Manu Smriti - Laws of Manu... part 11

January 19, 2009

Manu Smriti - Laws of Manu … part 11

Namaste

Let us Continue Reading MANU SMRITI

This one also a Treasure to Sanathana Dharma.

If anyone miss to read or interest to read any

Part of Manu smriti or my previous postings

Chanakya Neetisastra, Kautiliya Arthasastra ,

Vidura niti or Tiruvallurs Tirukkural,and

Uddhavagita.

pls mail to me , I will send again to you.

I humbly request you to forward this values to your family, friends and to your groups. Allow all people from different religion to understand the value of our Sanathana Dharma. At least let them learn and then let them criticize

As my Guru told me

One need not worry too much about the source of certain knowledge. Just adopt in our life if they are good. If needed refine the knowledge by way of addition, deletion, modification and correction. Also try to understand the meaning of Different Castes , it is not by birth it is by his performance.

Manu Smriti….Laws of Manu

101. Grass, room (for resting), water, and fourthly a kind word; these (things) never fail in the houses of good men.

102. But a Brahmana who stays one night only is declared to be a guest (atithi); for because he stays (sthita) not long (anityam), he is called atithi (a guest).

103. One must not consider as a guest a Brahmana who dwells in the same village, nor one who seeks his livelihood by social intercourse, even though he has come to a house where (there is) a wife, and where sacred fires (are kept).

104. Those foolish householders who constantly seek (to live on) the food of others, become, in consequence of that (baseness), after death the cattle of those who give them food.

105. A guest who is sent by the (setting) sun in the evening, must not be driven away by a householder; whether he have come at (supper-) time or at an inopportune moment, he must not stay in the house without entertainment.

106. Let him not eat any (dainty) food which he does not offer to his guest; the hospitable reception of guests procures wealth, fame, long life, and heavenly bliss.

107. Let him offer (to his guests) seats, rooms, beds, attendance on departure and honour (while they stay), to the most distinguished in the best form, to the lower ones in a lower form, to equals in an equal manner.

108. But if another guest comes after the Vaisvadeva offering has been finished, (the householder) must give him food according to his ability, (but) not repeat the Bali offering.

109. A Brahmana shall not name his family and (Vedic) gotra in order to obtain a meal; for he who boasts of them for the sake of a meal, is called by the wise a foul feeder (vantasin).

110. But a Kshatriya (who comes) to the house of a Brahmana is not called a guest (atithi), nor a Vaisya, nor a Sudra, nor a personal friend, nor a relative, nor the teacher.

111. But if a Kshatriya comes to the house of a Brahmana in the manner of a guest, (the house-holder) may feed him according to his desire, after the above-mentioned Brahmanas have eaten.

112. Even a Vaisya and a Sudra who have approached his house in the manner of guests, he may allow to eat with his servants, showing (thereby) his compassionate disposition.

113. Even to others, personal friends and so forth, who have come to his house out of affection, he may give food, garnished (with seasoning) according to his ability, (at the same time) with his wife.

114. Without hesitation he may give food, even before his guests, to the following persons, (viz.) to newly-married women, to infants, to the sick, and to pregnant women.

115. But the foolish man who eats first without having given food to these (persons) does, while he crams, not know that (after death) he himself will be devoured by dogs and vultures.

116. After the Brahmanas, the kinsmen, and the servants have dined, the householder and his wife may afterwards eat what remains.

117. Having honoured the gods, the sages, men, the manes, and the guardian deities of the house, the householder shall eat afterwards what remains.

118. He who prepares food for himself (alone), eats nothing but sin; for it is ordained that the food which remains after (the performance of) the sacrifices shall be the meal of virtuous men.

119. Let him honour with the honey-mixture a king, an officiating priest, a Snataka, the teacher, a son-in-law, a father-in-law, and a maternal uncle, (if they come) again after a full year (has elapsed since their last visit).

120. A king and a Srotriya, who come on the performance of a sacrifice, must be honoured with the honey-mixture, but not if no sacrifice is being performed; that is a settled rule.

121. But the wife shall offer in the evening (a portion) of the dressed food as a Bali-oblation, without (the recitation of) sacred formulas; for that (rite which is called the) Vaisvadeva is prescribed both for the morning and the evening.

122. After performing the Pitriyagna, a Brahmana who keeps a sacred fire shall offer, month by month, on the new-moon day, the funeral sacrifice (Sraddha, called) Pindanvaharyaka.

123. The wise call the monthly funeral offering to the manes Anvaharya (to be offered after the cakes), and that must be carefully performed with the approved (sorts of) flesh (mentioned below).

124. I will fully declare what and how many (Brahmanas) must be fed on that (occasion), who must be avoided, and on what kinds of food (they shall dine).

