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 8.266
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
एषोऽखिलेनाभिहितो धर्मः सीमाविनिर्णये ।
अत ऊर्ध्वं प्रवक्ष्यामि वाक्पारुष्यविनिर्णयम् ॥ २६६ ॥eṣo'khilenābhihito dharmaḥ sīmāvinirṇaye |
ata ūrdhvaṃ pravakṣyāmi vākpāruṣyavinirṇayam || 266 ||Thus has the whole law relating to the demarcation of boundaries been propounded. After this I am going to expound that relating to verbal assault.—(266)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
This verse sums up the preceding section and introduces the next.
Under 8.6, this head of dispute has been mentioned as ‘assault—corporal and verbal’ (Hurt and Defamation) [‘Hurt’ coming first], in the present context, the latter has been taken up first. This alteration of the order of sequence is due to considerations of simplicity: In most oases actual physical assault is preceded by verbal assault. Further, a copulative compound (as ‘daṇḍavācike’ of verse 6) denotes only mutual relationship, it lays no stress upon the order in which the terms occur. So that both kinds of ‘assault ’—physical as well as verbal—being equally meant, what sort of ‘alteration of order of sequence’ is there in the present case? This has been folly explained by the author of the Mahābhāṣya on Pāṇini, 1.8.10; and it is on the basis of this theory that the two assaults have been mentioned by means of a compound.—(206)