Verse 9.33

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

क्षेत्रभूता स्मृता नारी बीजभूतः स्मृतः पुमान् ।
क्षेत्रबीजसमायोगात् सम्भवः सर्वदेहिनाम् ॥ ३३ ॥

kṣetrabhūtā smṛtā nārī bījabhūtaḥ smṛtaḥ pumān |
kṣetrabījasamāyogāt sambhavaḥ sarvadehinām || 33 ||

The woman has been declared to be like the ‘soil,’ and the man has been declared to be like the seed; and the production of all corporeal beings proceeds from the union of the soil and the seed.—(33)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

‘The woman’ is as if it were ‘the soil’. ‘Soil’ stands for that part of the Earth where corns are grown; and the woman is like that: Just as the seed sown and held in the soil sprouts up, so also the semen deposited in the woman.

‘The man is like the seed’,—Here also the term ‘bhūta’ denotes similitude. The man’s semen is the ‘seed’, and not the man himself; but he is himself so called because the semen is contained in him.

‘From the union’— contact, the relationship of container and contained—there is ‘the production’—birth—‘of all corporeal beings’—beings endowed with bodies; i.e. of the four kinds of living beings. In the case of sweat-born insects also, the ākāśa is the ‘soil’ and sweat the ‘seed’, and the ‘union’ of these is the relation of container and contained.

For the said reason it is only right that there should be the said doubt; as there can be no ‘production’ when either of the two is absent; the function of both being necessary in the begetting of the child; and since there is nothing to indicate to which one of the two the child belongs, hence the doubt as to whether the child belongs to both or to either one of the two.

In fact, the whole of this subject relating to the relationship of the child and the person to whom the child belongs is one that is amenable to reasoning; as we shall show under the verso where the details are set forth.—(33)

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 9.31-44)

See Comparative notes for Verse 9.31.