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 12.49
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
यज्वान ऋषयो देवा वेदा ज्योतींषि वत्सराः ।
पितरश्चैव साध्याश्च द्वितीया सात्त्विकी गतिः ॥ ४९ ॥yajvāna ṛṣayo devā vedā jyotīṃṣi vatsarāḥ |
pitaraścaiva sādhyāśca dvitīyā sāttvikī gatiḥ || 49 ||Sacrificers, sages, gods, vedas, luminaries, years, Pitṛs and Sādhyas represent the second state partaking of ‘Sattva.’—(49)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
Words composed in a certain order are called ‘Veda.’
“In the course of the states of existence, what occasion is there for the mention of insentient things? Words and other things are all insentient.”
“It is too little when you say that words and other things are inanimate. All the beings, from the gods down to the immoveable things, exist in the form of bodies, and all bodies are insentient. As for the sentient faculty, it appears in the form of personal consciousness,—and this Personality, by itself, is devoid of qualities. But the body, though insentient, comes to be regarded as sentient when it is inhabited by the Personality.
Thus what the text means comes to this:—The Veda abounds in the quality of ‘Sattva;’ hence by its study, people attain to the state partaking of the quality of ‘Sattva.’ And ‘the attaining of the state partaking of Sattva’ does not mean that the man abounding in ‘Sattva’ become the Veda.
The view of other people is, that in all things there is a conscious being supervising over them, and ‘personalities of the Veda’ are described as residing in the regions of Varuṇa.—(49)
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
‘Vedas’.—‘Verbal text’ (Medhātithi);—‘Personification of the Veda’ (‘others’ in Medhātithi, Govindarāja and Kullūka).
This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 999);—in Madanapārijāta (p. 694), which notes that the terms ‘Veda’ and ‘vatsara’ stand for the respective presiding Deities;—in Parāśaramādhava (Prāyaścitta, p. 488);—and in Nṛsiṃhaprasāda (Prāyaścitta 41a).
Comparative notes by various authors
(verses 12.32-51)
See Comparative notes for Verse 12.32.