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:

न वै स्वयं तदश्नीयादतिथिं यन्न भोजयेत् ।
धन्यं यशस्यमायुष्यं स्वर्ग्यं वाऽतिथिपूजनम् ॥ १०६ ॥

na vai svayaṃ tadaśnīyādatithiṃ yanna bhojayet |
dhanyaṃ yaśasyamāyuṣyaṃ svargyaṃ vā'tithipūjanam || 106 ||

He himself should not eat what he does not offer to his guest. The honouring of guests is conducive to wealth, fame, longevity and heaven.—(106)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

Soup, butter, curds, sugar, and such other rich food, he himself should not eat, so long as he does not offer it to the guest that may have arrived. As for gruel and such other bitter medicinal drinks, he shall not offer these to him, if he does not desire it; there is no harm in the man taking these without offering them to the guest. All that this means is that he should uot himself eat rich food and offer to the guest poor fare.

Conducive to wealth’— procures, brings, wealth. Similarly, ‘conducive to fame,’ and so forth.

All this is purely laudatory; because the honouring of guests is a compulsory duty, if he happen to be there, and also because what is here said is clearly supplementary to the foregoing injunction (of guest-honouring). And so long us a passage can be taken as purely laudatory, there is no justification for taking it as putting forward another incentive.—(106)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Vīramitrodaya (Āhnika, p. 451) without comment.

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Gautama (5. 38, 39).—‘Honouring and feeding on fresh food; bedding, seat, lodging, attending and following; all this in the same way as in the case of elders.’

Āpastamba-Dharmasūtra.—‘He shall eat what remains after the feeding of guests; of the highly flavoured foods, he shall not eat any except what has been left by the guests;—he shall not have cooked for himself any specially good food.’

Yājñavalkya (l.5.104).—‘One should not cook food for himself.’

Mārkaṇḍeya-purāṇa (Vīramitrodaya-Āhnika, p. 451).—‘Meat, grains, vegetables,—these he shall not eat if they have not been offered to the guest.’

Like what you read? Consider supporting this website: