[114] The commentaries say that the unspecified ten things are livestock animals.
[117] The extra portion for the eldest son gives him a total of two.
[119] Whole-hooved animals are the equines (horses, mules). If one is left over after an equal division, the animal is not to be sold to share the proceeds.
[120] The equal division would be between the son of the (presumably dead) older brother and the younger brother (the boy’s uncle) who was officially appointed to beget a child on his dead brother’s behalf. The son therefore loses the advantage that his father, the eldest brother, would have had.
[121] That is, that son should share with the younger brother. The surrogate (the son begotten by the younger brother on the eldest brother’s widow) does not have the full rights that the principal (the eldest brother) would have had, but must share with the younger brother (his legal uncle and his biological father).
[122] ‘The first wife’ is literally the eldest, but almost certainly senior not in years but in being the one first married.
[123] The first bull goes to the son superior by virtue of his own birth, and the rest to the other sons, who are inferior to him in their own births but superior to him in their mothers, and within this second group the rank is determined by the rank of the mother. This reading is further supported by the next verse. A smoother alternative interpretation, followed by Bühler, is suggested by the commentators only by forcing the meaning of ‘first-born’ to yield, in this one verse, ‘born of the first wife’, and then making the other sons ‘inferior to him on account of their mothers’.
[125] Though the commentators regard this and the following verse as contradictory to the ones immediately preceding, 9.125–6 seem merely to be adding yet another criterion to the complex mix: to the order of marriage of the mother and the order of birth of the son is now added the possibility of different classes of mothers, and this new complexity is met with the statement that in such situations the order of the son’s own birth takes precedence over both the (now irrelevant) seniority of the mother and the class of the mother.
[126] The verses of invocation to Indra are the subrahmaṇyā verses (Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 6.3). When two sons are engendered in two different women at the same time, they are regarded as twins, but the one who is born first is the eldest. On the other hand, it is said that when two twins are conceived in the same womb, the one conceived first comes out second and hence is regarded as the first-born.
[127] The daughter is appointed to bear him sons, just as a man may be appointed to beget sons in his older brother’s widow.
[128] The story of Dakṣa’s daughters is told (together with the story of Manu and his sons) in the Mahābhārata (1.70 and 12.329.57). The daughters that he gave to the moon are the constellations or lunar mansions.
[131] Separate property is particularly what is given to a woman by her father and friends at her marriage. The daughter’s son throughout this paragraph is probably the son of an appointed daughter.
[134] The division would be between the man’s son and the son of his appointed daughter.
[137] The chestnut horse is the sun; see 4.231.
[146] He should give the brother’s property to the son that he begets in the brother’s name.
[148] The sons born in one womb are either sons of the same mother or (according to the commentaries) sons of several mothers of the same class. The various wives are presumably of various classes.
[154] A ‘good’ son is a twice-born son.
[158] Relatives would be sons qualified to give the funeral offerings to the ancestors.
[161] The darkness is probably the darkness of hell. Bad sons are unfit sons, sons of the wrong class, the sorts of sons just enumerated, who are not fit to give the offering to the ancestors, or even to inherit; they are sons who lack virtue.
[166] ‘His own field’ may simply be his own wife, but probably also a wife of his own class.
[167] The marriage-bed is the equivalent of the field or the wife, as in the phrase, ‘violator of the guru’s marriage-bed’ (gurutalpaga).
[168] The extremity might exist either if the adopting father has no heirs, or if the family giving the child is in need and cannot keep him. The son is probably ‘like’ the adopting father in class, but perhaps in other qualities.
[176] The husband with whom she undergoes this ceremony is presumably the second husband, if she is still a virgin, or the first, deserted husband, if she returns to him. The commentators suggest that she may leave him when he is a child and return to him when he reaches adolescence, or that she may leave the man to whom her father has promised her, marry another man of her choice, but then return to the man whom her father had approved of, with her maidenhead still intact.
[178] Even this son, by giving the offerings at the ceremony for the dead, saves his father from hell; see 9.138. The word pārasava could be given more likely etymologies, either related to the word for axe (paraśu), which such mixed and low castes as woodcutters might use, or as a form of the word for a man who is the offspring (śava) of a woman of another (para) class than his father or belonging to another (para) man.
