The Laws of Manu

by The Laws of Manu (retail) (epub)

  [35] When someone who has done, or is doing, or is going to do an act feels ashamed, a learned man should realize that that whole act has the mark of the quality of darkness. [36] When someone hopes to achieve great fame in this world by a certain act, but does not feel sorry if it fails, that should be known as (an act with the quality of) energy. [37] But when he longs with his all to know something and is not ashamed when he does it, and his self is satisfied by it, that (act) has the mark of the quality of lucidity. [38] Pleasure is the mark of darkness, profit is said to be the mark of energy, and religion the mark of lucidity, and each is better than the one before it.

  [39] Now I will tell you, in a nutshell and in order, the transmigrations in this whole (universe) that one achieves by each of these qualities: [40] people of lucidity become gods, people of energy become humans, and people of darkness always become animals; this is the three-fold level of existence. [41] But it should be realized that this three-fold level of existence, which is dependent on the qualities, is itself three-fold: lowest, middle, and highest, according to the specific act and learning (of the actor).

  [42] Stationary objects, worms and bugs, fish, snakes, turtles, livestock, and wild animals are the hindmost level of existence to which darkness leads. [43] Elephants, horses, servants, despised barbarians, lions, tigers, and boars are the middle level of existence to which darkness leads. [44] Strolling actors, birds, deceiving men, ogres, and ghouls are the highest level of existence to which darkness leads.

  [45] Pugilists, wrestlers, dancers, arms-dealers, and addicted gamblers and drunks are the lowest level of existence to which energy leads. [46] Kings, rulers, the personal priests of kings, and those obsessed with the battle of words are the middle level of existence to which energy leads. [47] Centaurs, gnomes, genies, servants of the gods, and celestial nymphs are the whole of the highest level of existence to which energy leads.

  [48] Ascetics, renouncers, priests, the hosts of gods who fly about on celestial chariots, the constellations, and the anti-gods are the first level of existence to which lucidity leads. [49] Sacrificers, sages, gods, the Vedas, the celestial lights, the years, the ancestors, and the Amenables are the second level of existence to which lucidity leads. [50] Wise men say that Brahmā, the creators of the whole universe, religion, the great one, and the unmanifest are the highest level of existence to which lucidity leads.

  [51] All that results from the three sorts of action has thus been explained, the entire system of transmigration for all living beings, which is divided into three types, each of which is further subdivided into three. [52] Because of their addiction to their sensory powers and their failure to uphold religion, the worst of men, who have learned nothing, undergo evil transmigrations. [53] Learn, now, in full and in order, what particular womb this living soul enters in this world as a result of each particular action here.

  [54] Those who commit major crimes spend a great many years in terrible hells, and when that is over they experience the following transmigrations:

  [55] A priest-killer gets the womb of a dog, a pig, a donkey, a camel, a cow, a goat, a sheep, a wild animal, a bird, a ‘Fierce’ Untouchable, or a ‘Tribal’. [56] A priest who drinks liquor enters (the womb) of a worm, bug, or moth, of birds who eat excrement, and of violent creatures. [57] A priest who is a thief (is reborn) thousands of times in spiders, snakes, and lizards, aquatic animals, and violent ghouls. [58] A man who violates his guru’s marriage-bed (is reborn) hundreds of times in grasses, shrubs, and vines, in (beasts) that are carnivorous or that have fangs, and (in people) who engage in cruel actions. [59] Violent men become carnivorous (beasts); people who eat impure things become worms; thieves (become animals that) devour one another; and men who have sex with women of the lowest castes become ghosts. [60] A man who has associated with fallen men or has had sex with the wife of another man or has stolen the property of a priest becomes a priest-ogre. [61] A man who out of greed has stolen jewels, pearls, or coral, or the various gems, is born among goldsmiths.

