(South asia research) patrick olivelle, suman olivelle a critical edition and translation of the mānava dharmaśāstra oxford university press (2005)

Manu's successors and himself a composer of a Dharmasastra, pays Manu the ulti-mate compliment: Manu is the authority, and any text contradicting Manu has no validity.1 A couple of centu

SERIES EDITOR Patrick Olivelle

A Publication Series of The University of Texas South Asia Institute

and Oxford University Press

THE EARLY UPANISADS Annotated Text and Translation Patrick Olivelle

INDIAN EPIGRAPHY

A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit,

and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages

Richard Salomon

A DICTIONARY OF OLD MARATHI

S G Tulpule and Anne Feldhaus

DONORS, DEVOTEES, AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD

Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu

Leslie C Orr

JÏMÛTAVAHANA' S DÄYABHÄGA

The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal

Edited and Translated with an Introduction and Notes by

MANU'S CODE OF LAW

A Critical Edition and Translation of the

UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai

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Copyright © 2005 by The University of Texas Center for Asian Studies

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

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All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced,

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Manu (Lawgiver).

[Mänavadharmasästra English & Sanskirt]

Manu's code of law : a critical edition and translation of the Mänava-dharmasästr a / Patrick Olivelle ; with the editorial assistance of Suman Olivelle

p cm — (South Asia research) Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-19-517146-4

1 Mänavadharmasästra 2 Hindu law—Sources 3 Law—

India—Sources 4 Law—India—History I Olivelle, Patrick.

II Olivelle, Suman.

III Title IV Series: South Asia research (New York, N.Y.)

KNS127.3.A42004 294.5'94—dc22 2003070152

It was in 1991, soon after I joined the University of Texas, that I first thought about

preparing a critical edition of the Mänava-Dharmasästra. I first envisaged it as a collaborative project between me and my colleague Richard Lariviere, who had then

just completed the first-ever critical edition of the Näradasmrti Little did I realize

that it would take a dozen years to complete the project, nor did I have any idea how complex, labor-intensive, and time-consuming it would be I am glad that I did not have the foresight to know then what I know now in hindsight; if I did I would never have undertaken it.

Over these past thirteen years many individuals and institutions have helped

me in numerous ways; without their help this work would never have been pleted At the end of this long road, I now have the pleasant task of expressing my gratitude to all of them publicly First and foremost, Suman Olivelle has been a full partner in the editorial work for the past seven years She collated most of the manu- scripts, learning eight different scripts in the process; proofread the entire document several times; and in general kept this complex project involving several collators organized Richard Lariviere took on major administrative responsibilities over the years; although he could not collaborate directly in this edition, he has assisted this project in ways too numerous to mention Albrecht Wezler read several chapters of

com-my translation and gave valuable and insightful criticism and suggestions During the eight months that I spent at Harvard in 2000-01, Stephanie Jamison gave un- stintingly of her time and knowledge and helped me work through obscure passages

of the text During the same period Michael Witzel also assisted in a variety of ways

in coming to terms with this difficult text and in the dating of some manuscripts Several of my students helped me in collating the manuscripts: Don Davis, Robert Fulton, Robert Goodding, and Mark McClish Other students assisted the project in numerous ways: Stephen Lindquist, Lisa Edwin, and Roger Conant David Brick helped with the Dharma Parallels, and Elliott MacGregor with the Pâd a Index Ludo Rocher, Anne Feldhaus, and Gregory Schopen read the introduction and gave valu- able comments and suggestions Wendy Doniger, Martha Selby, and Dominik Wu- jastyk provided guidance especially in medical and gynecological matters Officers

of the American Institute of Indian Studies were immensely helpful in obtaining manuscripts: Pradeep Mehendiratta, Madhav Bhandare, Venugopala Rao, and Jag- dish Yadav Likewise, Karan Singh, Arlo Griffith, Cynthia Talbot, Ulrich Kragh,

v

Anne Feldhaus, and V L Manjul obtained manuscripts from Jammu, Orissa, jasthan, Calcutta, and Nagpur Allen Thrasher was very helpful in giving me access

Ra-to the Library of Congress in WashingRa-ton, D.C at the very beginning of this project, and Mammata Misra helped with the reading of difficult passages of an Oriya manuscript.

Many institutions assisted me in various ways The Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of Texas gave gen- erous grants, without which this edition would never have been completed The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune obtained numerous manuscripts and did a pilot collation of a few manuscripts under a grant from the Smithsonian I want

to thank especially Dr S D Laddu, who supervised that collation.

Finally, a big thank you to my daughter, Meera, who has endured this project that has absorbed both her father and mother both during her high-school years and through her four years of college! Thanks also to Cynthia Read and Theodore Calderara of the Oxford University Press, New York, who, as usual, have supported this project enthusiastically.

This is a long and complex volume with several scripts and fonts I produced the camera-ready copy, and even with the most careful attention and proofreading there are bound to be errors for which I beg the indulgence of the readers.

Austin, Texas P.O June, 2004

Abbreviations ix

INTRODUCTION 3

I Authorship and Composition 5

II Sources of Manu: The Traditions of dharma and artha 41

III The Work of Redactors 50

IV Nature and Purpose of the Treatise 62

V Manu and the Later dharma Tradition 66

Note on the Translation 71

Introduction to the Critical Edition 353

I Editorial History and the Need for a Critical Edition 353

II Sources for the Critical Edition 354

III Genealogy of Manuscripts 370

IV.Constitution of the Texts 374

Note on the Critical Edition 381

vii

Appendix I: Fauna and Flora 985

Appendix II: Names of Gods, People, and Places 988 Appendix III: Ritual Vocabulary 993

