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:

तद् वै युगसहस्रान्तं ब्राह्मं पुण्यमहर्विदुः ।
रात्रिं च तावतीमेव तेऽहोरात्रविदो जनाः ॥ ७३ ॥

tad vai yugasahasrāntaṃ brāhmaṃ puṇyamaharviduḥ |
rātriṃ ca tāvatīmeva te'horātravido janāḥ || 73 ||

Those who know the ‘Day of Brahmā’ as ending with the (said) thousand ‘time-cycles,’ and the ‘night’ also as of the same extent,—are people who alone know what is ‘day and night’, and acquire merit.—(73)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

Yugasahasrāntam,’—‘that of which the thousand cycles are the end;’—those men who know this, ‘they are the people who alone know what is Day and Night.’

If it be asked—what happens to the people who know this?—it is added that ‘they acquire merit.’ Such is the connection (of the word ‘puṇyam’). The sense is that ‘knowledge of Brahmā’s Day and Night is conducive to merit, and hence this knowledge should be acquired;’—this injunction (of acquiring the said knowledge) being implied by the valediction contained in the verse.—(73)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

Puṇyam’—Medhātithi takes this not merely as an epithet of ‘ahaḥ,’ but as constituting a distinct sentence by itself.

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