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cxxiv
LAWS OF MANU.
name of Kasmir as an illustration 1. Again, in giving examples of royal monopolies in the remarks on Manu VIII, 399, he states correctly that the sale of saffron is a prerogative of the king of Kasmir. Further, he repeatedly refers to the Kåthaka Sâkhâ of the Black Yagur-veda, which for a long time has been confined to Kasmir alone; and, when trying to prove in the notes on Manu I, 58, that the Mânava Dharmasâstra may be called Manu's, though it was first taught by Hiranyagarbha, he adduces as an analogous instance the Kathaka, which, though studied and taught by many others, is named after Katha. Such an illustration would hardly occur to anybody but a student of the Kathaka Sâkhå. Still more decisive, finally, is his remark in the commentary on Manu IV, 59, where he says that the rainbow is called in Kasmir vinakhâyâ9.
As regards the history of the text of Medhâtithi's commentary, Mr. Colebrooke states in the preface to the Digest, p. xv (Madras edition), that the Bhashya' having been partly lost, has been completed by other hands at the court of Madanapâla, a prince of Digh. This assertion probably rests on the authority of a stanza in the Sârdûlavikrîdita measure, found in a number of copies at the end of a good many chapters, which says that 'the Bhashya being mutilated, prince Madanapâla, the son of Saharana, brought a MS. from another country and made a girnoddhåra, or restoration of the ruin, by causing copies to be taken from that? Considering the wording of the verse,
1 VII, 22, पितृपितामहादिक्रमागतो देशो व्यपदेशहेतुः । काश्मीरकस्य कश्मीराः पंचालानां मंचालाः ॥ VIII, 41, कुरुकाशिकाश्मीरादिदेशनियमावधिर्जनपदः ॥
2
इन्द्रायुधं शरधनुर्विनच्छायेति या कश्मीरेषु कथ्यते ॥ I must note that Professor Jolly, Tagore Lectures, p. 6, offers a different opinion, and takes Medhâtithi to be a southerner. His reasons-the termination svâmin in the name of Medhâtithi's father's name, Virasvâmin, and the attention paid by the ancient southern authors to the Bhâshya-do not seem to me sufficiently strong. For, as the Kasmirian name Kshirasvâmin and scores of Svâmins in the northern inscriptions show, the title was, at least, formerly not confined to the south. Further, the intercourse between Kasmir and southern India in the time of Bilhana and of Harshadeva accounts for the introduction of a Kasmirian work to the notice of the southern Pandits.
'Professor Jolly states, Tagore Lectures, p. 7, that he has found the verse,
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