Appendix IV: Weights, Measures, and Currency 997 Bibliography 999

Dharmasâstri c Parallels 1009

PädaInde x 1035

Index to the Translation mi

A b b r e v i a t i o n s

AB Aitareya Brahmana

Ậ Aitareya A ranyaka

Apa Aparâditya , Aparârka com on YDh

BrU Brhadäranyaka Upanisad

er ap critical apparatus to the edition

ChU Chandagya Upanisad

Dev Devannabhatta, Smrticandrika

Har-A Haradatta, com on the ÄpDh

Har-G Haradatta, com on the GDh

Hem Hemädri , Caturvargacintämani

JaiGr Jaiminíya Grhyasütra

JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society

KhGr Khadira Grhyasütra

KS Kâthaka Samhita

KSS Kashi Sanskrit Series

Ku KullDka

Kum Kumärila , Tantravârttika

Laks Laksmïdhara , Krtyakalpataru

Sab Sahara's commentary on PMS

SânkhGr Sânkhâyana Grhyasütra

VaDh Vasistha Dharmasütra

VeS Vedanta Sûtra

ViDh Visnu-Darmasütra

Vij Vijñanesvara, Mitâksarâ com on the YDh

Vis Visvesvara, Bâlakndâ com on the YDh

vl variant reading

VkhGr Vaikhânasa Grhyasütra

WZKM Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Morgenlandes

WZKS Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens

YDh Yäjnavakya Dharmasästra

ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morganländischen Gessellschaft

Manu's successors and himself a composer of a Dharmasastra, pays Manu the

ulti-mate compliment: Manu is the authority, and any text contradicting Manu has no validity.1 A couple of centuries earlier, Vätsyäyana , the author of the Kamasutra (1.1.5-10), refers to the origin of the MDh in words reminiscent of the first chapter

of the MDh And Yâjnavalky a (1.4), another author of an early Dharmasastra, places Manu at the head of his list of the authors of Dharmasästras.

The fame of Manu did not diminish through the next fifteen centuries right up

to the time when the administration of law was taken over by the colonial power

Britain More commentaries—nine are extant—were written on the MDh than on any other Dharmasastra Even though in some areas of dharma—legal procedure (vyavahära), for example—other texts, such as those of Närad a and Kätyäyana , be- came prominent, the MDh nevertheless remained pre-eminent throughout the long

and distinguished history of Dharmasastric literature during the Middle Ages I had

to examine closely several prominent texts for citations from the MDh for this cal edition It is clear that the MDh is by far the most cited Dharmasastric text in the medieval Nibandhas.

criti-The fame of Manu, however, had spread outside of India long before the val of the British The first king in the Buddhist myth of origins codified in the

arri-Aggaññasutta2 is called Mahäsammata The figure of this first king becomes fied with that of Manu in the Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia, especially Burma and Thailand, where the Buddhistic law codes are ascribed to Manu.3

identi-It is no surprise, then, that the first text on dharma that Sir William Jones, the

great pioneer of Sanskrit studies, chose to translate into English in 1794 was the

MDh Its translation opened for the first time the world of non-European law and

religion to a western audience Georg BUhler's translation and study, which has mained the standard for over a century, appeared in the famous Oxford University

re-1 See below, pp 69

2 For a detailed study of this myth, see Steven Collins, "The Discourse on What is

Pri-mary," Journal of Indian Philosophy 21(1993): 301-93.

3 For discussions of this issue, see Lingat 1973, 266-72; Steven Collins and Andrew

Huxley, "The Post-Canonical Adventures of Mahäsammata, " Journal of Indian Philosophy

24(1996): 624-48; Steven Collins, "The Lion's Roar on the Wheel-turning King: A Response

to Andrew Huxley's "The Buddha and the Social Contract'," Ibid., 422-46.

3

Press series Sacred Books of the East, edited by Max Müller , in 1886 With the

es-tablishment of Indo-European linguistics and the discovery of the Sanskrit of the Vedas as one of the earliest extant members of the family of languages to which Greek, Latin, and most modern European languages belonged, there was excitement even among non-Indologists about the cultural heritage of ancient India During the critical igth century, which set the agenda for much of scholarship on ancient India,

the MDh was for better or for worse the lens through which most European scholars viewed India's past Nietzsche, for example, regarded the MDh as a life-affirming

representation of the Aryan religion, in contrast to the nay-saying Buddhism.4 sages from this text are found in every collection of readings given to students of Indian culture, history, or religion in western universities.

Pas-Fame invites controversy, and in India itself during the 2oth century Manu came a lightning rod for both the conservative elements of the Hindu tradition and the liberal movements intent on alleviating the plight of women and low-caste and outcaste individuals For the latter, Manu became the symbol of oppression His verses were cited as the source of legitimation for such oppression, even though the same or similar passages are found in other and older documents The first confer- ence by untouchables at Yeola under the leadership of Dr B R Ambedkar in 1935,

be-in which it was resolved to reject Hbe-induism, passed a resolution with the title "To the Untouchable Community: A New Message of a New Manu." Within a month a group of young untouchable men gathered in Nasik to burn a copy of Manu cere- monially.5 Even the prominent women's rights advocate, Madhu Kishwar, had to do battle with Manu.6 Kishwar refers to the burning of copies of the MDh in the pre-

cincts of the Rajasthan High Court on March 25, 2000, and observes: "The protesters believed that the ancient text is the defining document of Brahmanical Hinduism, and also the key source of gender and caste oppression in India."

In spite of all the attention, including burning, that the MDh has received over

the past two centuries, the study of the text itself has been neglected More heat, eral and metaphorical, has been generated than light Until now, even a close ex- amination of the numerous extant manuscripts of this work, manuscripts written in nine scripts and spread all over the Indian subcontinent, has not been undertaken.

lit-Without taking any position about the social value of the MDh, I would hope that

we would take the trouble to read the text with the attention it deserves before we praise, condemn, or burn it I also hope that this translation and study will be of some help in understanding this controversial but important document from India's past.

4 For a fine examination of the influence of India and the MDh on thinkers such as Schegel, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Nietzsche, and others, see Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988.

5 See Eleanor Zelliot, "The Psychological Dimension of the Buddhist Movement in

India," in Religion in South Asia: Religious Conversion and Revival Movements in South Asia

in Medieval and Modern Times, ed G A Oddie, pp 119-44 (Columbia, Missouri: South Asia Books, 1977) The burning of the MDh was advocated also by other reform activists, such as E V Ramasami: see M R Barnett, The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p 37.

