Arthashastra — Adhyakshaprachara, Sutra 4

Devanagari script

जरद्गुधेनुगर्भिणीपष्ठौहीवत्सतरीणां समविभागं रूपशतमेकः पालयेत् ॥ कZ_०२.२९.०४ ॥

Transliteration

jaradgudhenugarbhiṇīpaṣṭhauhīvatsatarīṇāṃ samavibhāgaṃ rūpaśatam ekaḥ pālayet

Translation

ထိန်းသိမ်းသူတစ်ဦးသည် rūpa ၁၀၀ တန်ဖိုးရှိသော အစုတစ်စုကို ထိန်းသိမ်းရမည်။ ထိုအစုတွင် နွားအို၊ နွားကလေးပါနွား၊ ကိုယ်ဝန်ဆောင်နွားနှင့် နွားမပျို/နွားငယ် (vatsatarī) တို့ကို အညီအမျှ ခွဲဝေပါဝင်စေရမည်။

Word by Word

• जरद्गुधेनुगर्भिणीपष्ठौहीवत्सतरीणाम्: of old cows, cows with calves, milch-cows, pregnant cows, (pashṭauhī-type cows), and heifers (vat­satarī)
• Type: Noun (genitive plural compound)
• Root: (multiple) जरत् + गुधा + धेनु + गर्भिणी + पष्ठौही + वत्सतरी
• Form: षष्ठी-बहुवचनम्; स्त्रीलिङ्ग-प्रधान (ending -णाम्); denotes a category/group of cattle: ‘of (those) …’

• समविभागम्: equal division / equal allotment
• Type: Noun (action noun)
• Root: वि-भज्
• Form: द्वितीया-एकवचनम्; पुल्लिङ्ग/नपुंसकलिङ्ग-प्रयोग (object of ‘to maintain/arrange’); ‘equal distribution/allotment’

• रूपशतम्: one hundred rūpas
• Type: Noun (measure/value)
• Root: रूप
• Form: द्वितीया-एकवचनम्; नपुंसकलिङ्गम्; ‘a hundred rūpas’ (monetary value)

• एकः: one (person)
• Type: Pronoun/Adjective (numeral)
• Root: एक
• Form: प्रथमा-एकवचनम्; पुल्लिङ्गम्; subject: ‘one (person/keeper)’

• पालयेत्: should maintain / should keep (under care)
• Type: Verb
• Root: पाल्
• Form: विधिलिङ् (optative), परस्मैपदम्, प्रथमपुरुषः, एकवचनम्; ‘should protect/maintain/keep’

Entities Mentioned

• caretaker/herdsman
• cow categories (aged, with calves, pregnant, heifers)

More Details

FAQs

Why insist on an equal mix of cow categories?

To balance productivity and risk: some animals yield current output (milk), others are reproductive stock; equalization reduces manipulation and stabilizes future supply.