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 4.243
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
धर्मप्रधानं पुरुषं तपसा हतकिल्बिषम् ।
परलोकं नयत्याशु भास्वन्तं खशरीरिणम् ॥ २४३ ॥dharmapradhānaṃ puruṣaṃ tapasā hatakilbiṣam |
paralokaṃ nayatyāśu bhāsvantaṃ khaśarīriṇam || 243 ||It speedily carries the man, who is devoted to duty and has his sins destroyed by austerities, clothed in his own (spiritual) body, to the brighter regions above.—(243)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
‘Dharmapradhānam’—means ‘he for whom Duly is the main consideration’; i.e., he who is devoted to duty, and perforins all acts exactly as they are enjoined.
‘Who has his sins destroyed by austerities.’—If he happens to commit any transgressions, through carelessness, his sin is destroyed by the expiatory austerities he performs. The evil having arisen out of his transgression of the law, it is effaced by the proper expiatory rites.
‘It carries him to the brighter regions above,’—i.e., the effulgent regions of the gods, in the shape of Heaven, etc.
Who carries him?
Dharma, or Spiritual Merit. That this is so, is clear from the context.
‘Clothed in his own body.’—The Soul being in its own body, and not in the body made up of material substances, as ordinary souls are, his body is his own spiritual one; which means that he is us all-pervading us Brahman, the Supreme Spirit.—(243)