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THE ADYAR LIBRARY BULLETIN
grammatical object of the action of eating is at the same time also that which is in fact harmed. This is (deliberately ?) made particularly clear by Nāgesa by thus explaining the second interpretation (cf. § 2. 4 above): parān himsan yavān bhakşayati.
.. However the question is whether this argument is by itself strong enough to allow a final decision. If the problem could be solved so easily, one would have to wonder why the second interpretation continued to appeal to quite a few Pāṇiniya-s who after all were no fools either. Therefore it is advisable, to say the least, to take a closer look at the second interpretation and to see what it is ultimatly about.
3. 1. · According to this interpretation it is the eating of the barley plants that causes himsă to the proprietor of the field (tatsvāmin). That is to say, what Kaiyața and the other Pāṇiniya-s are here talking about is damage to crops, and this was quite understandably--a legal area in India, too. Together with related problems it is usually dealt with in Dharmaśāstra texts, if they arrange their materials at all systematically, under the heading svāmipalavivāda and thus in the wider context of what is technically called. vyavahāra.40 The relevant ideas and regulations are summarized by P. V. Kane," but those reading German should not by any means miss the corresponding pages in J. J. Meyer's Über das Wesen der altindischen Rechtsschriften... 42 which make much better and decidedy more entertaining reading in many
