Verse 4.46

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

न फालकृष्टे न जले न चित्यां न च पर्वते ।
न जीर्णदेवायतने न वल्मीके कदा चन ॥ ४६ ॥

na phālakṛṣṭe na jale na cityāṃ na ca parvate |
na jīrṇadevāyatane na valmīke kadā cana || 46 ||

Nor on ploughed land, nor in water, nor on an oven, nor on a mountain, nor in a ruined temple, nor on an ant-hill. (46)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

‘Oven’—a structure of bricks, for the depositing of fire. ‘Mountain’—here stands for forests and gardens; as the mountain-top is going to be specifically forbidden (in the next verse). If the word were really meant to stand for the mountain itself, and the prohibition applied to the mountain as a whole, then people living on the mountains would have to go without passing urine at all.

‘Ant-hill’—the mound of earth set up by insects.—(46)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 179);—in Vīramitrodaya, (Āhnika, p. 33), which explains ‘cityām’ as the Śyena and other altars built of bricks, or ‘at a place where a dead body has been cremated’ (according to some); and in connection with ‘dilapidated temples’ it remarks that, inasmuch as the making of water in all kinds of temples is expressly forbidden, the addition of the epithet ‘dilapidated’, ‘jīrṇa’, must be understood to have been added with a view to the perceptible physical danger involved in the act,—i. e., of loose bricks and other things falling and the like;—‘Valmīka’ is ‘the mound of mud collected by a particular kind of insect’

This verse is quoted also in Smṛtitattva (p. 329);—in Vidhānapārijāta (II, p. 153);—and in Nityācārapradīpa, (p. 250), which explains ‘cityām’ as ‘On a fire-altar.’

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 4.45-49)

See Comparative notes for Verse 4.45.