Manava Dharmashastra 5.108

5.108

iyānevādhikārī—kartā ca puruṣaḥ, yadvāntarātmā, antaḥkaraṇaṃ manaḥ, buddhiḥ, śarīraṃ bhogāyatanam, indriyāṇāṃ bhautikatvānna pṛthaktvam | atra kiṃcitkenacicchodhyate | ‘kālena tu sarvamiti’ stutiparam | gātrāṇītyavayavairavayavinaṃ lakṣayati | adbhiḥ snānena śarīraṃ śudhyati | manastu sadasadātmakam, tasyāsatsaṃkalpādaśuddhiḥ ‘satyena’ sādhusaṃkalpena nivartate | pūrvaṃ manasaḥ śuddhihetutvamuktaṃ, tadadhyāhāreṇa nedaṃ vāco manaḥśuddhikaraṇatvam | tathā ca śrutiḥ “manasā vā iṣitā vāgvadati, yā hyanyamanā vācaṃ vadatyasuryā vai sā vāgadevajuṣṭeti” | vidyayā sāṅgavedāntābhyāsajanyayā, tapasā ca kṛcchrādinā'bhyupetaḥ śudhyati, bhūtātmā | bhūtaśabdastattvavacanaḥ | pāramārthiko'yamātmā'nupacitāhaṃpratyayavedyaḥ, na tu bhūtamaya ātmā śarīrātmeti mantavyam | buddhiravidyamānārthākāradarśanīyā svapnādiṣvasatsiddhāntaprakalpitārthāminiveśatayā vastvātmārthākārayorasadbhedādhyavasāyena duṣyantī | yā vā'nupabhuktajanmāntarakṛtāśubhakarmajā ‘ekaikaduṣkṛtajā vā’ buddhirātmano yāvatsahajā avidyātmakābhedagrahaṇalakṣaṇā guṇātmavivekābhāvalakṣaṇā vā dhanaputrādyabhiṣaṅgarūpā tṛṣṇātiśayahetuḥ, sā tu jñānena svaprakāśāśrayayā pramāṇavyutpattyā śuddhyati | buddhayarthayorbhedādgrāhyākāratvādarthasya viṣayākāreṇa ca pariṇāmāsiddhirnirvikāratvaniścayādbuddhiśuddhiḥ | pūrvatra ca ‘vidyā’ vedārthavedanameva | tasyāśca hetutvaṃ “yathaidhastejasā vahniḥ” (11 | 246 ) itivaditi | evaṃ śuddhaḥ pūto brahmalokamavāpnotītyeṣā sā caturvidhā śuddhiḥ | yadyetā śuddhayaḥ parapuruṣārthahetavastajjananādvidhirayamiti praśaṃsā |

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
The ‘personality’ entitled to the performance of acts consists of the following factors—

The person himself, i.e., the Inner Soul,

the Internal Organ, i.e., the mind,

the Intellect

and the Body, the receptacle of experiences.

The Sense-Organs being material, do not constitute a separate factor. Of these factors some are purified by one thing, and some by other; the statement that ‘Time purifies everything’ being purely valedic tory.

‘Limbs,’ standing for the parts, indicate the whole, the body; the sense being that ‘by water’—i.e., by bathing—‘the body becomes purified.’

The ‘mind’—described (in Discourse I) as consisting of ‘the existent and the non-existent’—becomes contaminated by evil intentions; and it becomes pure by ‘truthfulness’—i.e., by good intentions. In a previous verse (104) the mind has been spoken of as a ‘means of purification’; but that has to be taken in an indirect sense; and the present text can not mean that ‘words’ (truthful) are the means of purifying the mind; and the Śruti also speaks of ‘the word being prompted by the Mind, whence the word uttered by one who is absent-minded becomes fit for demons and not for the gods.’

‘Learning’—produced by the proper study of the Sāṅkhya and the Vedānta;—and ‘austerity’— in the form of the Kṛcchra and the rest;—when endowed by these the ‘soul proper’ becomes purified. The term—‘bhūta’ (in the compound ‘bhūtātma’) means proper, real; i.e., that which is really the soul, the object of the notion of the ‘ego’ as free from the notion of ‘I’, and not the material entity consisting of the body.

‘Buddhi’ is ‘cognition’—which is regarded as contaminated when it appears in the form of a thing that is non-existent, or when it does not take any account of the distinction between the real form of the thing cognised and the apparent form in which it is cognised when, during dreams and such conditions, it is obsessed by wrong notions of things;—or ‘Buddhi’ may stand for that faculty of the personality which is the product of the unexpiated portions of his past misdeeds, and which may, by virtue of each single sin committed in the past, beset that personality in the form of Ignorance, appearing in the shape of the notion of diversity, or in the shape of the non-discrimination between the Soul and the material attributes, which operates in the form of attachment to children, wealth and such things, and becomes the source of extreme longings.—This ‘Buddhi’ becomes pure by ‘know ledge;’—i.e., proper understanding of the means of cognition as indicating the self-luminous character of all cognitions. Cognition is distinct from the Object cognised, by reason of the latter having a shape, and it being impossible for the former to become modified, into that shape; and hence it becomes purified by the conviction that it is, by its very nature, unmodifiable.

The term ‘learning’ in the previous clause stands for the knowledge of what is taught by the Veda; and its capacity for purification is of the same kind as described under 11.246—‘as the fire, in one moment, etc.’

Being purified in the above manner, the person reaches the regions of Brahman. Such is the four-fold purification. And what is intended to be expressed is eulogy of such purification as leading to the fulfilment of the highest ends of man in the matter of his births and other ciruumstances.—(108).