6 "Manu and the Brits," Hinduism Today, January-February 2001, pp 56-59.

I AUTHORSHIP AND COMPOSITION

Scholars traditionally have regarded the composition of the MDh as a gradual

proc-ess at the hands of anonymous and succproc-essive compilers, editors, and copyists ing for several centuries, the same sort of agentless process that many have thought

last-lies behind the composition of the great epic Mahäbhärata. These compilers and editors, we are told, did nothing more than gather together proverbial sayings, moral maxims, and legal axioms that were floating in the mouths of people and handed down from generation to generation The composition of the text is thus divorced from authorial intent and agency and from social, political, and economic context The first to propose such a hypothesis was E Washburn Hopkins (1885,268):

I draw the conclusion that the Çâstra m [MDh] was in great part collated between the time when the bulk of the epic [MBh] was composed and its

final completion, that previous to its collation there had existed a vast number of sententious remarks, proverbial wisdom, rules of morality etc which were ascribed, not to this treatise of Manu at all, but to the ancient hero Manu as a type of godly wisdom These I conceive to have floated about in the mouths of the people, not brought together but all loosely quoted as laws or saying of Manu and these sayings were after- wards welded into one with the laws of a particular text [sect?] called the Manavas—a union natural enough, as the two bodies of law would then bear the same title, although the sect had no connection with Manu except in name According to my theory, these Manu-verses found

in the Mânav a treatise were simply caught up and drawn from the say of the whole Brahman world, keeping their form after incorporation with the Manavas' text.

hear-In the introduction to his influential translation of the MDh, Bühle r agreed

substantially with the hypothesis of Hopkins Biihler (1886, xc) thought that the

composers of both the MDh and the Mahäbhärata drew on a common stock of

Spruchweisheit that, at the hands of the teachers of specialized schools, had spread

to all legal topics Modern scholarship by and large has accepted this view regarding

the creation of the MDh, as well as of other ancient legal documents Lariviere

(2003, 3) expressed this widely shared view: "I doubt whether such texts as the Näradasmrt i or the Manusmrti were composed by a single individual." Hiltebeitel

(2001, 5) cites Gitomer's view regarding the composition of the Mahäbhärata, a view that is common with regard to ancient Indian textual formation in general:

"epic textual growth and redaction proceeded in an unconscious, mechanical fashion."7

I want to challenge this view regarding the composition of ancient texts in

general and of the MDh in particular This vision of composition in the case of the Mahäbhärata has recently been rejected, rightly I believe, by several leading epic

7 David Gitomer, "King Duryodhana: The Mahäbhärat a Discourse of Sinning and

Virtue in Epic and Drama," JAOS 112 (1992): 225.

scholars.8 That there were proverbs and legal maxims, principally composed in

sloka verses, outside of fixed texts is beyond doubt Indeed, it is probably such verse maxims that are cited by the authors of Dharmasutras to support their judgments rendered in aphoristic prose, often with the introductory remark: athäpy udäharanti

— "Now they also quote." The term udäharanti probably means that these verses

were recited by experts when questions about some point arose or when stances warranted.9 It would have been natural for authors of texts in almost any

circum-field, but most especially those, such as the Dharmasästras, dealing with morality

and human relationships, to draw upon these maxims Indeed, the example of the

Dharmasutras indicates that they clearly did so These verse maxims, however, are easily detectable in the Dharmasutras, because they are surrounded by the author's own prose In the metrical sastras it is more difficult to separate the cited maxims

from the author's own composition Let me offer a couple of examples of such

maxims in the MDh: "When an older person comes near, the life breaths of a

young-er pyoung-erson rise up, and as he rises up and greets him, he retrieves them" (2.120) This must have been a proverbial saying concerning respect for older persons; it is cited

by Patañjali and given twice in the Mahâbhârata. 10 The verse at MDh 4.57 is

like-wise clearly a proverbial saying about inappropriate actions: "He must not sleep alone in an abandoned house, awaken a sleeping superior, speak with a menstruat- ing woman, or go to a sacrifice uninvited."11

The authors of legal treatises clearly drew upon such maxims—and, indeed,

on previous scholarship—in composing their texts My point, however, is that the composition of these texts did not happen as an unconscious and gradual accumula-

tion at different hands and at different times and places; these texts were authored

by individuals with clear authorial intent They gave their texts a particular ture; they argued for particular positions in law and morality; they disagreed with other experts, both their contemporaries and their predecessors; and they had par- ticular social, economic, and political axes to grind In all this they are not much different from modern authors.

struc-The unitary authorship of the MDh was proposed over a century ago by

Bühle r (1886, xcii), who answered the objections of the proponents of a gradual

8 See Alf Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahâbhârata: A Reader's Guide to the Education

of the Dharma King (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Madeleine Biardeau, cited

by Hiltebeitel, p 165 ("I prefer to suppose the creation of a sole Brahman of genius") JamesFitzgerald offers a more complicated compositional history, with a final Gupta redaction (seeHiltebeitel 2001, 25-6)

9 Indeed, as one of my students, David Brick, has pointed out, the term sinrti in its est usage may have referred precisely to such memorable maxims to which attention (sinrti) is

earli-drawn in particular circumstances and which, of course, reside in the collective memory ofthe community at large or, in the case of law or grammar, in the memory of a community of

experts The citation of a maxim (nyäya), now mostly in prose, is also a feature of later dieval texts For a collection such maxims, see Appendix E of V S Apte's The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary.

me-10 Patañjali's Mahäbhäsya on Pänin i 6.1.84 (Kielhorn, III: 58); MBh 5.38.1:13.107.32.

