Verse 9.20

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

यन् मे माता प्रलुलुभे विचरन्त्यपतिव्रता ।
तन् मे रेतः पिता वृङ्क्तामित्यस्यैतन्निदर्शनम् ॥ २० ॥

yan me mātā pralulubhe vicarantyapativratā |
tan me retaḥ pitā vṛṅktāmityasyaitannidarśanam || 20 ||

‘If my mother, unfaithful unto her lord, became enamoured while roaming about,—may my father’s semen remove that from me’;—this is an example of this.—(20)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

The particle ‘iti’ at the end of the third quarter of the verse indicates that up to that point we have the part of an original Vedic text.

‘If my mother, unfaithful unto her lord’,—she who observes the vow ‘may I never, even in my mind, conceive love for any man other than my husband’ is called ‘faithful unto her lord’; the opposite of that is ‘unfaithful unto her lord’:—‘roaming about’— in the houses of other people,—seeing a gaily dressd (dressed?) person—‘became enamoured’—conceived a desire for that other man;—‘that’— impurity or evil in my birth, ‘may the semen of my fatter remove’; i.e., may that impurity be washed off by that semen. The nominative ending in ‘pitā’ has the force of the genetive. Or the semen itself may be taken in apposition to the ‘father’; which it can be without having its gender altered, just as we have in other phrases: ‘dyaurme pita’, ‘the heaven, my father’ (where ‘dyauḥ’ in the feminine, is in apposition to ‘father’).

Or ‘semen’ may be taken as standing for the mother’s seed; and in that case the meaning would be—‘may my father purify that seed of my mother’; i.e., may the impurity of the mother’s seed be removed by the force of the father’s seed.

‘This is an example’— instance—‘of this’—i.e., of the proneness of women to unchastity.

All men when reciting sacred texts recite the one here quoted; and the reciting of such a text by all men would be justified only if all women were prone to unchastity; otherwise, if only some were so, the use of the text would not be universal.

The text here quoted has been prescribed as to be recited during the ‘Cāturmāsya’ sacrifice, as also at śrāddhas, during the ‘Padyānumantraṇa’ rite.—(20)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

“This verse is a slightly altered mantra which occurs in Śāṅkhāyana Gṛhyasūtra’ 3.13.5, and in the Cāturmāsya portion of the Kaṭhaka rescension of the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda. According to the former, it has to be recited by the ‘son of a paramour.’ But the Kaṭhas prescribe its use by every sacrificer who offers a Cāturmāsya sacrifice.”—Buhler.

‘Retaḥ’—(a) ‘The semen of the legitimate husband, or (b) the husband himself, or (c) the secretions of the mother herself’ (Medhātithi). [In the case of (c) the word is in the accusative case];—‘secretions of the mother on her sexual desires being aroused’ (Kullūka, Govindarāja, Rāghavānanda, Nārāyaṇa and Nandana).

See also Āpastamba, Śrauta-sūtra 1.99 and Viṣṇu Smṛti 73.12.

This verse is quoted in Vivādaratnākara (p. 412), which adds the following notes:—This quotes the Vedic text referred to in the preceding verse; ‘tat,’ is the sin of desiring; aṇother man; the meaning thus is as follows:—“Inasmuch as my mother entertained a longing for another man, the sin due to this—may the ‘seed’ of my father remove; in ‘pita’ the nominative ending has the force of the genitive;”—and in Vīramitrodaya (Vyavahāra, 158b).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 9.19-20)

See Comparative notes for Verse 9.19.