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:

अउरसक्षेत्रजौ पुत्रौ पितृरिक्थस्य भागिनौ ।
दशापरे तु क्रमशो गोत्ररिक्थांशभागिनः ॥ १६५ ॥

aurasakṣetrajau putrau pitṛrikthasya bhāginau |
daśāpare tu kramaśo gotrarikthāṃśabhāginaḥ || 165 ||

The ‘body-born’ and the ‘soil-born’ are entitled to inherit the father’s property; while the other ten inherit the ‘family-title’ and a share in the property, according to their order—(165)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

The first half of this verse is only a reiteration of what has been enjoined before, and not a distinct injunction; specially because the ‘soil-born’ son does not stand on an equal footing with the ‘body-born’ son.

The other sons inherit the ‘family name,’ and they inherit also ‘a share in the property;’ and it has been already explained that this ‘share’ consists of mere subsistence. But the case of the ‘adopted’ son stands on the same footing as that of the ‘soil-born’ one. In support of this view people quote other Smṛti-texts.

According to their order.’— The ‘body-born’ and the ‘soil-born’ sons are entitled to inherit simultaneously; but among the rest, the succeeding one inherits only in the absence of the preceding one.

“If only six of the sons are ‘heirs,’ and the other six are not heirs,—according to the distinction into ‘heirs’ and ‘non-heirs’ made (in 158), it cannot be right to declare all these to be inheritors of property.”

As a matter of fact, those that have been described as ‘non-heirs’ are so only in the presence of the ‘body-born’ son; all that is meant by the distinction is that the first six are larger beneficiaries than the second six.

Among the first group, all except the ‘body-born’ are equal beneficiaries, and less than these latter are the six in the second group; these latter are all equal, and there is no difference among themselves, due to these being mentioned earlier or latter.—(165)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

Gotrarikthāṃśabhāginaḥ.’—‘Become members of the gotra and also inherit’ (Medhātithi, Kullūka and Nandana);—‘share the family estate’ (Nārāyaṇa);—‘they receive such share in the estate as will suffice for their maintenance’ (suggested by Nārāyaṇa and Nandana).

This verse is quoted in Vivādaratnākara (p. 544), which adds the following notes:—The first half of the verse is merely a reiteration of what has been prescribed before; the ‘ten’, beginning with the ‘adopted’ son, in due order, i.e., each in the absence of the one preceding,—become ‘gotrabhāginaḥ,’—i.e., ‘entitled to do all that behoves a blood-relation’, as explained by Asahāyācārya,—and ‘rikthāṃśabhāginaḥ’, i.e., ‘entitled to inherit the father’s property This rule refers to cases where there is no ‘body-born’ son, nor ‘the appointed daughter’, nor the ‘Kṣetraja’ son;—in Dāyatattva (p. 14);—and in Vyavahāra-Bālambhaṭṭī (pp. 55 and 652).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Gautama (28.34)—‘The son of an unmarried damsel, the son of the pregnant bride, the son of the remarried woman, the son of the appointed daughter, the self-given son, and the bought son receive a fourth of the estate, if there is no body-born son, or no one of the first six kinds of son.’

Yājñavalkya (2.132).—‘Among the twelve kinds of sons, the succeeding one is entitled to offer the Ball and to inherit property only in the absence of the preceding one.’

Baudhāyana (Vivādaratnākara, p. 550).—‘The following sons are said to he partakers of inheritance; the body-born son, the son of the appointed daughter, the son begotten on one’s wife by another man, the adopted son, the appointed son, the secretly-born son, and the cast-off son. The following are partakers of the gotra only—the son born of the unborn damsel, the son born of the pregnant bride, the son bought, the son of the remarried woman, the self-given son and the son of the Śūdra mother.’

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