Especially in the case of Patañjali, it is more likely that he would cite a well-known saying toillustrate a grammatical rule than a verse from a specialized text

11 For a historical analysis of this verse and its vedic precedents, see Jamison 2000

textual evolution, objections based on such criteria as the contradictions in the

ex-tant text My argument for the unitary authorship of the MDh is based primarily on

the structure of the text, a structure that has thus far gone unnoticed, perhaps cause it was obscured by the chapter divisions to which the text was subjected, probably at the hand of a redactor, after its initial composition I do not propose that the original text of the author, whom I will call "Manu" for convenience, has re- mained unaltered through the ages Through a form of higher textual criticism, I will propose that certain sections are later additions (see part III) reflecting ongoing re- dactoral activities Indeed, when these additions are removed, the structure I have uncovered becomes more transparent My argument, then, is that such a unique and symmetrical structure could not have been given to this text except by a conscious plan created by a single gifted individual A deep structure that runs through the en- tire book—a structure that is not apparent at first glance and that remained unde- tected even by the commentators—could not have simply happened over time as the text was being put together by different individuals separated by centuries If not by

be-an individual, then it must have been composed by a "strong chairmbe-an of a mittee" with the help of research assistants who carried out his plan.

com-I.i The Structure

The manuscript tradition of the MDh divides the text into 12 adhyäyas (lessons or

chapters) This appears to be an old division; it is followed by all the commentators.

I believe, however, that this division is not original It was probably imposed on the text when it was subjected to a revision that added several sections (see part III), most notably the table of contents given at the conclusion of the first chapter.12 Al- though several of the chapters follow the natural sequence of topics, a close reading

of the text shows that they are artificial divisions The chapters also contain different topics that the author, as I will demonstrate, intended to be separate: ch 2 contains

the sources of dharma, rites of passage, and the duties of a student; the duties of a

king are spread over chapters 7, 8, and 9; the single topic of judicial procedure and the grounds for litigation is spread over chapters 8 and 9; and ch 9 contains the

final discussion of the king's dharma and the dharma of Vaisyas and Sudras More

importantly, however, the division into chapters obscures the latent and deeper structure of the text, a structure that spans the entire corpus and must go back to the author himself.

Manu uses the technique of "transitional verse" to mark the conclusion of one subject and the beginning of another Here is an example (2.25):

esa dharmasya vo yonih samâsena prakïrtitâ I

sambhavas câsya sarvasya varnadharmân nibodhata II

I have described to you above succinctly this source of the Law, as also the origin of this whole world Learn now the Laws of the social classes.

12 Note the parallel imposition of chapters onto the Arthasastra discussed by Scharfe

1993-This verse marks the transition from the two introductory topics, creation of the

world and the sources ofdharma, to the main body of the text, the dharma of the four varnas Such a technique is unique to Manu; it is not used in the Dharmasutras and sparingly, if at all, in the later Dharmasästras Note also the use of the verb nibodhata in most transitional verses; this manner of expression becomes a signa-

ture of Manu This device was, I believe, an innovation conceived by Manu and provides an insight into the plan he had for his book By following the trail of these

transitional verses, we can uncover the overall plan and structure of the MDh The

chart below presents schematically the structure that emerges through this method together with the transitional verses at the beginning and/or end of topics, verses that provide the clues to uncovering that structure.

The structure that emerges from tracing the transitional verses consists of four major divisions of uneven length and importance:

1) Creation of the world.

2) Sources of dharma.

3) The dharma of the four social classes.

4) Law of karma, rebirth, and final liberation.

Obviously, the main section in terms of both length and importance is the third,

dealing with the four varnas The other three are presented as a preamble, an

intro-duction, and a concluding postscript The preamble and the introduction are tioned at the end of the second section (2.25) in the transitional verse that also

introduces the central third section on the four varnas The third section is

men-tioned also at its conclusion (12.1) in the transitional verse that also introduces the

final section on karma.l3

The central third section has two major sub-divisions, the first called

dharmavidhi (rule relating to dharma} and the second called prayascittavidhi (rules

relating to penance) These two sections—3.1 and 3.2 in the chart—are mentioned only once, at the conclusion of the first of them (10.131): "I have described above the entire set of rules pertaining to the Law of the four classes Next, I will explain the splendid rules pertaining to penance."14

The first subsection (3.1) called dharmavidhi is the longest in the entire book and is further subdivided into two: rules of action in normal times (anâpadi karma- vidhih) and rules of action in times of adversity (äpadi karmavidhi) These two sub-

divisions—3.1.1 and 3.1.2 in the chart—are also introduced just once in the transitional verse at the conclusions of the first of them (9.336): "I have described above the splendid rules of action for the social classes outside times of adversity Listen now to the rules for them in the proper order for times of adversity."

13 After the final section, there is a transitional verse (12.107) that introduces the secretdoctrine of Manu's treatise I think this verse as well as the section on the secret doctrine is alater addition: see below part III, chapter 12

14 Manu may have found a precedent for this division of the book in one of his primary

sources, the Gautama Dharmasutra Gautama (19.1) begins his section on penance with the statement that he has completed his discussion of the varnas: "The Law pertaining to the so- cial classes and the Law pertaining to the orders of life has been stated" (iikto varnadharmas casramadhartnas ca).

THE STRUCTURE OF MANU

1) SARVASYA SAMBHAVAH [Origin of the World] 1.1-119

2) DHARMASYA YONIH [Sources of Dharma| 2.1-24

esa dharmasya vo yonih samasena prakîrtitâ I

sambhavas câsya sarvasya varnadharmân nibodhata II 2.25

I have described to you above succinctly this source of the Law, as also the origin of this wholeworld Learn now the Laws of the social classes

3) CÄTURVARNYASY A DHARMAH [Dharma of the Four Varnas] 2.25—11.266

3.1) DHARMAV1DHIH [Rules Relating to Dharma] 2.25—10.131

3.1.1) Anâpad i Karmavidhih [Rules of Action in Normal Times] 2.26—9.336

3.1.1.1) Brähmanasy a Caturvidhah Dharmah [Fourfold Dharma of a Brahmin| 2.26—6.97

esa va 'bhihito clharmo brahmanasya caturvidhah I

punyo 'ksayaphalah pretya räjnäm dharmant nibodhata II 6.97

I have explained to you above the fourfold Law of Brahmins, a Law that is holy andbrings imperishable rewards after death Listen now to the Law of kings

