Verse 4.188

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

हिरण्यं भूमिमश्वं गामन्नं वासस्तिलान् घृतम् ।
प्रतिगृह्णन्नविद्वांस्तु भस्मीभवति दारुवत् ॥ १८८ ॥

hiraṇyaṃ bhūmimaśvaṃ gāmannaṃ vāsastilān ghṛtam |
pratigṛhṇannavidvāṃstu bhasmībhavati dāruvat || 188 ||

The illiterate person, accepting gold, land, horse, cow food, clothing, sesamum and clarified butter, becomes reduced to ashes, like wood.—(188)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

The text states the evil results following from the illiterate man accepting the gift of certain specified things.—‘He becomes reduced to ashes, like wood;’—just as wood, on being burnt by fire, becomes reduced to ashes, so the Brāhmaṇa, who is not endowed with proper learning, becomes reduced to ashes, by accepting the gift of gold and other things mentioned here.—(188).

 

Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha

This verse is quoted in Madanapārijāta (p. 221);—in Hemādri (Dāna, p. 60);—in Dānamayūkha (p. 6);—and in Prāyaścittaviveka (p. 405), which says that this prohibition refers to persons ignorant of mantras.

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Vaśiṣṭha (6.30).—‘The illiterate person, accepting the cow or gold or cloth, or land or sesamum, becomes reduced to ashes, like wood.’

Yājñavalkya (1.201-202).—‘Cows, land and sesamum, should be respectfully offered by the wise man who desires his own welfare to a proper recipient and never to an improper person; the latter accepting the gift, drops the giver downwards.’

Bṛhad-Yama (58).—‘Just as when milk, curd, butter and honey placed in an unbaked vessel becomes destroyed through the weakness of the vessel, and the vessel also becomes destroyed, in the same manner, when an illiterate person accepts the gift of cows or gold or clothes or food or land or sesamum, he becomes reduced to ashes like wood.’