Verse 6.2 [The Procedure to be adopted]

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

गृहस्थस्तु यथा पश्येद् वलीपलितमात्मनः ।
अपत्यस्यैव चापत्यं तदाऽरण्यं समाश्रयेत् ॥ २ ॥

gṛhasthastu yathā paśyed valīpalitamātmanaḥ |
apatyasyaiva cāpatyaṃ tadā'raṇyaṃ samāśrayet || 2 ||

When the householder notices his wrinkles and greyness, and sees his child’s child,—then he should r etire to the forest,—(2).

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

It has been said before that the person who is entitled to the life of the Hermit is only one who has abandoned all longing for the objects of sense: and this is what the author is explaining now.

‘Wrinkles’—Looseness of skin.

‘Greyness’—the whiteness of the hair.

‘Child’s child.’—They explain this to mean ‘son’s son And cultured people have held that this rule does not apply if the man has only a son born to his daughter, or a daughter born to his son.

Others however have taken the ‘greyness of hair’ and ‘birth of the grandchild’ only as indicative of old age. So that even if an old man’s hairs may not, for some reason, become grey, he should, at the approach of old age, retire to the forest. Just as the person who has got a son and has his hairs still block is entitled to the ‘kindling of fire so is the man who has got a grandson and has his head turned grey entitled to the Hermit’s life. And in the former case also ‘the birth of the son’ end ‘blackness of hair’ are only indicative of a certain age.

Some people have taken the text to mean that ‘one should retire into the forest neither too early nor too late in life.’ But in is necessary to find out an authority for this.—(2).

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

“Medhātithi notes that the Śiṣṭas insist on the necessity that he who takes to forest-life must have sons and son’s sons, and that hence ‘apatya’, ‘offspring,’ is to be taken in this restricted sense (of grandson, not grand-daughter);—Nārāyaṇa holds that the verse gives three separate grounds for entering the third order, each of which is sufficient in itself; while Medhātithi thinks that the three conditions must exist together—[There is nothing in Medhātithi to indicate this]. ‘Others,’ mentioned by Medhātithi, took the verse to give a description of the approach of old age, which entitles the house-holder to turn hermit”—Buhler.

Medhātithi mentions,—but with disapproval—another explanation, by which the whole verse serves only to indicate that one should take to the hermit’s life neither ‘too early’ nor ‘too late.’

This verse is quoted in Mitākṣarā to the effect that one should retire to the forest either when he has become decrepit with old age, or has got a grandson in Parāśaramādhava (Ācāra, p. 527);—in Saṃskāramayūkha (p. 131);—and in Nṛsiṃhaprasāda (Saṃskāra, p. 68b).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 6.1-2)

See Comparative notes for Verse 6.1.