Manusmriti with the Commentary of Medhatithi
by Ganganatha Jha | 1920 | 1,381,940 words | ISBN-10: 8120811550 | ISBN-13: 9788120811553
This is the English translation of the Manusmriti, which is a collection of Sanskrit verses dealing with ‘Dharma’, a collective name for human purpose, their duties and the law. Various topics will be dealt with, but this volume of the series includes 12 discourses (adhyaya). The commentary on this text by Medhatithi elaborately explains various t...
Verse 4.166
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
ताडयित्वा तृणेनापि संरम्भात्मतिपूर्वकम् ।
एकविंशतीमाजातीः पापयोनिषु जायते ॥ १६६ ॥tāḍayitvā tṛṇenāpi saṃrambhātmatipūrvakam |
ekaviṃśatīmājātīḥ pāpayoniṣu jāyate || 166 ||Having, in anger, struck him intentionally, even with a straw, he is born, during twenty-one births, in sinful wombs.—(166)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
‘In anger’—i.e., in a fit of wrath; not in joke; and ‘intentionally.’
‘Ājāti’ is janma, birth; the initial ‘ā’ being meaningless; just as in the term, ‘pralambate, the initial ‘pra’ is meaningless.
‘Sinful wombs’—the wombs of sinful beings, i.e., the lower animals, whose life is full of suffering.
To say nothing of more painful objects, by striking even by a straw, the man suffers the pangs of hell for a long time.—(166).
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
Cf. 11. 206-207.
This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 223).
Comparative notes by various authors
Gautama (21.21).—‘By striking (the Brāhmaṇa, he becomes unfit for heaven), for a thousand years.’