Verse 8.90

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

जन्मप्रभृति यत् किं चित् पुण्यं भद्र त्वया कृतम् ।
तत् ते सर्वं शुनो गच्छेद् यदि ब्रूयास्त्वमन्यथा ॥ ९० ॥

janmaprabhṛti yat kiṃ cit puṇyaṃ bhadra tvayā kṛtam |
tat te sarvaṃ śuno gacched yadi brūyāstvamanyathā || 90 ||

‘Whatever merit, good man, you may have acquired since your birth, would go to the dogs, if you speak falsely.’—(90)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

‘Would go to the dogs’—would be futile, so far as you are concerned. Others however explain that ‘going to the dogs’ is indicative of positive harm; the sense being—‘the merit of the man becomes thrown away, in the same manner in which a man, having earned, with great difficulty, gold and other excellent treasures, were to throw it all into an unclean stream’: it has been pointed out more than once that the merit acquired by one person cannot go over to another.—(90)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

Cf. 3.230 and 11.122.

This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 674);—in Parāśaramādhava (Vyavahāra, p. 78);—in Smṛticandrikā (Vyavahāra, p. 204);—and in Kṛtyakalpataru (35a).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 8.89-97)

[See the texts under 79 et seq.]