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:

अग्निपक्वाशनो वा स्यात् कालपक्वभुजेव वा ।
अश्मकुट्टो भवेद् वाऽपि दन्तोलूखलिकोऽपि वा ॥ १७ ॥

agnipakvāśano vā syāt kālapakvabhujeva vā |
aśmakuṭṭo bhaved vā'pi dantolūkhaliko'pi vā || 17 ||

He may be one living on food cooked by fire, or one eating only what Ripens in its own time; he may use the stone for grinding or he may use his teeth as the mortar.—(17).

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

One living on food cooked by fire’.—One whose food consists of vegetables and rice &c. cooked by fire.

Or he may rat only such fruits of trees as ripen themselves in their season.

Or his food may consist of flour obtained by grinding nīvāra and other grains. That is, he should grind these grains, and having thus turned them into dough, eat. it.

Or this phrase may mean that those nuts that ripen in their own season, and which have a kernel beneath a hard crust,—the outer crust of these should be broken with stone and the inner kernel eaten.

Dantolūkhalikaḥ’.—One who has his teeth for the mortar. That is the outer crust of nuts may be removed with the teeth. This however ought not to be done even though the nut may have been cleaned.

Or the phrase may be taken as qualifying the eating; the sense being that—‘he shall eat in such a way that his teeth may serve the purposes of the mortar, in the thumping and removing of chaff’.—(17).

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 942);—and the first half in Mitākṣarā (on 3.49).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Bodhāyana (3.3.1-3, 9-12),—‘Hermits belong to two classes—those who cook, and those who do not cook, food;—those who cook are of five kinds—those who eat everything that the forest contains, those who live on unhusked grain, those who eat bulbs and roots, those who eat fruits and those who eat pot-herbs. Those who do not cook are of five kinds—those who avoid the use of iron and other implements, those who ṭake food with the band, those who take it with the mouth, those who subsist on water only, and those who live on air only.’

Viṣṇu (95, 14, 15).—‘He shall break his food with stones; or he shall use his teeth as a pestle.’

Yājñavalkya (3, 49).—‘He shall use his teeth as the pestle; or he may eat only such fruits as ripen in their own time; or he may use stone for breaking what he eats.’

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