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 6.68
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
संरक्षणार्थं जन्तूनां रात्रावहनि वा सदा ।
शरीरस्यात्यये चैव समीक्ष्य वसुधां चरेत् ॥ ६८ ॥saṃrakṣaṇārthaṃ jantūnāṃ rātrāvahani vā sadā |
śarīrasyātyaye caiva samīkṣya vasudhāṃ caret || 68 ||With a view to the safety of living beings, he shall always, during day and night, even during bodily illness, walk after having scanned the ground.—(68)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
This verse shows the necessity for what has been said above (46) regarding the treading on the ground ‘sight-purified.’
‘Even during bodily illness’—when the body is suffering from some disease;—‘during day and night’— when the grass-bed has been spread for sleeping, he shall not lay down his body upon it without having carefully looked over it. The transgression of this rule involves the necessity of performing an expiatory rite.
Or, the text may be taken as referring to those minute animalcules that become attached to the man’s body and perish by the mere moving of the limbs.—(68)
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
Cf. 6.46.
This verse is quoted in Parāśaramādhava (Ācāra, p. 570.)