  [62] For stealing grain, a man becomes a rat; for brass, a goose; for water, an aquatic bird; for honey, a stinging insect; for milk, a crow; for spices, a dog; for clarified butter, a mongoose; [63] for meat, a vulture; for marrow, a cormorant; for sesame oil, an ‘oil-drinker’; for salt, a cricket; and for yogurt, a crane; [64] for stealing silk, a partridge; for linen, a frog; for cotton cloth, a curlew; for a cow, an iguana; for molasses, a bat; [65] for fine perfumes, a muskrat; for leafy vegetables, a peacock; for various kinds of cooked foods, a porcupine, and for uncooked food, a hedgehog. [66] For stealing fire he becomes a heron; for household articles, a housebuilder wasp; for stealing dyed clothes, he becomes a pheasant; [67] for a deer or an elephant, a wolf; for a horse, a tiger; for fruit and roots, a monkey; for a woman, a bear; for water, a sparrow; for vehicles, a camel; for livestock, a goat.

  [68] Whenever a man has forcibly taken away another man’s property, or has eaten an oblation when it has not been offered into the fire, he inevitably becomes an animal. [69] Women, too, who steal in this way incur guilt; they become the wives of those very same creatures. [70] But those classes who slip from their own innate activites when they are not in extremity pass through evil transmigrations and then became the menial servants of aliens. [71] A priest who has slipped from his own duty becomes a ‘comet-mouth’ ghost who eats vomit; a ruler becomes a ‘false-stinking’ ghost who eats impure things and corpses. [72] A commoner who has slipped from his own duty becomes a ghost ‘who sees by an eye in his anus’, eating pus; a servant becomes a ‘moth-eater’ (ghost).

  [73] The more that sensual men indulge in the sensory objects, the more their weakness for them grows. [74] Through the repetition of their evil actions, men of little intelligence experience miseries in womb after womb in this world: [75] they are rolled about in dreaded hells like the hell of ‘Darkness’, and are tied up and chopped up in hells like the ‘Forest of Sword Leaves’; [76] they suffer various tortures; they are eaten by crows and owls, burnt by scorching sand, and boiled in pots, which is horrible; [77] they are reborn in bad wombs, which causes constant and overwhelming unhappiness, and are assailed with cold and heat and various terrors; [78] over and over they dwell in wombs and undergo birth, which is horrible; wretched chains are theirs, and they are the menial servants of other men; [79] they are separated from their relatives and dear ones and live with bad people; they make money and lose it, and they make friends and enemies; [80] then comes old age, that cannot be held back, and the suffering brought by diseases, and various troubles; and finally death, that cannot be conquered. [81] But a man reaps the appropriate fruit of any act in a body that has the qualities of the frame of mind in which he committed that act.

  [82] All the fruits that are the consequences of actions have thus been pointed out to you; now learn the activity that brings about the supreme good for a priest.

  [83] The recitation of the Veda, inner heat, knowledge, the repression of the sensory powers, non-violence, and serving the guru bring about the supreme good. [84] But of all these auspicious activities here on earth, is one activity said to be best able to bring about the supreme good for a man? [85] The knowledge of the self is traditionally regarded as the ultimate of all of these; it is the first of all forms of learning because through it immortality is achieved.

  [86] But of the six activities listed above, Vedic activity must always be recognized as the best able to bring about the supreme good both here on earth and after death. [87] For all of these (activities), without exception, are encompassed in the performance of Vedic activity, each in a particular rule for a ritual, one by one in order. [88] There are two kinds of Vedic activity: the one that brings about engagement (in worldly action) and the rise of happiness, and the one that brings about disengagement (from worldly action) and the supreme good. [89] The activity of engagement is said to be driven by desire in this world and the world beyond; but the activity of disengagement is said to be free of desire and motivated by knowled
ge. [90] The man who is thoroughly dedicated to the activity of engagement becomes equal to the gods; but the man who is dedicated to disengagement passes beyond the five elements.

  [91] The man who sacrifices to the self, equally seeing the self in all living beings and all living beings in the self, becomes independent. [92] A priest should give up even the activities described above and devote himself diligently to the knowledge of the self, to tranquillity, and to the recitation of the Veda. [93] For that is what makes a birth fruitful, especially for a priest; by attaining that, and in no other way, a twice-born man has done what has to be done.

