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 9.175
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
या पत्या वा परित्यक्ता विधवा वा स्वयेच्छया ।
उत्पादयेत् पुनर्भूत्वा स पौनर्भव उच्यते ॥ १७५ ॥yā patyā vā parityaktā vidhavā vā svayecchayā |
utpādayet punarbhūtvā sa paunarbhava ucyate || 175 ||If a woman abandoned by her husband, or a widow, of her own accord, marries again and bears a son, that son is called ‘the son of a re-married woman.’—(175)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
(verses 9.173-178)
[The Bhāṣya on these verses is not available in any of the manuscripts.]
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
This verse is quoted in Vīramitrodaya (Saṃskāra, p. 743), which explains the construction as ‘patyā svecchayā parityaktā’;—in Parāśaramādhva (Prāyaścitta, p. 38);—and in Vyavahāra-Bālambhaṭṭī (p. 558).
Comparative notes by various authors
Baudhāyana (2.3.27).—‘He is called the Paunarbhava son who is born of a remarried woman;—i.e., of one who having left an impotent man, has taken a second husband.’
Vaśiṣṭha (17.18-20).—‘The fourth is the Paunarbhava, one born of a Punarbhū woman; that woman is called Punarbhū who, leaving the husband of her youth, and having lived with others, re-enters his family; and she is called remarried who, leaving an impotent, outcast or mad husband,—after his death,—takes another lord.’
Viṣṇu (15.7-9).—‘The son of the re-married woman is the fourth;—she who, being still a virgin, is married a second time is called the re-married woman.—She also is called remarried who, though not legally married more than once, has lived with another man before her lawful marriage.’
Yājñavalkya (2.130).—‘That son is called Paunarbhava who is born of a woman married again, either after losing her virginity or before it.’
Kātyāyana (Vivādaratnākara, p. 564).—‘If a woman, after forsaking her impotent or outcast husband, takes another lord,—the son born from her is called Paunarbhava; and he belongs clearly to his begetter.’
Arthaśāstra (p. 41).—‘The son of the woman married again, is called Paunarbhava.’