238 Of two "Edicts "bestowing Land. [No. 3. 



8. The donations — a source of merit, riches, and distinction — 

 once bestowed, here on earth, by king3, rank with the reliques of 

 sacrifices and with vomitings. What respectable person, forsooth, 

 would take them again p# 



CT 



The stealing of gold, agreeably to an anonymous text adduced in the Prdyas'- 

 chittoddyota, is counted among offences in the first degree : 



fw^i ^ rr^T #wr ^mx <r*n ii 



V* 



Equal explicitness on this article is wanting in the Laws of the Manavas, IX, 

 235, and XL, 55 ; and in Yajnavalkya, III., 227. 



In expiation of the purloining of gold, the Mitdkshard, a commentary on Yaj- 

 navalkya, prescribes one observance of the ardent penance, a fast of three days' 

 continuance, and eight thousand burnt offerings of clarified butter, with repetitions 

 of the gdyatri. It is added that the seizure of land is atoned by mortifications of 

 half this severity. 



The Prdyas chitta mayukha would visit with a much lighter animadversion, the 

 delinquency thus absolved. 



Bhatta Dinakara is author of the Prdyas'chittoddyota. His father was Rama- 

 krishna Bhatta, son of Narayana Bhatta, son of Rames'wara Bhatta. 



My reason for calling the classical ' Laws of Menu' by the more correct title of 

 * Laws of the Manavas' will be seen by reference to an interesting letter of Prof. 

 Max Miiller, in Mr. Morley's Digest of Indian Cases, Vol. I., Introduction, pp. 

 cxcvi. seq. 



* Of this couplet we owe the following version to Colebrooke : " The gifts 

 which have been granted by former princes, — producing virtue, wealth, and fame, 

 —are unsullied reflections. What honest man would resume them ?" Miscell. Es- 

 says, Vol. II., p. 313. For frnRT^T^Sffawfrr, Colebrooke prints fr^TOTftrl 

 ^ffnufa ; n * s facsimile giving, however, vdnti : and vdnti may, by a strain, be 

 taken, here, to import the same as vdnta, Vdnti occurs in this Journal for 1838> 

 p. 738. But either reading is fatal to this great scholar's construction. This cou- 

 plet, worded as in the present inscription, but ill-rendered into English, will be 

 found in our Journal for 1839, pp. 299, 303 ; and for 1841, pp. 101, 104. For 

 the like reading, and a correct interpretation, see this Journal for 1839, pp. 487, 

 494. Compare, further, the As. Res., Vol. I., p. 365, 8vo. ed c ; and Vol. XV., 

 p. 452. 



An obvious objection to Colebrooke's lection, — which seems to be a tacit alter- 

 ation of his original, — resides in the awkward, and perhaps impurely formed word 

 nirmdlyavat, to signify scarcely more than what is expressed by nirmala ; and in 

 the unnatural air imparted to the whole stanza, as the result of taking pratimdnii 