[180] If a man does not have a natural son, all the rituals that a son must perform are jeopardized, particularly the offerings in the ceremony for the dead.
[186] The three degrees of ancestors are the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. The fourth is the son making the offering, and the fifth the grandson.
[187] The co-feeding relative is either the sapinda who would normally inherit, or the dead man himself regarded as the close relative of the potential heir. The lengthy commentaries on this particular verse are more confusing than helpful, for the general idea is clear enough: the inheritance descends in order of closeness to the dead man first within the sapinda line, then through the wider family, and then, if there is still no living male to take the property, to the dead man’s teacher or pupil.
[196] For the various sorts of marriages, see 3.21–34.
[198] The wife must in this case be married to a man who has other wives of other classes.
[200] The phrase ‘during her husband’s lifetime’ may refer either to the period in which the woman wore the ornaments or the period in which the heirs are not to share them.
[203] Unless klība is taken to mean ‘homosexual’, ‘somehow’ might indicate appointing another man to produce a child in the husband’s field.
[208] ‘Give up’ means share it with his brothers.
[210] The brothers here are divided both in the sense of having separated from one another and in the sense of having divided up the paternal property, after the father has died (as seems to be assumed in this verse) or even while he is alive.
[216] He may share his own paternal inheritance with them; or, when the father dies, the brothers may redistribute their former inheritance plus the posthumous son’s inheritance and give him a share in that.
[217] The commentaries have laboured in vain to reconcile this verse with 9.185, which seems to have other circumstances in mind.
[223] Betting on living animals includes cock-fights and ram-fights, and perhaps horse-races as well.
[224] The usual punishment was the mutilation of a limb.
[231] ‘Cooked by the heat of wealth’ is a metaphor for the change that takes place when people handle money, just like the transformation of clay when heat is applied to it in an oven. A more technical interpretation of the verse would be, ‘If people appointed to carry out public work ruin the business of clients …’
[232] Here, as so often, the verb (hanyāt, ‘he should physically punish’) may indicate either corporal or capital punishment. The commentators suggest that the subjects who are corrupted include, particularly, the king’s ministers.
[235] The guru’s wife may simply be the wife of one’s revered teacher, but may also denote the wife of any closely related and respected male, particularly one’s father. The crime is therefore tantamount to incest.
See 11.103.
[240] The ‘prior’ classes are the first three classes (the twice-born), as well as those ‘priorly’ mentioned in this text. For the levels of fines, see 8.138.
[245] This verse depends on a triple pun on daṇḍa, which means a rod or staff, a punishment, and a fine.
[249] He should exercise restraint either by restraining criminals justly or by restraining himself (from unjust corporal or capital punishment, perhaps).
[250] The eighteen causes of legal action are listed in 8.4–7 and the discussion of them is actually completed by the end of the section on gambling, 9.228.
[252] As in 1.115, the thorns are dissidents and other criminal types.
[273] The commentaries suggest that a man, such as a priest, who lives on other people’s religion by performing sacrifices on their behalf, and so forth, might neglect his own personal religious duties and be culpable in this.
[282] The commentators suggest that the impurity might be urine or excrement; that the emergency might be caused by fear of something such as a tiger or by illness; and that the man would get a ‘Fierce’ Untouchable to clean it up.
[283] One commentator suggests that someone should say to such a person, ‘Don’t do it again.’
[290] The commentaries say that the spells are intended to kill, and that if they are successful they should incur the punishment for murder; that the rituals with roots, intended to bring people into one’s power, are permitted if practised against one’s husband or relatives, but not against strangers; and that the witchcraft is to bring disease or failure upon an enemy.
[293] Such thefts would be more severely penalized at times of ploughing, war, or illness, when the things are especially needed.
[294] At 7.156–7 the ally is omitted, and the state is said to have only six members; moreover, the elements (prakṛtis) in that passage are not elements of the state but elements of the circle of various kings in different combinations of alliance and hostility.
[306] The Wind is said to appear as the vital breath inside all living creatures.
