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...

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

दौहित्रो ह्यखिलं रिक्थमपुत्रस्य पितुर्हरेत् ।
स एव दद्याद् द्वौ पिण्डौ पित्रे मातामहाय च ॥ १३२ ॥

dauhitro hyakhilaṃ rikthamaputrasya piturharet |
sa eva dadyād dvau piṇḍau pitre mātāmahāya ca || 132 ||

The daughter’s son should inherit the entire property of the sonless father; he shall also offer two cakes—to the ‘father’ and to the ‘maternal grandfather.’—(132)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

That the son of the Appointed Daughter shall inherit the entire property of the father having been already laid down in the foregoing verse, the present verse has been explained by some people as laying down the necessity of ottering the two cakes, with reference to the saiddaughter’s son.’ And according to these people the reading is ‘hared yadi,’ ‘if the son of the Appointed Daughter inherits, etc., etc.’

According to this view, the offering of the cakes would he incumbent only in the event of the man inheriting the entire property; so that he need not offer the cakes in the event of his receiving an ‘equal share’ (as laid down under 131 below). If this were not the meaning, then there would be no point in the injunction, if the offering of cakes, which would he already indicated by the general law that ‘one shall make offerings to him From whom he receives anything.’ And in that ease any reference to the inheriting of the ‘entire property’ would he absolute purposeless.

This explanation however cannot be right. What is meant is that he ‘shall inherit the property of the sunless father;’ and ‘aputrasya pitur haret’ is the long-accepted reading also. The termfather’ also is known to apply to the actual progenitor, and not to the maternal grandfather. Henee what is meant is that ‘if the husband of the appointed daughter has no son from any other wife, but has one from the appointed daughter, then this same son shall be the son for his own father, as also for his mother’s father.’ If however, the progenitor has sons from his other wives, then the son born of the ‘appointed daughter’ shall neither inherit the property of, nor offer cakes to, him;—even though he may be born of a mother belonging to the same caste as his father. The relation of the ‘progeny and progenitor’ is different from that of ‘father and son.’ Even though the ‘fathers’ of ‘Kṣetraja’ and some oilier kinds of son, are not their ‘progenitors,’ yet they are regarded as having those as their ‘issue’; while the fathers of the ‘purchased,’ and the ‘abandoned’ sons, even though their actual ‘progenitors,’ are not regarded as having them as their ‘issue’; as happened in the case of Ajīgarta and other persons (who sold their sons to other persons). In the definition of the ‘Aurasa’ ‘legitimate,’ son (9.166), we find the words ‘in his own soil’; and in the ease of the ‘appointed daughter’ the ‘soil’ belongs to her father;—her husband being only one who has wedded her and as such, is entitled to obedience and service.

For these reasons, the conclusion should be as follows:—in a ease where the husband of the ‘appointed daughter’ has no other sons, the son of the ‘appointed daughter’ shall inherit his entire property, and also offer funeral cakes to him. If however the father has sons from other wives, him the son of the ‘appointed daughter,’ shall not offer cukes to his father.

Such a son is called ‘daughter’s son,’ i.e., the son of the appointed daughter. In the case of the grandfather also, the same principle applies as that in the case of the father;—that is, he shall otter the cake to him whose property he inherits; and not in any other case. As a matter of fact, the injunction that ‘ho shall offer the cakes when he inherits the entire property’ does not necessarily imply that there should be no offering in other cases. Because there being no reference to the father and the grandfather, any such implication would be of the nature of ‘preclusion.’ If there were an implication, oven in the absence of such a reference, the deduction would be that offerings should be made to both. Bo that the meaning would be that—‘just as cakes are offered to the father and the maternal grandfather, so should they be offered also to the paternal grandfather and the maternal great-grandfather, the two ancestors above the former two respectively.—(132)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

Cf. 136 and 140.

This verse is quoted in Vivādaratnākara (p. 560), which adds the following notes:—‘Aputrasyai.e., one who has no ‘body-born’ son;—the second half is a mere reiteration of what goes before—says Prakāśa; it is an Arthavāda providing a reason for what has gone before—says Udayakara in his commentary on Manu. [These remarks are based on the reading of the second line as dauhitra eva tu haredaputrasyāsvilaṃ dhanam ].

It is quoted in Vyavahāra-Bālambhaṭṭī (pp. 631 and 664);—in Hemādri (Śrādha, p. 87);—in Gadādharapaddhati (Kāla, p. 427), which says that the two ‘balls’ are to be offered to the father and to the mother’s father;—in Vivādacintāmaṇi (Calcutta, p. 153) which adds that this refers to cases where neither of the parents of the deceased is alive;—and by Jīmūtavāhāna (Dāyabhāga, p. 278) as indicating that the grandson is entitled to the property of his mother’s father by reason of the mother deriving her body from that father.

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 9.127-129, 9.132-133)

See Comparative notes for Verse 9.127.

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