Manava Dharmashastra 3.174

3.174

agryāḥ uttamāḥ sarvasaṃśayavyudāsena nipuṇataḥ svīkṛtavedāḥ | sarveṣu ca pravacaneṣu agryāḥ ityevam | procyate vyākhyāyate yairvedārthaḥ tāni pravacanānyaṅgāni | ṣaḍaṅgo vedo yairabhyasto'bhyasyate ca | śrotriyānvaye jātāḥ | pitṛpitāmahādayo yeṣāṃ tādṛśā eva | "nanu cedṛśā eva bhojyatayā vihitāstatra ko'tiśayo yenedānīṃ paṃktipāvanatvamucyate" | kiṃcidvidvadaṅgo dānaṃ, sati śrotriyatve vihitam | na ceha vidvattopāttā | na ca tayā paṃktipāvanatvopapattiḥ | guṇaviśeṣāpekṣaṃ hi paṃktipāvanatvaṃ na guṇāpacaye yuktam | tasmādvidvadabhāve kevalaśrotriyāya dānārthametat | asati viduṣi śrotriyāya dānaṃ mukhyameva na gauṇamityuktaṃ bhavati | bahuvacanaṃ vyaktyapekṣam | cakāraḥ samuccaye |

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
‘Foremost’—most excellent; who have carefully made the Vedas their own by having all doubts regarding them set aside.

‘Foremost also in all the explanatory sciences’—i.e., the subsidiary sciences which serve to explain what is contained in the Veda. That is, those persons, who have learnt, and are learning, the Veda along with the six subsidiary sciences.

‘Those who are born in the family of men learned in the Veda’—i.e., those whose father and grandfather, etc., are also equally learned in the Veda and the subsidiary sciences.

“It is persons such as these that have been mentioned as fit for being fed; what further excellence is here mentioned, by virtue of which these men are described as ‘sanctifiers of company?’”

It has been laid down above that food should be given to one possessed of even slight knowledge, only if he happens to be learned in the Veda. In the present instance, however, mere learning is not mentioned as the only condition of being a ‘Sanctifier of Company.’ In fact, this latter character of being a ‘Sanctifier of Company’ is dependent upon the presence of special qualifications; and hence it cannot be right to accept it in cases of lower qualifications. Thus the present verse is meant to sanction the giving of food to one who is simply learning the Veda, in the absence of fully learned persons. So that, in the absence of the fully learned man, the giving of food to one who is learning the Veda is the first course to be adopted, and not merely a secondary one.

The plural number is used, in view of the individual men.

The particle ‘ca’ has the cumulative sense.—(184)