Note 1 — CHAPTER 19
Reading edition
Manu commands, “Should the king be near his end through some incurable disease, he must bestow on the priests all his riches accumulated from legal fines: and having duly committed his kingdom to his son, let him seek death in battle, or, if there be no war, by abstaining from food” (Laws, ix. 323). The annals of all the Rajput States afford instances of obedience to this text of their divine legislator. [The injunction to seek death by starvation is an addition by the commentator, and is not included in the original text.]