The Manusmṛti (Sanskrit: मनुस्मृति), also known as the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra or the Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitutions among the many of Hinduism.[1]
Over fifty manuscripts of the Manusmriti are now known, but the earliest discovered, most translated and presumed authentic version since the 18th century has been the "Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) manuscript with Kulluka Bhatta commentary". Modern scholarship states this presumed authenticity is false, and the various manuscripts of Manusmriti discovered in India are inconsistent with each other.
The metrical text is in Sanskrit, is dated to the 1st to 3rd century CE, and presents itself as a discourse given by Manu (Svayambhuva) and Bhrigu on dharma topics such as duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and others. The text's influence had historically spread outside India. The text influenced Hindu kingdoms in Cambodia and Indonesia.[2] [3] [4]
In 1776, Manusmriti became one of the first Sanskrit texts to be translated into English, by British philologist Sir William Jones.[5] Manusmriti was used to construct the Hindu law code for the East India Company-administered enclaves.[6] [7]
The title Manusmriti is a relatively modern term and a late innovation, probably coined because the text is in a verse form. The over-fifty manuscripts discovered of the text never use this title, but state the title as Manava Dharmashastra (Sanskrit: मानव धर्मशास्त्र) in their colophons at the end of each chapter. In modern scholarship, these two titles refer to the same text.[8]
Philologists Jones and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, in the 18th century, dated Manusmriti to around 1250 BCE and 1000 BCE respectively, which, from later linguistic developments, is untenable due to the language of the text which must be later than the late Vedic texts such as the Upanishads, themselves dated a few centuries later, around 500 BCE.[9] Later scholars shifted the chronology of the text to between the 1st or 2nd century CE.[10] Olivelle adds that numismatic evidence and the mention of gold coins as a fine suggest the text may date to the 2nd or 3rd century CE.[11]
Most scholars consider the text a composite produced by many authors put together over a long period. Olivelle states that the various ancient and medieval Indian texts claim revisions and editions were derived from the original text with 100,000 verses and 1,080 chapters. However, the text version in modern use, according to Olivelle, is likely the work of a single author or a chairman with research assistants.[12]
Manusmriti, Olivelle states, was not a new document - it drew on other texts, and reflects "a crystallization of an accumulated knowledge" in ancient India. The root of theoretical models within Manusmriti rely on at least two shastras that pre-date it: artha (statecraft and legal process) and dharma (an ancient Indian concept that includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and others discussed in various Dharmasutras, older than Manusmriti).[13] Its contents can be traced to Kalpasutras of the Vedic era, which led to the development of Smartasutras consisting of Grihyasutras and Dharmasutras.[14] The foundational texts of Manusmriti include many of these sutras, all from an era preceding the common era. Most of these ancient texts are now lost, and only four have survived: the law codes of Apastamba, Gautama, Baudhayana and Vasishtha.[15]
The ancient version of the text has been subdivided into twelve Adhyayas (chapters), but the original text had no such division.[16] The text covers different topics, and is unique among ancient Indian texts in using "transitional verses" to mark the end of one subject and the start of the next.[16] The text can be broadly divided into four, each of different length. and each further divided into subsections:[16]
The text is composed in metric Shlokas (verses), in the form of a dialogue between an exalted teacher and disciples who are eager to learn about the various aspects of dharma.[17] The first 58 verses are attributed by the text to Manu, while the remaining more than two thousand verses are attributed to his student Bhrigu.[17] Olivelle lists the subsections as follows:[18]
The Dharmasya Yonih (Sources of the Law) has twenty-four verses and one transition verse.[18] These verses state what the text considers as the proper and just sources of law: