’—the verbal affix denotes capability, not injunction [ i.e. the meaning is that the institutes deserve to be studied and taught &c.]; for actual injunctions are going to begin only from the Second Discourse onward; and the present Discourse is purely descriptive, it contains no injunctions. Hence, just as the assertion, ‘Rice forms the food of Kings,’ is regarded as a mere praise of the Rice, and it is not taken us a prohibition of its eating by people other than Kings,—in the same manner, in the present passage the phrase ‘not by any one else’ is not a prohibition (of study by others), but only a praise of the institutes; the sense thus is as follows:—

‘The Brāhmaṇa is the highest being in the world,—these institutes are the best of all institutes,—hence these are capable of being studied and taught only by the said learned Brāhmaṇa,—and they cannot be either studied or taught by any ordinary man.’ It is in view of this that the author adds the term ‘with great care’; unless great care is taken, until the self has been duly equipped with the knowledge of other sciences,—such as Logic, Grammar and Exigetics,—these institutes cannot be taught. Thus it is that ‘study’ implies ‘hearing’ (from the lips of the Teacher) also; and the justification for this implication lies in the fact that the ‘learning’ (spoken of by the epithet ‘learned’) comes in useful only in the case of hearing from the teacher’s lips,—(which presupposes intelligent following of the oral lectures); it would not be necessary for the mere reading of the words. If the present verse were taken as an injunction of ‘study,’ the said ‘learning’ could he regarded only as serving some transcendental purpose. It would not he right to argue that—“in the injunction also hearing would be implied by the studying”; for it is not right to take what is enjoined as subserving the purposes of implications. In the case of Declamatory passages (Arthavāda) on the other hand, there is nothing incongruous in admitting of indirect implications on the basis of other sources of knowledge (while a direct Injunction by its very nature, cannot be diverted from its direct meaning, on any account whatsoever],

From all this it follows that all three castes are entitled to the study of the Institutes. This we shall explain in detail later on.—(103)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in the Mitākṣarā (on I, 3)—along with another verse from Manu (2-16)—in support of the view that, though all the three twice-born castes are entitled to study the Dharmaśāstra, the Brāhmaṇa alone is entitled to teach it. In support of this it also quotes a text from Śaṅkha to the effect that the Brāhmaṇa alone is entitled to these, and it is he that explains their duties to the other castes. To this same view we find the verse quoted in the Vīramitrodaya (Saṃskāra, p. 512);—also in the Smṛticandrikā (Saṃskāra, p. 10) which reads vidvadbhiḥ for ‘śisyebhyaḥ’ and explains it as meant simply to exclude the Śūdra only.