3.1.1.2) Rajñah Karmavidhih (Rules of Action for King] 7.1 — 9325

eso 'khilah karmavidhir ukto rajñah sanatanah I

imam karmavidhim vidyât kramaso vaisyasiidrayoh II 9.325

I have described above in its entirety the eternal rules of action for the king Whatfollows, one should understand, are the rules of action for the Vaisya and the Südr a intheir proper order

3.1.1.3) Vaisya-SQdrayoh Karmavidhih [Rules of Action for Vaisyas & Südras[9.326-3 6

eso 'näpacli varnänäm iiktah karmavidhih subhah l

äpady api hi yas tesäm kramasas tan nibodhata I I I I 9-336

I have described above the splendid rules of action for the social classes outside times ofadversity Listen now to the rules for them in the proper order for times of adversity.3.1.2) Äpad i Karmavidhih [Rules of Action in Times of Adversity] 10.1-129

esa dharmavidhih krtsnas câturvarnyasya klrtitah I

atahparam pravaksyâmi prâyascittavidhim subham II 10.131

I have described above the entire set of rules pertaining to the Law of the four classes Next, I willexplain the splendid rules pertaining to penance

3.2) PRÄYASCITTAVIDHI H [Rule Relating to Penance] 111-265

câturvarnyasya krtsno 'yam ukto dharmas tvayânagha I

karmanâm phalanirvrttim samsa nas tattvatah paräm II 12.1

You have described this Law for the four classes in its entirety, O Sinless One! Teach us accuratelythe ultimate consummation of the fruits of actions

4) KARMAYOGASYA NIRNAYAH [Determination of Karmayoga] 12.3-116

sä tan uväca dharmatnw maharsm mânavo bhrguh I

asya sarvasya sniuta karmayogasya nirnayam II 12.2

Bhrgu, the son of Manu and the very embodiment of the Law, said to those great seers: "Listen to thedetermination with respect to engagement in action."

4.1) KARMANAM PHALODAYAH (Fruits of Action] 12.3-81

esa sarvah samuddistah karmanâm vah phalodayah I

naihsreyasam karmavidhim viprasyedam nibodhata II 12.82

I have declared to you above all the fruits arising from actions Listen now to these rules ofaction for a Brahmin, rules that secure the supreme good

4.2) NAIHSREYASAH KARMAVIDHIH |Rules of Action for Supreme Good] 12.83-115

etad vo 'bhihitam sarvam nihsreyasakaram param I

asmad apracyuto viprah prapnoti paramám gatim II 12.116

I have explained to you above all the best means of securing the supreme good A Brahminwho does not deviate from them obtains the highest state

There is a fourth level of division in section 3.1.1 on rules for normal times This section has three further sub-sections The first—3.1.1.1 in the chart—is called

brähmanasya caturvidhah dharmah ("The Fourfold Dharma of a Brahmin") and its

conclusion (6.97) also introduces the next subsection—3.1.1.2 in the chart—dealing with the king: "I have explained to you above the fourfold Law of Brahmins Listen now to the Law of kings." The third subdivision—3.1.1.3 in the chart—deals

with the remaining two varnas, the Vaisya and the SQdra; it is introduced at the

con-clusion of the section on kings (9.325): "I have described the eternal rules of tion for the king What follows are the rules of action for the Vaisya and the Sudra."

ac-The final postscript dealing with karma, rebirth, and liberation, which is

in-troduced in 12.1, also has two subdivisions: the first (12.3-82) is on the fruits of

ac-tions (karmanäm phalodayah) and the second (12.83-115) is on achieving the highest bliss (naihsreyasah karmavidhih) These two are introduced in the transi-

tional verse at the end of the first subsection (12.82): "I have declared to you above all the fruits arising from actions Listen now to these rules of action for a Brahmin, rules that secure the supreme good."

An objection may perhaps be raised to my analysis, because the transitional verses I have identified above are not the only verses that introduce a topic This is

no doubt true, but all such verses simply signal the passage to a new topic within the broad structure I have outlined In these verses, Manu does not say that he has fin- ished one topic and is about to begin another; rather, with a few exceptions I will consider below, they simply indicate the new topic Here is an example (2.89):

ekädasendriyäny ähur yäni pürve mamsinah \

täni samyak pravaksyämi yathävad anupürvasah II

I will explain precisely and in their proper order the eleven organs described by wise men of old.

This is part of a long list that uses the word pravaksyämi to introduce a new topic.15

There are other verses using this term that both introduce a new topic and mark the end of the previous topic, in a manner similar to the transitional verses I have listed within the structure In each of these cases, however, the topics are not broad themes but specific sub-themes within the structure I have identified Verse 5.26 is an ex- ample:

etad uktam dvijäfinäm bhaksyäbhaksyam asesatah I

mämsasyätah pravaksyämi vidhim bhaksanavarjane II

I have described above completely what foods are forbidden and what permitted to the twice-born I will now explain the rule on eating and on avoiding meat.

Here the author introduces the minor topic of meat-eating after his long quisition on permitted and forbidden foods Most such verses occur in the long sec-

dis-tion dealing with the eighteen grounds for litigadis-tion (vyavahärapada) At 8.214 the

15 Variants of the verb include vakxyämi and sampravaksyami These introductory

verses are found at: 2.89; 3.22; 3.124, 169, 266} 5.57; 7.1, 36; 8.61, 119, 131, 229:9.1; 10.25;11.211; 12.30, 39

passage is from the non-delivery of gifts to the non-payment of wages; at 8.218, from the non-payment of wages to breach of contract; at 8.266, from boundary dis- putes to verbal assault; at 8.278, from verbal assault to physical assault; and at 8.301, from physical assault to theft In the section on inheritance, at 9.56 there is a transition from the discussion of the relative importance of the seed (man) and the

womb (woman) in procreation to the dharma of women in a time of adversity At

11.99 there is a transition from penances for drinking liquor to those for stealing gold.

