Verse 11.49-52

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

सुवर्णचौरः कौनख्यं सुरापः श्यावदन्तताम् ।
ब्रह्महा क्षयरोगित्वं दौश्चर्म्यं गुरुतल्पगः ॥ ४९ ॥
पिशुनः पौतिनासिक्यं सूचकः पूतिवक्त्रताम् ।
धान्यचौरोऽङ्गहीनत्वमातिरैक्यं तु मिश्रकः ॥ ५० ॥
अन्नहर्ताऽमयावित्वं मौक्यं वागपहारकः ।
वस्त्रापहारकः श्वैत्र्यं पङ्गुतामश्वहारकः ॥ ५१ ॥
एवं कर्मविशेषेण जायन्ते सद्विगर्हिताः ।
जडमूकान्धबधिरा विकृताकृतयस्तथा ॥ ५२ ॥

suvarṇacauraḥ kaunakhyaṃ surāpaḥ śyāvadantatām |
brahmahā kṣayarogitvaṃ dauścarmyaṃ gurutalpagaḥ || 49 ||
piśunaḥ pautināsikyaṃ sūcakaḥ pūtivaktratām |
dhānyacauro'ṅgahīnatvamātiraikyaṃ tu miśrakaḥ || 50 ||
annahartā'mayāvitvaṃ maukyaṃ vāgapahārakaḥ |
vastrāpahārakaḥ śvaitryaṃ paṅgutāmaśvahārakaḥ || 51 ||
evaṃ karmaviśeṣeṇa jāyante sadvigarhitāḥ |
jaḍamūkāndhabadhirā vikṛtākṛtayastathā || 52 ||

The stealer of gold has disfigured nails; the drinker of wine, black teeth; the slayer of a Brāhmaṇa, consumption; and the violator of his preceptor’s bed, a disfigured skin;—(49) the informer, a foul-smelling nose; the false caluminator, a foul-smelling mouth; the stealer of grains, a deficiency of limbs; and the adulterator, an excess of limbs;—(50) the stealer of food, dyspepsia; the stealer of words, dumbness; the stealer of clothes, leucoderma; and the stealer of horse, lameness.—(51) It is thus that idiots, the dumb, the blind, the deaf and deformed men, despised by righteous men, are born, on account of particular acts.—(52)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

(verses 11.49-52)

By killing a Brāhmaṇa one becomes affected by consumption—a very serious disease known among physicians by that name.

One who has intercourse with his preceptor’s wife suffers from ‘disfigured skin.’

The ‘informer’ has a nose emitting nauseous smell; and ‘the false caluminator has a foul-smelling mouth.’

“The caluminator also is only an informer.”

True; but one of them (the former) assumes other people’s defects, while the other describes only those that really exist;—that is the sole difference between the two.

‘Excess of limbs’—more than the natural number.

‘Adulterator’—one who mixes commodities with inferior ones resembling it, e.g., saffron with the Kusumbha flower.

‘Dyspeptic’—one who cannot digest the food eaten.

^‘Dumbness’—Incapability of speech; e.g., the idiot, the epileptic and the like.

The rest is well known.

^‘Deformed.’—Their figure is despicable.

All this is the result of ‘particular acts.’ These acts bring about the said effects instead of making the men sink into hell and suffer after-death tortures; or even for those who, even though they have passed through all these latter, have still some remnant left of the force of their past misdeeds; or for those in whose case the force of their meritorious deeds being greater, the effects of the evil deeds have had no occasion to assert themselves. In all such cases there is a ‘residue’ of past acts.—(49-52)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

(verse 11.51)

‘Vāgapahārakaḥ.’—‘Stealer of speech’,—i.e., one who learns the Veda by stealth’ (Govindarāja, Kullūka and Rāghavānanda);—‘a plagiarist’ (Nārāyaṇa).

[The additional verse, relating to the ‘stealer of a lamp’ has been translated by Buhler as part of the text; it has been so accepted by Rāghavānanda and Rāmacandra, but not by the other commentators. We have followed the text of Medhātithi here; hence from this verse onward our verse-numbering will be one less than that in Buhler], This additional verse is quoted in Smṛtitattva, (p. 248).

 

Comparative notes by various authors

(verses 11.48-52)

[See below.—12.53 et seq.]

See Comparative notes for Verse 11.43.