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...

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

यद्यपि स्यात् तु सत्पुत्रोऽप्यसत्पुत्रोऽपि वा भवेत् ।
नाधिकं दशमाद् दद्यात्शूद्रापुत्राय धर्मतः ॥ १५४ ॥

yadyapi syāt tu satputro'pyasatputro'pi vā bhavet |
nādhikaṃ daśamād dadyātśūdrāputrāya dharmataḥ || 154 ||

Whether a Brāhmaṇa has a son or no son, he shall not, according to law, allot more than the tenth part to the son of the Śūdra wife.—(154)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

Has a son’—has any son; or the son meant may be that born of the Brāhmaṇa wife, and not that of any of thetwice-born’ wives. So that if there is no son born of the Brāhmaṇa wife, even if there art-sons of Kṣatriya and Vaiśya wives, the son of the Śūdra wife shall receive the eighth part; while if there is only a son of the Vaiśya wife, he shall get the third part.

Others, however, explain the phrase ‘no son’ to mean the absence of a son of any twice-born wife. And according to this view, the residue of the property left after the tenth part has been marie over to the Śūdra son shall go to the Sapiṇḍas (Collaterals).

The most unobjectionable principle of division, however, would be as follows:—If the property is a large one, and there is no son of any higher caste, the Śūdra son shall receive only the tenth part; if, however, the property is just enough for the maintenance of a few men only, then, the whole shall go to the Śūdra son.

In the case of Kṣatriyas and others, another Smṛti has laid down the following rule in connection with sons born of the same and different castes:—‘Sons of a Kṣatriya are entitled to three, two and one shares; those of the Vaiśya to two and one’ (Yājña. 2.125). That is, sons of the Kṣatriya from the Kṣatriya wife shall each receive three parts, those from the Vaiśya wife two parts, and from the Śūdra wife one part; so that Śūdra sons receive the sixth part of the property of the Kṣatriya father and the third part of the Vaiśya father.

Others again explain the sense of the present text as follows:—When he is going to give some property to the Śūdra son at all, the father shall collect the entire property and give to him the tenth part of it,—even, though he be free to do as he likes; as it is going to be declared (in the next verse) that ‘whatever his father shall give to him, that shall be his.’

According to this view, it would be much more reasonable to construe the text as ‘the man having a son shall give, etc. etc.,’—‘dadyāt,’ ‘shall give,’ being construed with ‘saputraḥ,’ ‘having a son’; otherwise, the construction would be—‘the person, whose father has a son or no son, shall give, etc.,’—which shall be a most difficult one. As in this case, the term ‘having a son’ shall stand for the dead father, while the nominative of the verb ‘shall give’ shall be the living son or other Sapiṇḍa relations.

Thus, then, in a case where there are only Brāhmaṇa and Śūdra sons, and no Kṣatriya or Vaiśya ones, the Śūdra one is entitled, not to the tenth part, but to something less, never more.

If there are ten cows, the Brāhmaṇa son shall receive four cows the Śūdra one cow,—the remaining ones being divided between the Kṣatriya and Vaiśya sons. When, however, these latter too do not exist, then, these five cows also shall he divided, on the aforesaid principle, between the Brāhmaṇa and Śūdra sons. When, however, the Brāhmaṇa son takes the entire property, he cannot be called either a ‘share-holder’ or ‘a receiver of four shares.’ Hence, in this ease what has been said (in 153) regarding the Brāhmaṇa taking ‘four shares’ would apply to a case where there are four brothers. The Śūdra also receives the ‘tenth share’ only when there are four brothers;—this share to be correspondingly increased if there are two or three brothers only.—(154)

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 9.149-157)

See Comparative notes for Verse 9.149.

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