There is another group of verses that uses the verb nibodhata, the verb of

choice in the transitional verses within the structure I have identified Beyond such transitional verses, however, Manu uses verses with this verb to mark the passage from one minor topic to another Thus at 2.68 the transition is from the rite of vedic initiation to the duties of an initiated student; at 5.100, from the purification follow-

ing a death for those of the same ancestry (sapindd) to the purification for other dividuals (asapinda); at 5.146 from purification to the dharma of women; at 6.86, from ascetics (yati) to holy retirees (vedasamnyasika); at 9.25, from the duties of

in-husband and wife to a discussion of children; at 9.103, from the duties of in-husband and wife to partition of inheritance; at 9.148, from partition among children by wives of the same caste to that among children by wives of different castes; at 9.220, from partition of inheritance to gambling, the last ground for litigation; at 11.71, from the list of sins to the penances for their expiation; at 11.248, from penances for public sins to those for secret sins.16 The verb Vi'ra is used a few times

in introductory verses: at 3.286 the transition is from the five sacrifices to the livelihood of Brahmins; at 5.no, from bodily purification to purification of articles; and at 11.180, from penances for sinners to penances for those who associate with them.

Taken collectively, all these other uses of transitional verses merely indicate smaller subdivisions of the text They uniformly refer only to the topics dealt with just before and just after the verse With regard to such transitions Manu is not con- sistent in his use of verses; sometimes he uses them, but most often he does not Such usages, however, do not impinge on the broad structure I have outlined above Those verses stand out from the rest both because of their consistency and because they refer back not to the topic immediately preceding them but often to a broad theme introduced hundreds of verses before In the case of the duties of the king, for example, introduced at 6.97 and concluded at 9.325 there are 960 verses that inter-

vene; and in the largest section within the text, the dharma of the four varnas, there

are 2415 verses between its introduction at 2.25 and its conclusion at 12.1 No text that grew "in an unconscious, mechanical fashion" can account for such a deliberate structure.

The dharma of a Brahmin

The largest portion of the central section on the four varnas is devoted to the

four-16 At the following places, nibodhata simply introduces a minor topic or is an invitation

to the audience to be attentive: 1.68, 119:2.i; 3.20,183, 193; 9.31; 12.53 The verb VJTM is alsoused in similar contexts: 1.4, 60

fold dharma of a Brahmin encompassing much of chapter 2 and all of chapters 3-6 This section is explicitly organized around the four asramas.11 All the traditional

material, however, could not be contained within the scheme of the four asramas,

especially the sections on the childhood rites of passage, rules of a bath-graduate

(snätaka), and holy life styles falling outside the asramas of forest hermit and

wan-dering mendicant Manu, however, attempts to squeeze these within his overall

âsrama structure.

Chapter 4, on the snätaka, is sandwiched between chapters 3 and 5, dealing

with various aspects of a householder's life We see the difficulty Manu had with

blending the snätaka into the âsrama framework when we look at the beginnings of

chapters 3 and 4 chapter 3 begins quite naturally with the return home of a student who has completed his vedic studies The author deals with the selection of a bride and marriage, with a long disquisition on the various kinds of marriage Much of the

material dealt with in chapter 3, including the sräddhas, however, is organized

around the five great sacrifices For Manu, what distinguishes the householder and what makes him the epitome of religious life is his daily commitment to the five great sacrifices Then, at the beginning of chapter 4, Manu has to repeat this within

the context of the âsrama system: after dwelling at the teacher's house during the

first part of his life, a man should return home, get married, and lead a holder's life during the second part The fifth chapter is introduced with a question from the seers to Bhrgu about how a Brahmin could be subject to death This opens the way to a discussion of permitted and forbidden foods and means of bodily puri-

house-fication The theme of the four asramas is taken up again at the beginning of chapter

6: after living as a householder a man may become a hermit and live in a forest; and again at 6.33: after living the third part of his life as a forest hermit, he should be- come a wandering mendicant during the fourth and final period of his life.

Even though this section (3.1.1.1) is explicitly said to deal with the dharma of

Brahmins, a close examination shows that Manu is here following a practice mon in ritual texts They describe fully the ritual procedure only for the archetypal rite of a group of related rites; the description of the other rites (ectypes) consists of pointing out only those ritual elements unique to each and different from the arche-

com-type For Manu, the dharma of Brahmins constitutes the archetype, and he describes

it fully Mutatis mutandis these rules are applicable to all varnas Indeed, within this section itself Manu often points out how the dharma is modified for other varnas.

For example, under initiation he points out the different times for the different

varnas, the different ways of manufacturing the girdle, different kinds of staffs, and

the like (2.41-7) Likewise, he enumerates the kinds of marriages and the number of

wives permitted for the different varnas (3.13) Manu is often explicit about the plicability of the rules in this section to all four varnas At 5.57, for example, he says that the rules on purification are applicable to all four varnas This principle of descriptive parsimony permits Manu to deal with the other varnas, especially Vaisyas and Südras , briefly Only the dharmas specific to them are discussed.

ap-17 For the history of this institution, see Olivelle 1993

The Rules for a King

As I will note below (II.2), the section devoted to the king, statecraft, and law in the

MDh is disproportionately large in comparison to Manu's predecessors within the expert tradition of dharma The disproportion becomes even more striking when we

take into account the fact that this section deals with matters specific to the king and

the ksatriya class, whereas the section on the Brahmin includes issues common to all varnas.

