The Manusmṛti

The Manusmṛti (“The Remembered Tradition of Manu”), also called the Mānava Dharmaśāstra, is the best-known of the Dharmaśāstras, the Sanskrit treatises on Dharma — religious, social, moral and legal duty. Composed in verse, probably between the second century BCE and the second century CE, and attributed to Manu, the mythical first man and law-giver, it covers the creation of the world, the sources of dharma, the duties of the four social classes (varṇas) and four stages of life (āśramas), the rules of daily ritual, diet and purity, marriage and the duties of women, the duties of kings, civil and criminal law, penances for sins, and karma and rebirth. For two thousand years it was one of the most authoritative texts of Brahminical Hinduism; under British rule it became the basis of “Hindu law” in colonial courts; and in modern India it has become the most controversial text of the tradition — condemned by B. R. Ambedkar and the Dalit movement as the charter of caste oppression and of the subordination of women.

Contents

Creation and the sources of dharma

The first chapter tells how the sages approached Manu and asked him to teach them the dharma of all classes, and how Manu described the creation of the world — from the self-existent being, through the cosmic egg and Brahmā — and the origin of the four classes from the mouth, arms, thighs and feet of the cosmic man, as in the The Ṛg Veda‘s Puruṣa Sūkta.

The second chapter names the sources of dharma: the Veda, the tradition of those who know the Veda, the conduct of good people, and what is pleasing to oneself (2.6, 2.12). It defines the land of the Āryas, the region between the Himālaya and the Vindhyas, and describes the life of the Vedic student.

The householder

Chapters 3 to 5 describe the life of the householder — marriage (eight forms, from the gift of a daughter to a worthy groom to marriage by abduction), daily rites and sacrifices, hospitality, funeral offerings, livelihood, food rules, and impurity. Chapter 3 contains a famous verse on women:

Where women are honoured, there the gods rejoice; where they are not honoured, all rites are fruitless. (3.56)

Chapter 6 describes the forest-dweller and the renunciant.

The king and the law

Chapters 7 and 8 describe the king, created by God from portions of the gods to protect the people, whose chief instrument is punishment (daṇḍa): “Punishment rules all creatures, punishment protects them… If the king did not inflict punishment, the stronger would roast the weaker like fish on a spit” (7.18–20). Chapter 8 sets out eighteen titles of law — debts, deposits, sales, partnerships, gifts, wages, contracts, boundaries, defamation, assault, theft, violence, adultery, the duties of husband and wife, inheritance and gambling — and procedures for trials and witnesses. Punishments vary by caste: a Śūdra who insults a Brahmin may have his tongue cut, while a Brahmin who insults a Śūdra pays a small fine (8.267–270).

Women

Chapter 9 contains the most quoted — and most criticised — verses on women:

Her father guards her in childhood, her husband guards her in youth, her sons guard her in old age; a woman is not fit for independence (na strī svātantryam arhati). (9.3)

The text also prescribes respect and gifts for women and forbids selling daughters, but its overall picture is one of dependence and control.

Caste and penance

Chapter 10 discusses the mixed castes produced by marriages between varṇas, and the occupations of those outside them, including the Caṇḍālas, who must live outside villages, wear the clothes of the dead and eat from broken dishes (10.51–56). Chapter 11 describes penances for sins. Chapter 12 describes karma and rebirth: a person who steals grain is reborn as a rat; one who steals meat, a vulture.

Reception

The Manusmṛti was commented on for a thousand years — by Medhātithi (9th–10th century), who often interpreted it liberally, and Kullūka (13th–15th century). But in practice Indian law was always plural, shaped by local custom, caste councils and royal decrees; the Dharmaśāstras were more ideal than code.

Under British rule, the colonial government, seeking an authoritative “Hindu law” to apply in its courts, elevated the Manusmṛti to a status it had never had. William Jones translated it in 1794; it was applied to questions of marriage, inheritance and caste until independence. Thus colonialism hardened the very hierarchies the text describes.

In the twentieth century it became the focus of the struggle against caste. On 25 December 1927, at the Mahad Satyagraha for Dalit access to a public water tank, B. R. Ambedkar and his followers publicly burned a copy of the Manusmṛti. Ambedkar called it “the codification of the inequality of the Hindu social order”. Feminists have criticised its view of women; defenders argue that it must be read historically, that it also contains verses honouring women, and that its authority was never absolute. The Constitution of India (1950), drafted by Ambedkar, abolished untouchability and established equality before the law — in effect, a constitutional repudiation of Manu.

In conversation

The Manusmṛti contains both “where women are honoured, the gods rejoice” and “a woman is not fit for independence” — which is exactly why it is argued over.