Manava Dharmashastra 6.20

6.20

pakṣāntau pūrṇamāsyamāvāsye | atra śṛtāṃ yavāgūmaśnīyāt | sakṛditi sāyaṃ prātarvā |

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):
Two meals having been prescribed for the man’s ordinary purposes, the present text lays down the dropping of one of these meals for the Hermit. The sense is that as age goes on advancing, the man should go on dropping the mealtimes one by one. The ‘fourth’ meal-time is to be computed in the same manner us the ‘eighth’: Three days having elapsed, if one eats in the evening of the fourth day, he comes to be regarded as eating ‘every eighth time’. The act of eating being the subject-matter of the context, the ‘fourth’ (or ‘eighth’) time has to be taken as referring to that act.—(19).