[307] Yama, whose name is sometimes connected with the verb ‘to restrain’ (ni-yam), making him ‘The Restrainer’, restrains everyone, though particularly evil-doers, at the moment of death.
[308] Varuṇa’s ‘ropes’ consist of diseases, particularly dropsy (Varuṇa is also god of the waters), with which he binds sinners.
[314] The verse alludes to myths about three great priests: When the god of fire told an ogre that he had a right to take away the wife of the great sage Bhṛgu, Bhṛgu cursed Fire to be omnivorous (Mahābhārata 1.6; 12.329.43); the sage named Mare’s Mouth (Vadavāmukha, here regarded as an incarnation of Visnu) cursed the Ocean to be salty, and made him salty with the sage’s sweat, in punishment for his refusal to come when the sage called him (Mahābhārata 12.329.48); the sage Daksa cursed the Moon to wane and wax because the Moon, to whom Daksa had given his twenty-seven daughters in marriage, favoured one and neglected the others (Mahābhārata 9.34.40–67; 12.329.45–6). See Manu 9.129.
[315] The great sage Viśvāmitra created another universe (Rāmāyana 1.56–9); the tiny Vālakhilya sages, insulted by Indra (one of the four Guardians of the World), created another Indra to replace him (Mahābhārata 1.27); and the sage Māṇḍavya cursed the god Dharma/Yama to become incarnate as a servant (Mahābhārata 1.101).
[321] Fire is born from water in many ways in Indian mythology: the sun from the cosmic waters, lightning from clouds, and the submarine Mare’s Mouth fire from the ocean. According to many Vedic texts (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 12.7.3.12; Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa 2.8.8.9; Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.11–13), rulers were born from priests at the original creation and, once more, when it was necessary for the priests to create a new race of rulers after Paraśurāma had exterminated them (Mahābhārata 1.98).
CHAPTER 10
[1] The three twice-born classes, remaining within their own respective innate activities, should study (the Veda), but among them the priest, and not the other two, should proclaim it; this is an unvarying rule. [2] The priest should know the means of livelihood of all of them in accordance with the rules; he should proclaim this to the others and he himself should live by it. [3] The priest is the lord of the (other) classes because he is pre-eminent, because he is the best by nature, because he maintains the restraints, and because of the pre-eminence of his transformative rituals. [4] The priest, the ruler, and the commoner are the three twice-born classes, but the fourth, the servant, has only one birth, and there is no fifth.
[5] Among all the classes, only (children) who are born ‘with the grain’, (or) in wives who are equal (in class) and have their maidenheads intact (at marriage), should be considered members of the caste. [6] They say that sons begotten by twice-born men on wives of the very next (lower) class are similar (to their fathers) but despised for the flaw in their mothers.
[7] That is the eternal rule for (sons) born in women of the very next (lower) class; now learn the following rule of law for those who are born in women two or three classes lower.
[8] From a priest in the daughter of a commoner a son (of the caste) called ‘Remaining-with-the-Mother’ is born, and in the daughter of a servant a son (of the) ‘Hunter’ (caste), also called a ‘Saving-corpse’. [9] From a ruler in the daughter of a servant is born a creature with the form of both a ruler and a servant, cruel in his conduct and his amusements, and called ‘Dreaded’. [10] (Children) begotten by a priest (in women) in the three (lower) classes, or by a king (in women) in the two (lower) classes, or by a commoner (in women) in the one (lower) class – all six are traditionally regarded as outcasts.
[11] From a ruler in the daughter of a priest is born a (son) of the ‘Charioteer’ (caste), and the sons born from a commoner in women of the royal and priestly classes belong to the ‘Magadhan’ and ‘Videhan’ castes, respectively. [12] (Sons) of confused classes are born from a servant in women of the commoner, royal, and priestly classes: the ‘Unfit’, the ‘Carver’, and the ‘Fierce’ Untouchable, the worst of men. [13] And just as the ‘Remaining-with-the-Mother’ and the ‘Dreaded’ are traditionally said to be born ‘with the grain’ in (a woman) two classes (lower), the ‘Carver’ and the ‘Videhan’ are born ‘against the grain’ in the same way (in women two classes higher).
