Verse 11.143

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

अन्नाद्यजानां सत्त्वानां रसजानां च सर्वशः ।
फलपुष्पोद्भवानां च घृतप्राशो विशोधनम् ॥ १४३ ॥

annādyajānāṃ sattvānāṃ rasajānāṃ ca sarvaśaḥ |
phalapuṣpodbhavānāṃ ca ghṛtaprāśo viśodhanam || 143 ||

For the destroying of any kind of creatures bred in food, in sauces, in fruits or in flowers, the expiation consists in eating with clarified butter.—(143)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

The creatures or living beings that are bred in cooked rice, and other kinds of food kept for a long time.

‘Bred in sauces’—such as molasses, gruel and so forth.

The insects inside figs and such others are those ‘bred in fruits and flowers.’

‘Eating with clarified butter’—that is, when one begins to take his food, he should drink clarified butter;—the particle ‘pra’ in ‘prāśa’ denoting beginning. Hence what is laid down does not exclude owlinary food, as is done in the case of the ‘Payovrata’ (subsisting on milk) and other penances; and the reason for this lies in the consideration that the creatures concerned are so insignificant that mere ‘breath-control’ has been prescribed as the expiation for killing them; so that the expiation in question (if it meant subsisting on clarified butter only) would be too heavy for such a trifling offence. Hence what is meant by ‘eating with clarified butter’ is that just a little of it should he sipped in the beginning.—(143)

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Aparārka (p. 1138), which adds that ‘ghāte,’ ‘on cutting,’ is to be construed with

this verse;—and in Prāyaścittaviveka (p. 242), which explains ‘anādya’ as śaktu and the rest,—‘rasa’ as ‘molasses and the like,’—‘phala’ as ‘the jujube and so forth,’—‘puṣpa’ as the Madhūka and the rest,—if one kills the insects produced in these things unintentionally, one should eat clarified butter and then fast for a day.

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Viṣṇu (50.49).—‘For killing insects bred in rice or other food, or in sweets and such things, or in liquids, or elsewhere, or in flowers or fruits,—the penance consists in eating clarified butter.’