दायभागकथनम्The law of inheritance
Verse 28
शङ्कितव्यभिचाराऽपि न पत्युर्दायभागिनी । लभते जीवनं मात्रं भर्तुर्विभवहारिणः ॥ २८ ॥
śaṅkitavyabhicārā’pi na patyurdāyabhāginī | labhatē jīvanaṁ mātraṁ bharturvibhavahāriṇaḥ || 28 ||
Translation
A woman suspected of unchastity has no share in her husband's inheritance; she receives only her living from the one who takes her husband's wealth.
Word by word
- śaṅkita
- suspected
- vyabhicārā
- of unchastity
- api
- even
- na
- not
- patyuḥ
- (patyuḥ) of the husband
- dāya
- in the inheritance
- bhāginī
- a sharer
- labhatē
- receives
- jīvanaṁ
- a living
- mātraṁ
- only
- bhartuḥ
- (bhartuḥ) of the husband
- vibhava
- the wealth
- hāriṇaḥ
- (hāriṇaḥ) from the one who takes
Meaning
Even suspicion bars her from the estate, though not from maintenance: food, clothing and shelter. Avalon's note reads it of a woman with a bad name against whom nothing is proved; the commentary adds that if suspicion bars her, proven unchastity bars her all the more.
Commentary
Hariharānanda Bhāratī’s Sanskrit commentary, translated
A woman suspected of unchastity has a share only in food and clothing, not in her lord's wealth: this he tells with "śaṅkita" and the rest. Even a woman suspected of unchastity (vyabhicāra) is not a sharer in her husband's inheritance; she receives from the man who takes her husband's wealth only her living (jīvana), just her living. By saying "even" Sadāśiva shows that a woman whose unchastity is open is all the more not fit for a share in the husband's inheritance. Jīvana is that by which one lives, food and the like; the suffix lyuṭ is in the sense of the instrument. "Mātra in the sense of wholeness and of limitation," says the lexicon.