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 9.55
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
एष धर्मो गवाश्वस्य दास्युष्ट्राजाविकस्य च ।
विहङ्गमहिषीणां च विज्ञेयः प्रसवं प्रति ॥ ५५ ॥eṣa dharmo gavāśvasya dāsyuṣṭrājāvikasya ca |
vihaṅgamahiṣīṇāṃ ca vijñeyaḥ prasavaṃ prati || 55 ||This same law should be understood as applying to the offspring of cows, mares, slave-girls, she-camels, she-goats and ewes; as also of birds and buffaloes.—(55)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
Cows and horses, etc. are added here in order to prevent the notion being entertained that the laws laid down here are meant only for children; or it may be regarded as added for the purpose of precluding the notion that they are meant to apply to only seeds, fruits and crops, as is already known among people.
The same law applies to quadrupeds, and bipeds, as also to immovable things.
‘This’—refers to what has been said in the preceding two verses:—viz. (1) when there is no compact, the produce belongs to the owner of the soil, and (2) when there is compact, it belongs to both.
Cows and the rest have been named only by way of illustration; the same law applies to the cases of dogs, cats and other animals.
“Why then should the declaration in verse 50 have been made?”
It is only a reiteration of the well-known fact that birds and other animals do not form the ‘property’ of men to the same extent as cows do.
‘Slave girls’—i.e., those acquired by the seven sources of slavery.
‘Offspring’— young ones born from their wombs.—(55)
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
This verse is quoted in Vivādaratnākara (p. 580), which explains ‘eṣa dharmaḥ’, as ‘the principle that the owner of the seed does not obtain the fruit;’—also in Smṛtitattva (II, p. 150), which adds that the term ‘dāsī’ here stands for the slave-girl married to another slave; the child of such a slave-girl belongs to the owner of the girl, not to that of the father;—and in Vyavahāra-Bālambhaṭṭī (pp. 521 and 574).
Comparative notes by various authors
(verses 9.48-56)
See Comparative notes for Verse 9.48.