  [94] The Veda is the eternal eye of the ancestors, gods, and humans; the teachings of the Veda are impossible to master and impossible to measure; this is an established fact. [95] All those revealed canons and various evil doctrines that are outside the Veda bear no fruit after death, for they are all traditionally known to be based upon darkness. [96] The (teachings), differing from that (Veda), that spring up and die out bear no fruit and are false, because they are of a modern date. [97] The four classes, the three worlds, the four stages of life, the past, the present, and the future, are all individually explained by the Veda. [98] Sound, touch, form, taste, and smell as the fifth are brought to birth from the Veda alone; they are born in keeping with their qualities and their innate activities. [99] The eternal teachings of the Veda sustain all living beings; therefore I regard it as the ultimate means of this living creature’s fulfilment.

  [100] The man who knows the teachings of the Veda is worthy of being general of the army, king, dispenser of punishment, and overlord of all the world. [101] Just as a fire that has gained strength burns up even wet trees, so a man who knows the Veda burns up the fault born of his own action. [102] A man who knows the true meaning of the teachings of the Veda becomes fit for union with ultimate reality even while he remains here in this world, no matter what stage of life he is in. [103] Those who read the books are better than those who do not know them; those who remember them are better than those who read them; those who understand them are better than those who remember them; and those who put them into action are better than those who understand them.

  [104] Inner heat and knowledge are the ultimate cause of the supreme good for a priest; through inner heat he destroys his guilt, and through knowledge he achieves immortality. [105] A man who wants to keep his duty clean must know thoroughly the triad (of authorities for knowledge): eye-witness perception, inference, and the teachings found in various sectarian texts. [106] The man who uses reason, which does not contradict the teachings of the Veda, to investigate the sages’ (Veda) and the instructions about duty – he alone, and no one else, knows duty.

  [107] The activity that brings about the supreme good has thus been declared, leaving nothing out; now the secret of the teachings of Manu will be taught.

  [108] If (the question) should arise, ‘What about the laws that have not been mentioned?’ (the reply is): ‘What educated priests say should be the undoubted law.’ [109] And those who have studied the Vedas and its appendages in accordance with the law, and who use the revealed canon and eye-witness perception in their argument, should be recognized as educated priests. [110] Whatever law is agreed upon by an assembly of ten people or more, or even three people or more, who persist in their proper occupations, that law should not be disputed. [111] An assembly of ten people or more should consist of three people each of whom knows one of the three Vedas, a logician, a ritual theologian, an etymologist, a man who can recite the law, and three men from (each of) the first three stages of life. [112] An assembly of three people or more, to make decisions in doubtful questions of law, should consist of a man who knows the ṛg Veda, a man who knows the Yajur Veda, and a man who knows the Sāma Veda. [113] The law that is determined by even a single priest who knows the Veda should be recognized as the supreme law, but not one that is proclaimed by millions of ignorant men. [114] If thousands of men join together who have not kept their vow, who do not know the Vedic verses, and who merely live off their (high) caste, they do not constitute an assembly. [115] When fools who incarnate darkness and do not know the law teach it to someone, his evil, multiplied a hundred times, rebounds upon those who propound it.

  [116] Everything that brings about the supreme good has thus been described to you. A priest who does not slip from this progresses to the ultimate level of existence. [117] Thus did the lord god tell me the whole of this supreme secret of religion, through his desire to do what is good for people.

  [118] Concentrating his mind, a man should see everything, including what is real and unreal, in the self, for if he sees everything in the self he will not set his mind on what is wrong. [119] The self alone is all the deities; everything rests upon the self; for the self engenders the performance of the activities of these embodied creatures. [120] He should superimpose the ether on the openings of his body, the wind on his organs of motion and touch, the supreme brilliant energy on his stomach and sight, the waters on his fat, and the earth on his solid parts; [121] the moon on his mind-and-heart, the cardinal directions on his ear, Visṇu on his stride, Hara (Siva) on his strength, Fire on his speech, Mitra on his excretion, and the Lord of Creatures on his organ of procreation.

