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:

नाध्यापनाद् याजनाद् वा गर्हिताद् वा प्रतिग्रहात् ।
दोषो भवति विप्राणां ज्वलनाम्बुसमा हि ते ॥ १०३ ॥

nādhyāpanād yājanād vā garhitād vā pratigrahāt |
doṣo bhavati viprāṇāṃ jvalanāmbusamā hi te || 103 ||

No sin attaches to Brāhmaṇas, either by teaching or by sacrificing for others or by receiving reprehensible gifts; for they are like fire and water.—(103)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

The preceding verse having permitted the receiving of improper gifts, the present verse permits the teaching and sacrificing (of unqualified persons). The epithet ‘reprehensible’ is applicable both ways, according to the maxim of the ‘Lion’s glance.’

As Fire and Water, so Brāhmaṇas, are everywhere pure. This is the eulogy bestowed on the Brāhmaṇa.

Some people have held the following view:—“If, like the receiving of gifts from improper persons, the Teaching and Sacrificing for improper persons were meant to be permitted, men, those also would have been mentioned in the preceding verse, just as the Receiving of Gifts. As a matter of fact, however, since there is no idea of injunction in the present verse, sin would certainly attach to Brāhmaṇas (for doing these two acts); for the presence of the Present Tense clearly indicates that the text speaks of a settled fact, and, as such, is purely declamatory. Then again, since every injunction has a corresponding declamatory declaration, the mention of Teaching and Sacrificing in a sentence which is syntactically connected with a foregoing injunction, is certainly open to being regarded as declamatory.”

Our opinion however is that when even gifts from improper persons are not available, the Brāhmaṇa may have recourse to the said Teaching and Sacrificing also; since what the text is providing for is the man’s subsistence; and it has been declared that ‘one should maintain himself by some means or the other, excepting of course the heinous crimes.’ And it is only with a view to their being performed that the said acts have been mentioned in the section dealing with ‘Abnormal Times.’—(103)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Madanapārijāta (p. 233);—in Aparārka (p. 935);—in Smṛtitattva II (p. 362), which notes that Kullūka Bhaṭṭa explains ‘jvalanāmbusamāḥ’ as ‘like water and fire’;—in Parāśaramādhava (Ācāra, p. 183), which notes that the reading is ‘agarhitāt’;—in Parāśaramādhava (Prāyaścitta p. 326);—and in Prāyaścittaviveka (p. 409).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 10.101-108)

See Comparative notes for Verse 10.101.

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