A close reading of the section on the king reveals that Manu organized his material around a simple structure in three parts The first part, spanning 7.1-142, deals with the origin of the king; the organization of the state machinery, including the appointment of officials; the construction of the fort; the king's marriage; the conduct of foreign policy, including war; and finally taxation It appears that Manu's narrative scheme here envisages a new king occupying a virgin territory He

is unmarried, he has to settle the land and build a capital, and he has to organize the state apparatus This structure suited Manu's purpose well, because it enabled him

to discuss all the points associated with statecraft Real life, however, is quite other matter; most kings would gain a kingdom either through inheritance or con- quest In either case there would be pre-existing cities, forts, and a state bureaucracy.

an-In the second part, Manu changes his narrative scheme to span a single day, from the morning when the king wakes up until nightfall when he goes to bed Manu squeezes into a single day the description of all the duties of a king spread over 182 verses The morning routine extends from 7.145 to 7.215; the afternoon routine from 7.216 to 7.222; and the evening routine from 7.223 to 7.226 This part concludes with the king going "to bed at the proper time and rise up refreshed." The third part deals with the justice system and comprises the 18 grounds for

litigation (vyavahärapada, often translated as "Titles of Law") After dealing briefly

with the organization of the court, Manu arranges his material on law and the pensation of justice under the 18 grounds for litigation, commonly called titles of law (8.47-9.251) The issues relating to evidence and the interrogation of witnesses are dealt with not separately but under the first ground for litigation, the non-

dis-payment of debts This appears to have been a convention borrowed from the artha

tradition, to which Manu is indebted for the material relating to the king (see II.2).

Manu's organization of the 18 vyavahärapadas is based on a few clear

princi-ples and, I believe, is superior to the structure given to them in any other text.

Manu's structure is significantly different from that of the extant Arthasästra, as well as from the other two major Dharmasästras, Nârad a and Yajnavalkya The chart below presents the organization of the vyavahärapadas in the four texts The three Dharmasästras have rnädäna ("non-payment of debt") as the first This is only to be expected, because disputes regarding debts, both personal and commercial, must have been the most common reason for litigants to come before a court It is also within the context of this first ground for litigation that these authors deal with judicial procedure, including rules of evidence and the examination of

witnesses Only the Arthasästra departs from this practice; it begins the discussion

The Organization of vyavaharapadas

18 This term is not given in the Arthasastra but the topic is treated at the very outset.

Manu Arthasastra Yajñavalkya Narada

1 mâdâna: non- *strïpumdharma : law mâdâna: non-payment mâdâna: non-paymentpayment of debt concering husband and of debt of debt

wife

2 niksepa: deposits dâyavibhâga: partition upanidhi: deposits niksepa: deposits

3 asvâmivikraya: sale vâstuvivâda: property dâyavibhâga: partition sambhûyasamutthâna:

without ownership disputes partnerships

4 sambhûyasamutthâ- samayasyânapàkarma: sïmâvivâda: boundary dattapraddnika:

non-nu: partnerships breach of contract disputes delivery of gifts

5 dattasyânapâkarma: mâdâna: non-payment svâmipâlavivâda: dis- abhyupetyäsusrüsä:

non-delivery of gifts of debt pûtes between owners breach of contract of

and hersmen service

6 vetanâdana: non- aupanidhikam: deposits asvâmivikraya: sale vetanasyânapâkarma:

payment of wages without ownership non-payment of wages

7 samvidvyatikrama: dâsakarmakalpa: rules dattâpradânika: non- asvâmivikraya: sale

breach of contract regarding workers delivery of gifts without ownership

8 krayavikrayânusaya: sambhûyasamutthâna: krïtânusaya: cancel- vikrïyâsampradâna:

cancellation of sale or partnerships laion of purchase non-delivery after salepurchase

9 svâmipâlavivâda: vikrïtakrïtânusaya: abhyupetyäsusrüsä: krïtânusaya:

cancel-disputes between cancellation of breach of contract of lation of purchaseowners and herdsmen purchase or sale service

10 sïmâvivâda: dattasyânapâkarma: samvidvyatikrama: samayasyânapàkarma:

bound-ary disputes non-delivery of gifts breach of contract breach of conventions

11 vâkpârusya: verbal asvâmivikraya: sale vetanâdâna: non- ksetrajavivâda: land

assault without ownership payment of wages disputes

12 dandaparusya: sahasa: violence dyutasamahvaya: gam- strlpumsamyoga:

rela-physical assault bling and betting lions between husband

and wife

13 steya: theft vâkpârusya: verbal vâkpârusya: verbal dâyabhâga: partition

assault assault

14 sâhasa: violence dandaparusya: physi- dandaparusya: physi- sâhasa: violence

cal assault cal assualt

15 strisamgrahana: dyutasamahvaya: gam- sahasa: violence vâkpârusya: verbal

sexual crimes against bling and betting assault

women

16 strïpumdharma: prakîrnaka: miscella- vikriyâsampradâna: dandaparusya:

physi-law concerning neous non-delivery after sale cal assault

husband and wife sambhuyasamutthana: dyutasamahvaya:

gam-ly viblwga: partition partnerships bling and betting

18 dyutasamahvaya: steya: theft prakîrnaka: gambling and betting strisamgrahana: sexual neous

miscella-crimes against women

prakîrnaka:

miscella-neous

with marriage and the partition of the paternal estate The reason for this appears to

be stated in the opening sütra: "All legal transactions begin with marriage" pürvo vyavahärah: AS 3.2.1) The other convergence in these lists is väkpärusya (verbal assault) and dandapärusya (physical assault), which always go together, with sähasa (violence) coming very close Other than these, the order of the lists

fyivaha-diverges markedly, making it clear that there was no traditionally fixed order for the

vyavaharapadas The order of enumeration in the MDh, therefore, was probably the

creation of Manu himself, and we get a glimpse into his systematic way of thinking also in his arrangement of these topics His arrangement, I think, is far superior to and more systematic than any of the others and can be presented schematically:

A Individual and group disputes (= 1-10)

B Criminal law (= 11-15)

C Personal law (= 16-17)

D Public order and safety (= 18)

Manu begins with disputes between individuals and between groups Such disputes must have been the most common reason for litigation and cover the first ten grounds The first nine for the most part deal with individual disputes, with the possible exception of the fourth, on partnerships, where the dispute is between an individual and a partnership of which he is a member Likewise, disputes in the seventh, on breach of contract, may happen between individuals and between an individual and a corporate body Disputes over boundaries—the tenth— can happen between individual land owners, but the typical dispute discussed by Manu concerns boundaries between villages.