[14] The sons born of twice-born men in women of the very next (lower) class, that have been enumerated in order, are called ‘Of the Next (Lower Class)’, because of the flaw in their mothers.
[15] A (son) born from a priest in the daughter of a man of the ‘Dreaded’ (caste) is (of the caste) called ‘Concealed’; (the son of a priest born) in the daughter of a man of the ‘Remaining-with-the-Mother’ caste is of the ‘Cowherd’ caste; in the daughter of a man of the ‘Unfit’ caste, (he is of the) ‘Shame on you!’ (caste).
[16] Three outcasts – an ‘Unfit’, a ‘Carver’, and a ‘Fierce’ Untouchable, the lowest of men – are born from a servant ‘against the grain’. [17] Three other outcasts are born ‘against the grain’: from the commoner, the ‘Magadhan’ and ‘Videhan’ castes, and from the ruler, the ‘Charioteer’. [18] The son born of a ‘Hunter’ in a servant woman is a member of the ‘Tribal’ caste, and the one born of a servant in a ‘Hunter’ woman is traditionally said to be a ‘Wild Rooster’. [19] (The son) begotten in a ‘Dreaded’ woman by a ‘Carver’ man is known as a ‘Dog-cooker’; the one born in a ‘Remaining-with-the-Mother’ woman by a ‘Videhan’ man is called a ‘Reed-worker’.
[20] But the designation of outlaw should be given to those whom twice-born men beget upon women of the same class but who do not fulfil their vows and stop reciting the verse to the sun-god. [21] From an outlaw who is a priest the evil-hearted ‘Birch-thorn’ is born, as well as the ‘Avantian’, ‘Banyans and Grain’, ‘Flower-bearing’ and ‘Having a Crest of Hair’. [22] From an outlaw who is a ruler are born the (castes) ‘Pugilist’, ‘Wrestler’, and ‘Licchavian’, ‘Dancer’, ‘Scribe’, ‘Scab’, and ‘
Southerner’. [23] From an outlaw who is a commoner are born the ‘Having an Excellent Bow’ and ‘Teacher’, ‘Kārusan’, ‘Bastard’, ‘Friendly’, and ‘Sātvat’.
[24] Through sexual misconduct between classes, through (carnal) knowledge of women who should not be known, and through rejection of one’s own innate activity, (sons) of confused class are born. [25] I will now explain, leaving nothing out, those who come from wombs of confused class, both ‘with the grain’ and ‘against the grain’, and (whose parents were) illicitly addicted to one another.
[26] The ‘Charioteer’, the ‘Videhan’, and the ‘Fierce’ Untouchable, the lowest of men, as well as the ‘Magadhan’, the man of the ‘Carver’ caste, and the ‘Unfit’, [27] these six beget (children of) similar classes in wombs of their own (caste), and they also produce (similar) children in a woman of their mother’s caste or in higher wombs. [28] Just as a (second) self is born of a man in (women of) two of the three classes, (a woman) from the very next (lower) class or of a birth like his own, so it goes in the same order among the excluded classes. [29] But they also beget a great many excluded and despised children, even more defiled than they are themselves, in one another’s wives. [30] And just as a servant produces an excluded creature in a woman of the priestly class, so an excluded man produces an even more excluded (child in a woman) of the four classes. [31] Excluded, defective men, going ‘against the grain’, produce still more excluded, defective classes, fifteen of them.
[32] An alien begets on an ‘Unfit’ (woman) a ‘Plough-holder’, who knows how to adorn and to give personal service, makes a living by snaring animals, and lives like a slave, though he is not a slave. [33] A ‘Videhan’ produces a ‘Quite Friendly’, who has a sweet voice, praises men all the time, and rings a bell at sunrise. [34] A ‘Hunter’ produces a ‘Seeker’, a slave who lives by working as a boatman and whom the inhabitants of the Land of the Aryans call a ‘Fisherman’. [35] These three are of inferior birth, each begotten upon ‘Unfit’ women who are not Aryan, who wear the clothing of the dead, and who eat disgusting food.
The Laws of Manu Page 34