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 9.8
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
पतिर्भार्यां सम्प्रविश्य गर्भो भूत्वैह जायते ।
जायायास्तद् हि जायात्वं यदस्यां जायते पुनः ॥ ८ ॥patirbhāryāṃ sampraviśya garbho bhūtvaiha jāyate |
jāyāyāstad hi jāyātvaṃ yadasyāṃ jāyate punaḥ || 8 ||The husband, entering the womb of his wife, becomes the embryo and is then born; the wife-hood of the ‘wife’ consists in this that the husband is re-born of her.—(8).
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
This is a purely declamatory passage. As a matter of fact, the husband is never found to enter the womb of his wife; and it is the entrance of the semen, the very essence of his body, into the wife’s womb, which is figuratively called his own ‘entering’. The Mantra also says—‘You are my own self, called by the name of son’.
The real basis of the denotation of the term ‘wife’, ‘jāyā’, is that the husband is re-born of her.
The application of the name‘jāyā’, ‘wife’ being based upon the fact of the woman giving birth to the child, she comes to be spoken of as the ‘wife’ of her paramour also.—(8).
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
Cf. Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 7.13.6.
This verse is quoted in Vivādaratnākara (p. 417).
Comparative notes by various authors
Yājñavalkya (1.56).—‘One’s own self is born in one’s wife (as the son).’