125. One must feed two (Brahmanas) at the offering to the gods, and three at the offering to the manes, or one only on either occasion; even a very wealthy man shall not be anxious (to entertain) a large company.

126. A large company destroys these five (advantages) the respectful treatment (of the invited, the propriety of) place and time, purity and (the selection of) virtuous Brahmana (guests); he therefore shall not seek (to entertain) a large company.

127. Famed is this rite for the dead, called (the sacrifice sacred to the manes (and performed) on the new-moon day; if a man is diligent in (performing) that, (the reward of) the rite for the dead, which is performed according to Smarta rules, reaches him constantly.

128. Oblations to the gods and manes must be presented by the givers to a Srotriya alone; what is given to such a most worthy Brahmana yields great reward.

129. Let him feed even one learned man at (the sacrifice) to the gods, and one at (the sacrifice) to the manes; (thus) he will gain a rich reward, not (if he entertains) many who are unacquainted with the Veda.

130. Let him make inquiries even regarding the remote (ancestors of) a Brahmana who has studied an entire (recension of the) Veda;

(if descended from a virtuous race) such a man is a worthy recipient of gifts (consisting) of food offered to the gods or to the manes, he is declared (to procure as great rewards as) a guest (atithi).

131. Though a million of men, unaquainted with the Rikas, were to dine at a (funeral sacrifice), yet a single man, learned in the Veda, who is satisfied (with his entertainment), is worth them all as far as the (production of) spiritual merit (is concerned).

132. Food sacred to the manes or to the gods must be given to a man distinguished by sacred knowledge; for hands, smeared with blood, cannot be cleansed with blood.

133. As many mouthfuls as an ignorant man swallows at a sacrifice to the gods or to the manes, so many red-hot spikes, spears, and iron balls must (the giver of the repast) swallow after death.

134. Some Brahmanas are devoted to (the pursuit of) knowledge, and others to (the performance of) austerities; some to austerities and to the recitation of the Veda, and others to (the performance of) sacred rites.

135. Oblations to the manes ought to be carefully presented to those devoted to knowledge, but offerings to the gods, in accordance with the reason (of the sacred law), to (men of) all the four (above-mentioned classes).

136. If there is a father ignorant of the sacred texts whose son has learned one whole recension of the Veda and the Angas, and a son ignorant of the sacred texts whose father knows an entire recension of the Veda and the Angas,

137. Know that he whose father knows the Veda, is the more venerable one (of the two); yet the other one is worthy of honour, because respect is due to the Veda (which he has learned).

138. Let him not entertain a personal friend at a funeral sacrifice; he may gain his affection by (other) valuable gifts; let him feed at a Sraddha a Brahmana whom he considers neither as a foe nor as a friend.

139. He who performs funeral sacrifices and offerings to the gods chiefly for the sake of (gaining) friends, reaps after death no reward for Sraddhas and sacrifices.

140. That meanest among twice-born men who in his folly contracts friendships through a funeral sacrifice, loses heaven, because he performed a Sraddha for the sake of friendship.

141. A gift (of food) by twice-born men, consumed with (friends and relatives), is said to be offered to the Pisakas; it remains in this (world) alone like a blind cow in one stable.

142. As a husbandman reaps no harvest when he has sown the seed in barren soil, even so the giver of sacrificial food gains no reward if he presented it to a man unacquainted with the Rikas.

143. But a present made in accordance with the rules to a learned man, makes the giver and the recipient partakers of rewards both in this (life) and after death.

144. (If no learned Brahmana be at hand), he may rather honour a (virtuous) friend than an enemy, though the latter may be qualified (by learning and so forth); for sacrificial food, eaten by a foe, bears no reward after death.

145. Let him (take) pains (to) feed at a Sraddha an adherent of the Rig-veda who has studied one entire (recension of that) Veda, or a follower of the Yagur-veda who has finished one Sakha, or a singer of Samans who (likewise) has completed (the study of an entire recension).

146. If one of these three dines, duly honoured, at a funeral sacrifice, the ancestors of him (who gives the feast), as far as the seventh person, will be satisfied for a very long time.

147. This is the chief rule (to be followed) in offering sacrifices to the gods and manes; know that the virtuous always observe the following subsidiary rule.

148. One may also entertain (on such occasions) one's maternal grandfather, a maternal uncle, a sister's son, a father-in-law, one's teacher, a daughter's son, a daughter's husband, a cognate kinsman, one's own officiating priest or a man for whom one offers sacrifices.

149. For a rite sacred to the gods, he who knows the law will not make (too close) inquiries regarding an (invited) Brahmana; but when one performs a ceremony in honour of the manes, one must carefully examine (the qualities and parentage of the guest).

150. Manu has declared that those Brahmanas who are thieves, outcasts, eunuchs, or atheists are unworthy (to partake) of oblations to the gods and manes.

Will be continue on part 12

with regards

dilip