Verse 6.18

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

सद्यः प्रक्षालको वा स्यान् माससञ्चयिकोऽपि वा ।
षण्मासनिचयो वा स्यात् समानिचय एव वा ॥ १८ ॥

sadyaḥ prakṣālako vā syān māsasañcayiko'pi vā |
ṣaṇmāsanicayo vā syāt samānicaya eva vā || 18 ||

He may be either one who washes off immediately, or one who lays by for a month, or one who lays by for six months, or one who lays by for a year.—(18).

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

The food that has been described above, he should obtain day after day, just enough to serve for the day.

The man who has a collection that lasts for one month. The form is obtained by the adding of the affix ‘ṭhan’. Or the reading may be ‘māsasañcayakaḥ’ and the word explained as a Bahuvrīhi compound: ‘he whose collection is sufficient for a month’.

Similarly with the last two expressions.—(18).

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 942);—and in Parāśaramādhava (Ācāra, p. 529).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Gautuma (3.35).—‘He shall not eat anything that has been hoarded for more than a year.’

Baudhāyana (2.11.15).—(See under 3.)

Baudhāyana (3.2.11-18)—‘As regards the mode of life called Samprakṣālanī, in order to see that there is no waste of the substances obtained, nor any hoarding, he overturns the dishes and washes them. In the mode called Samūhā, he sweeps up grain with a broom in permitted places where grain-bearing plants are found, either on a road or in fields, access to which is not obstructed, and lives on what is thus obtained. In the mode called Pālanī, which is also called Ahiṃsakā, he tries to obtain from virtuous men husked rice or seeds and maintains himself thereby. In the mode called Śiloñcha, he gleans single ears of corn in permitted places where grainbearing plants grow, or on roads, or in fields, access to which is not obstructed, and supports himself by these gleanings, collected from time to time. In the method called Kapota, he picks up with two fingers single grains in permitted places where grain-bearing plants grow, either on the road or in fields, access to which is not obstructed; this is acting like a pigeon, Kapota. In the mode called Siddhoñcha, tired with other modes of subsistence, and because he has become old or diseased, he asks virtuous men for cooked food. If he subsists on the produce of the forest, of trees, creepers and lianas and grasses, such as wild millet and wild sesamum, that is called forest-life.’

Āpastamba (2.23.1).—‘If he desires to perform great austerities, he shall collect food only day by day, in the morning, in his vessel.’

Viṣṇu (94.11).—‘He should collect provisions, after the manner of the pigeon, for a month; or he should collect them for a year.’

Yājñavalkya (3.47).—(See under 15.)