Manusmriti with the Commentary of Medhatithi
by Ganganatha Jha | 1920 | 1,381,940 words | ISBN-10: 8120811550 | ISBN-13: 9788120811553
This is the English translation of the Manusmriti, which is a collection of Sanskrit verses dealing with ‘Dharma’, a collective name for human purpose, their duties and the law. Various topics will be dealt with, but this volume of the series includes 12 discourses (adhyaya). The commentary on this text by Medhatithi elaborately explains various t...
Verse 7.80
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:
सांवत्सरिकमाप्तैश्च राष्ट्रादाहारयेद् बलिम् ।
स्याच्चाम्नायपरो लोके वर्तेत पितृवत्नृषु ॥ ८० ॥sāṃvatsarikamāptaiśca rāṣṭrādāhārayed balim |
syāccāmnāyaparo loke varteta pitṛvatnṛṣu || 80 ||He should cause the yearly revenue to be collectbd by trusted men. In his business he shall stick to the scriptures; and towards the people he shall behave like a father.—(80)
Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
‘Revenue’—the tux, in the shape of the sixth part of the produce of grains.
By trusted men’—by men who have been tested by means of tests.
‘He shall stick to the scriptures’— as detailed above. That is, he shall have recourse to such sciences of reasoning &c. as depend mostly upon the scriptures. Or, it may mean that he shall receive only such part, of the produce as ‘tax’ as may be sanctioned by established usage, never more than that.
‘Towards the people he shall behave like a father’.— That is, he shall behave lovingly towards those who pay the taxes, as also towards others.—(80)
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
This verse is quoted in Parāśaramādhava (Ācāra, p. 407);—and in Vīramitrodaya (Rājanīti, p. 187), which explains ‘sāṃvatsarikam balim’ as the ‘yearly tax’,—‘loke’ as ‘among the people’,—and ‘āśrayaparaḥ’ as ‘inclined to provide livings for the poor and the helpless.’
Comparative notes by various authors
Yājñavalkya (1.321).—‘For the king there is no act more meritorious than this that what he obtains by war he gives away to Brāhmaṇas and the gift of fearlessness to the people.’
Kāmandaka (5.78, 79).—‘Agriculture, communications to facilitate commercial traffic, entrenchment of strongholds for soldiers in the capital, construction of dams and bridges across rivers, erection of enclosures for elephants, working of mines and quarries, felling and selling of timber and the peopling of uninhabited tracts,—these eightfold sources of revenue, the king should ever enhance; his officers looking up to him for livelihood should also do so, for maintaining themselves.’