Verse 3.132

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

ज्ञानोत्कृष्टाय देयानि कव्यानि च हवींषि च ।
न हि हस्तावसृग्दिग्धौ रुधिरेणैव शुध्यतः ॥ १३२ ॥

jñānotkṛṣṭāya deyāni kavyāni ca havīṃṣi ca |
na hi hastāvasṛgdigdhau rudhireṇaiva śudhyataḥ || 132 ||

Offerings for gods and Pitṛs should be given to one who is distinguished by knowledge; for hands smeared with blood are not cleansed by blood.—(132)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

One who is ‘distinguished’—who excels—‘by knowledge’—in learning; to such a one ‘should be given’ ‘the offerings for gods and Pitṛs.’

The sense of the metaphor of the ‘hand smeared with bloo’ is as follows:—‘Hands smeared with blood when washed with blood only become all the more reddened, and they are not cleansed; similarly, the ignorant Brāhmaṇa, when, fed, only carries the ancestors to still worse hells,’—(132)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted without comment in Madanapārijāta (p. 556).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Āśvalāyana (1.50).—‘The good man who constantly offers food into the mouth of one learned in the Veda, becomes freed from heinous sins and attains union with Brahman.’

Āśvalāyana (14.15).—‘At the Śrāddha one shall invite such Brāhmaṇas as are fully learned in the Rig Veda; in the absence of these, he may invite persons learned in other recensions of the Veda.’

Vaśiṣṭha (3.9-13).—‘The offerings made to Gods and Pitṛs should be presented to the person learned in the Veda; what is presented to one who is not learned in the Veda reaches neither the Pitṛs nor the Gods;—that man who has an illiterate person in his bouse and the learned man at a distance, should present the offering to the learned man; this would not be a supersession of the illiterate man; there can be no wrongful supersession of the Brāhmaṇa who is devoid of the Veda; no one pours oblations into ashes and neglects the burning fire; those regions where illiterate persons enjoy what should he enjoyed by the learned are struck by famine and other dangers.’

Atri-saṃhitā (152).—‘What is given to an unqualified recipient destroys the family up to the seventh generation; neither the Gods nor the Pitṛs accept such offerings.’

Bṛhaspati (59).—‘If an illiterate person accepts the gift of the cow or gold or clothing or land or sesamum, he becomes burnt like fuel; if a man has an illiterate person at home and the learned man at a distance, the present should he made to the learned; the supersession of the illiterate is not wrong.’