  [122] He should know that the supreme Man is the ruler of them all, smaller even than the smallest atom, bright as gold, perceptible only in sleep. [123] Some say that he is Fire, others that he is Manu, the Lord of Creatures, others Indra, others the vital breath, others the eternal ultimate reality. [124] With the five physical forms he pervades all living beings and through birth, growth, and decay constantly makes them revolve in transmigration like wheels. [125] Whoever thus sees the self through the self in all living beings achieves equanimity towards all of them and reaches the supreme condition, ultimate reality.

  [126] A twice-born man who reads this, the teachings of Manu as proclaimed by Bhṛgu, will always act with the proper conduct and will reach the level of existence that he desires.

  End of Chapter 12

  [4] The three kinds are good, bad, and neutral; the three bases are the mind-and-heart, speech, and the body; and the ten distinctive marks, distributed among the three bases, are about to be defined in the next three verses, which give only the negative version of each mark that distinguishes good actions from bad or neutral actions.

  [5] The commentators offer examples of what is undesirable (killing a priest, and other things that are forbidden) and a falsehood (saying, ‘There is no world beyond’ or ‘The body is the soul’).

  [8] He experiences sorrow, verbal abuse by others, and diseases, respectively.

  [10] A man with a triple rod (tridaṇḍin) is a wandering ascetic who carries a kind of rough trident of three staves bound together. This verse puns on the word for rod/punishment/enforcement (daṇḍa) and argues that the true triple ‘rod’ is not a material trident but a triple moral constraint. Similarly, in 9.296 the seven-member kingdom stands firmly upright like three staves (tied together).

  [12] The knower of the field (kṣetrajña) is the individual soul that knows, and moves to action, the physical self or the body composed of the elements (bhūtātman).

  [13] The commentators identify the living soul (jīva) variously with a combination of the subtle body and the great one (described at 1.15 and mentioned in 12.14), or a combination of mind, intelligence, and the sense of ‘I’ (1.14). Some also identify ‘all who have bodies’ (dehins) with the knowers of the field.

  [14] The commentators differ greatly in their interpretations of this verse. Most of them identify ‘the one who endures in living beings’ as the supreme soul (paramātman), but one identifies him as the body, and takes the verse to mean that the individual soul (the knower of the field) pervades the body (which is connected with the elements), and the supreme soul (the great one) pervades the individual soul.

  [15] The commentators suggest that ‘he’ is the supreme soul and that the physical forms are the individual souls, the knowers
of the field.

  [17] Neither the grammar nor the meaning of this verse is entirely clear. ‘Here’ (iha), which usually means ‘here on earth’ in Manu, in this case must mean ‘there in hell’.

  [18] ‘He’ is the individual soul. The two who have great energy are probably the two referred to in verse 12.14, the great one and the knower of the field, though various commentators gloss them as the great one and the supreme soul or the individual soul and the supreme soul.

  [19] The pair are almost certainly the dead man’s religious merit (dharma) and evil, though some commentators identify them as the great one and the knower of the field.

  [20] He is enveloped in a body made of the five elements, as in 12.16, though this time the body is made in order that he may enjoy heaven, not suffer the torments of hell. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ here translate dharma and adharma.

  [21] To reconcile this verse with 12.16, the commentators suggest that the dead man is abandoned by the five elements of his normal human body – and, indeed, a common euphemism for death is ‘to dissolve back into the five elements’ – in order to take on a special, indestructible body in which to be tortured, the body described in 12.16.

  [24] Lucidity or goodness (sattva), energy or passion (rajas), and darkness or torpor (tamas), the three qualities (guṇas) of matter in 1.15–20, are also the qualities of the self.

  [38] The three human goals (puruṣārthas: kāma, artha, and dharma) are thus correlated with the three qualities.

  [47] Gnomes (guhyakas) are the servants of Kubera, the god of wealth.

  [48] Anti-gods are daityas, the sons of Diti, the least offensive of the many families of demons.

  [49] The Amenables are the sādhyas.

  [59] The word for ‘ghost’ (preta) is also the word for a dead spirit or a dead body.

  [60] The priest-ogre (brahmarākṣasa) is a particular kind of demon; for they, too, have castes and classes.