Manusmriti — Chapter on Expiations and Ritual-Juridical Remedies, Shloka 192
प्रायश्चित्तं चिकीर्षन्ति विकर्मस्थास् तु ये द्विजाः ब्रह्मणा च परित्यक्तास् तेषाम् अप्य् एतद् आदिशेत् //
prāyaścittaṃ cikīrṣanti vikarmasthās tu ye dvijāḥ | brahmaṇā ca parityaktās teṣām apy etad ādiśet ||
For those twice-born persons who, while engaged in prohibited acts, nevertheless wish to perform expiation—and who have also been abandoned by Brahmā—this same expiatory procedure should also be prescribed for them.
प्रायश्चित्तम्: expiation/penance; चिकीर्षन्ति: wish to do/seek to undertake; विकर्मस्थाः: situated in forbidden acts (vikarma); तु: but/indeed; ये: who; द्विजाः: twice-born (members of the three higher varṇas in the Dharmaśāstra idiom); ब्रह्मणा: by Brahmā (or by the brahmanical order, context-dependent); च: and; परित्यक्ताः: abandoned/rejected; तेषाम्: of them; अपि: also/even; एतत्: this; आदिशेत्: one should prescribe/lay down (as a rule).
FAQs
This verse belongs to the expiations (prāyaścitta) section of the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra, where the text systematizes responses to transgressions using ritual, ethical, and social-legal categories. It reflects a juridical-ritual framework in which wrongdoing (vikarma) is addressed through graded acts of expiation, and where eligibility and authority are articulated through the idiom of dvija identity and divine/ideological sanction.
The verse frames prāyaścitta as a formally prescribable procedure: even individuals characterized as engaged in prohibited conduct and described as 'abandoned by Brahmā' are still placed within the text’s regulatory scope. Historically, this illustrates how Dharmaśāstra literature extends mechanisms of remediation to transgressors, emphasizing prescription (ādiśet) rather than narrating a specific ritual in this line.
The verse uses standard Dharmaśāstra prescriptive diction: ādiśet (“one should prescribe”) functions as a normative legal-ritual operator. The compound vikarma-sthāḥ (“standing/engaged in prohibited acts”) condenses juridical classification into a single adjective, while cikīrṣanti (“desire to do/undertake”) highlights intention as a relevant condition for entering the expiatory regime.
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