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 11.218
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
अष्टावष्टौ समश्नीयात् पिण्डान् मध्यन्दिने स्थिते ।
नियतात्मा हविष्याशी यतिचान्द्रायणं चरन् ॥ २१८ ॥aṣṭāvaṣṭau samaśnīyāt piṇḍān madhyandine sthite |
niyatātmā haviṣyāśī yaticāndrāyaṇaṃ caran || 218 ||One who performs the ‘Yati-Cāndrāyaṇa’ shall eat daily at midday eight morsels, controlling himself and eating only ‘sacrificial food.’—(218)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
Everyday he shall eat eight morsels,—beginning either with the dark or with the bright half of the month.
This is the ‘Yati-Cāndrāyaṇa.’
‘At midday’—when midday has approached; that is, avoiding the forenoon and the afternoon.
The rest is clear.—(218)
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
(verses 11.218-219)
These verses are quoted in Aparārka (p. 1243);—in Mitākṣarā (3.325), which add that in the Yaticāndrā-yaṇa and other penances, it is not necessary to follow the movements of the moon; so that there would be no harm if the beginning were made on even the fifth day of the lunar month, if that happened to be the first day of the solar month;—and in Prāyaścittaviveka (p. 517).
Comparative notes by various authors
Baudhāyana (4.5.19).—‘If, self-restrained, he daily eats, during a month, at mid-day, eight mouthfuls of sacrificial food, he performs the Yati-Cāndrāyaṇa.’
Viṣṇu (47.7).—‘If a man eats for a month eight mouthfuls a day, it is the penance called Yati-Cāndrāyaṇa.’