Manusmriti
The Manusmṛti, 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.
Over fifty manuscripts of the Manusmriti are now known, but the earliest discovered, most translated, and presumed authentic version since the 18th century is the "Kolkata manuscript with Kulluka Bhatta commentary". Modern scholarship states this presumed authenticity is false, and that the various manuscripts of Manusmriti discovered in India are inconsistent with each other.
The metrical text is in Sanskrit, is dated to the 2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE, and presents itself as a discourse given by Manu and Bhrigu on dharma topics such as duties, rights, laws, conduct, and virtues. The text's influence had historically spread outside India, influencing Hindu kingdoms in modern Cambodia and Indonesia.
In 1776, Manusmriti became one of the first Sanskrit texts to be translated into English, by British philologist Sir William Jones. Manusmriti was used to construct the Hindu law code for the East India Company-administered enclaves.
Nomenclature
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 in their colophons at the end of each chapter. In modern scholarship, these two titles refer to the same text.Chronology
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. Later scholars shifted the chronology of the text to between the 1st or 2nd century CE. 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. However, the majority of scholars agree that it was composed sometime between 200 BCE and 200 CE.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.
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 and dharma. Its contents can be traced to Kalpasutras of the Vedic era, which led to the development of Smartasutras consisting of Grihyasutras and Dharmasutras. 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.
Structure
The ancient version of the text has been subdivided into twelve Adhyayas, but the original text had no such division. 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. The text can be broadly divided into four, each of different length. and each further divided into subsections:- Creation of the world
- Source of dharma
- The dharma of the four social classes
- Law of karma, rebirth and final liberation
Dharma of the four Varnas
- 3.1 Rules Relating to Law
- *3.1.1 Rules of Action in Normal Times
- **3.1.1.1 Fourfold Dharma of a Brahmin
- **3.1.1.2 Rules of Action for a King
- **3.1.1.3 Rules of Action for Vaiśyas and Śūdras
- *3.1.2 Rules of Action in Times of Adversity
- 3.2 Rules Relating to Penance
Determination of Karmayoga
The verses 12.1, 12.2 and 12.82 are transitional verses. This section is in a different style than the rest of the text, raising questions of whether this entire chapter was added later. While there is evidence that this chapter was extensively redacted over time, it is unclear whether the entire chapter is of a later era.- 4.1 Fruits of Action
- 4.2 Rules of Action for Supreme Good
Contents
The structure and contents of the Manusmriti suggest it to be a document predominantly targeted at the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. The text dedicates 1,034 verses, the largest portion, on laws for and expected virtues of Brahmins, and 971 verses for Kshatriyas. The statement of rules for the Vaishyas and the Shudras in the text is extraordinarily brief. Olivelle suggests that this may be because the text was composed to address the balance "between the political power and the priestly interests", and because of the rise in foreign invasions of India in the period it was composed.On virtues and outcast
Manusmriti lists and recommends virtues in many verses. For example, verse 6.75 recommends non-violence towards everyone and temperance as key virtues, while verse 10.63 preaches that all four varnas must abstain from injuring any creature, abstain from falsehood and abstain from appropriating the property of others.Similarly, in verse 4.204, states Olivelle, some manuscripts of Manusmriti list the recommended virtues to be, "compassion, forbearance, truthfulness, non-injury, self-control, not desiring, meditation, serenity, sweetness and honesty" as primary, and "purification, sacrifices, ascetic toil, gift giving, Vedic recitation, restraining the sexual organs, observances, fasts, silence and bathing" as secondary. A few manuscripts of the text contain a different verse 4.204, according to Olivelle, and list the recommended virtues to be, "not injuring anyone, speaking the truth, chastity, honesty and not stealing" as central and primary, while "not being angry, obedience to the teacher, purification, eating moderately and vigilance" to desirable and secondary.
In other discovered manuscripts of Manusmriti, including the most translated Calcutta manuscript, the text declares in verse 4.204 that the ethical precepts under Yamas such as Ahimsa are paramount while Niyamas such as Ishvarapranidhana are minor, and those who do not practice the Yamas but obey the Niyamas alone become outcasts.
Significance of Manusmriti
On personal choices, behaviours and morals
Manusmriti has various verses on duties a person has towards himself and to others, thus including moral codes as well as legal codes. Olivelle states that this is similar to the modern contrast between informal moral concerns to birth out of wedlock in the developed nations, along with simultaneous legal protection for children who are born out of wedlock.Personal behaviours covered by the text are extensive. For example, verses 2.51–2.56 recommend that a monk must go on his begging round, collect alms food and present it to his teacher first, then eat. One should revere whatever food one gets and eat it without disdain, states Manusmriti, but never overeat, as eating too much harms health. In verse 5.47, the text states that work becomes without effort when a man contemplates, undertakes and does what he loves to do and when he does so without harming any creature.
Numerous verses relate to the practice of meat eating, how it causes injury to living beings, why it is evil, and the morality of vegetarianism. Yet, the text balances its moral tone as an appeal to one's conscience, states Olivelle. For example, verse 5.56 as translated by Olivelle states, "there is no fault in eating meat, in drinking liquor, or in having sex; that is the natural activity of creatures. Abstaining from such activity, however, brings greatest rewards."
On rights of women
Manusmriti offers an inconsistent and internally conflicting perspective on women's rights. The text, for example, declares that a marriage cannot be dissolved by a woman or a man, in verse 8.101–8.102. Yet, the text, in other sections, allows either to dissolve the marriage. For example, verses 9.72–9.81 allow the man or the woman to get out of a fraudulent or abusive marriage and remarry. The text also provides legal means for a woman to remarry when her husband has been missing or has abandoned her.While preaching chastity to widows such as in verses 5.158–5.160, and opposing a woman marrying someone outside her own social class in verses 3.13–3.14, in other verses, such as 2.67–2.69 and 5.148–5.155, Manusmriti preaches that as a girl, she should obey and seek protection of her father, as a young woman her husband, and as a widow her son; and that a woman should always worship her husband as a god and a man should consider his wife an embodiment of goddess. In verses 3.55–3.56, Manusmriti also declares that women must be honored, and "here women are revered, there the gods rejoice; but where they are not, no rite bears any fruit". Elsewhere, in verse 5.148, states Olivelle, the text declares, " must never seek to live independently".
Simultaneously, states Olivelle, the text enumerates numerous practices such as marriages outside one's varna, such as between a Brahmin man and a Shudra woman in verses 9.149–9.157, a widow becoming pregnant by a man she is not married to in verses 9.57–9.62, marriage where a woman elopes with her lover, and then grants legal rights in these cases such as property inheritance rights in verses 9.143–9.157, and the legal rights of the children so born. The text also provides for a situation when a married woman may become pregnant by a man other than her husband, and dedicates verses 8.31–8.56 to conclude that the child's custody belongs to the woman and her legal husband, and not to the biological father.
Manusmriti provides a woman with property rights to six types of property in verses 9.192–9.200. These include those she received at her marriage, or as gift when she eloped or when she was taken away, or as token of love before marriage, or as gifts from her biological family, or as received from her husband subsequent to marriage, and also from inheritance from deceased relatives.
Flavia Agnes states that Manusmriti is a complex commentary from women's rights perspective, and the British colonial era codification of women's rights based on it for Hindus, and from Islamic texts for Muslims, picked and emphasised certain aspects while it ignored other sections. This construction of personal law during the colonial era created a legal fiction around Manusmriti's historic role as a scripture in matters relating to women in South Asia.