The next category is criminal law, involving verbal and physical assault, theft, robbery/violence, and sexual crimes Unlike in modern law, however, lawsuits for such crimes were not initiated by the state but by the injured parties.

The third category is personal or family law The first ground for litigation under this rubric is disputes between a husband and a wife, although much of what

is discussed relates to laws and conventions governing marital relationships The second and clearly the more significant is the partition of inheritance It is in these two topics that there is often an overlap with material covered under marriage, espe-

cially in chapter 5 This was probably inevitable when the dharma tradition

incorpo-rated strictly legal matters and, therefore, had to deal with marriage and family in

two places, under proper conduct (acara) and law (vyavahära).

The final category is gambling and betting One would have expected Manu to present rules for the orderly conduct of these practices, as is done in other texts.19

Manu, however, was strictly opposed to gambling and betting For him, these areas

of social practice should be suppressed rather than regulated It is, therefore, natural for him to follow his brief discussion of gambling with the important topic of the

"eradication of thorns" (kantakasodhana), that is, the suppression of criminal tivities, especially theft, in the kingdom This is a topic found in all artha and dharma texts, but it falls outside the grounds for litigation Litigation, according to

ac-ancient Indian jurisprudence, is initiated by private individuals; the king and his officials are explicitly barred from initiating law suits The eradication of thorns, on

19 See, for example the Äpastamba Dharmasütra, 2.2512-4.

the other hand, is one of the principal duties of a king; it is a police activity and falls outside the judicial process Nevertheless, Manu sees the eradication of thorns and the suppression of gambling as part of the same administrative process.

The section on the duties of the king concludes with this pithy statement cal of Manu (9.324): "Conducting himself in this manner and always devoted to the Laws pertaining to kings, the king should direct all his servants to work for the good

typi-of his people."

The Rules for Vaisyas and SQdras

Manu's discussion of Vaisyas and SQdras, the last two of the varnas, is

extraordi-narily brief Eight verses are devoted to the Vaisya and just two to the Sudra Even granting that, according to the ritual principle of parsimony I have discussed earlier, much of the material for these two classes was included in the discussion of the Brahmin, one would have expected something more than just ten verses.

The reason for this brevity is unclear, but I think it must be understood within the context of the socio-political motives behind Manu's composition, an issue I will address later (1.4) Simply put, Manu's interest lay not in the lower classes of society, which he considered to be an ever-present threat to the dominance of the upper classes, but in the interaction between the political power and Brahmanical priestly interests, interests that were under constant threat ranging from the Asokan imperial polity to the foreign invasions around the turn of the millennium.

On Sin and Penance

The methodical approach demonstrated in the sections on Brahmin and king is

evi-dent also in the chapter on sin and penance (prayascitta).'23 Manu begins the topic with a discussion on the efficacy of penance, on whether penance can actually re- move sins After justifying the efficacy of and the need for penance, he divides his inquiry into two sections: public sins (11.55-189), which occupy much of the discus- sion, and private or secret sins (11.227).

Manu first presents the major classifications of sins: i) the five grievous sins

that cause the loss of caste (mahäpätaka: 11.55-9); 2) a large group of secondary

sins that also cause the loss of caste called upapâtaka: (11.60-7); and 3) four further

classes of sins (11.68-71) that cause a man a) to be excluded from caste

(jätibhramsakara), b) to become mixed caste (samkfrnakara), c) to be unworthy of

receiving gifts (apâtrîkarana), and d) to be impure (malavaha) He concludes the

classification of sins with this transitional verse: "Listen now attentively to the cific penances by which all these sins individually enumerated above may be re- moved" (11.72).

spe-Manu then goes on to discuss the appropriate penances for each of the ries of sins: i) the first four of the grievous sins (11.73-108), 2) secondary sins (11.109-24), and 3) the four further classes of sins (11.125-6) Finally, he turns from

catego-20 There are, of course, some inconsistencies and extraneous material in this chapter Iwill deal with them later in part III

sins personally committed to association with sinners who have become outcastes as

a result of their sins, a category that forms the fifth grievous sin (11.181-90) Manu introduces the last discussion with the transitional verse: "I have described above the expiation for all four kinds of sinners Listen now to the following expiations for those who associate with outcastes" (11.180) The mention of the four kinds of sin- ners has caused some confusion Grievous and secondary sins make two The third category consists of four sins, but the penances for the four are dealt with in two

verses I think Manu viewed the first (jätibhramsakara) as one class and presented

the penances for it in a single verse (11.125) He appears to have viewed the other three as forming a single class, dealing with their penances in a single verse (11.126).

So, we have four categories of penances relating to the sins listed previously The attempt to come up with four sinners as indicated in verse 11.180 may have led a redactor to insert the four offenses listed in 11.127-79 I will deal with these interpolations more extensively below (III).

The discussion of penance for publicly known sins concludes with two crisp statements First: "No one should transact any business with uncleansed sinners; and under no circumstances should anyone abhor those who have been cleansed" (11.190) There follows an excursus containing miscellaneous items on sins and pe- nances, which is clearly an interpolation Manu concludes the section on penances for public sins with the transitional verse (227), which also gives the penances for private sins: "By these observances should twice-born persons cleanse themselves

of public sins; they may cleanse themselves of secret sins, however, through ritual formulas and burnt offerings."

When we take out the accretions in this chapter, the clear and impressive structure of the original composition emerges That this section on penance con-

cludes the central portion of the treatise dealing with the dharma of the four varnas—number 3 in the structure I have outlined above—is evident in the opening

verse of the last chapter: "You have described this Law for the four classes in its entirety, O Sinless One! Teach us accurately the ultimate consummation of the fruits

of actions" (12.1).

On karma

Chapter 12, dealing with actions and their consequences, as well as with the ment of ultimate happiness beyond the realm of rebirth, is quite different in style and substance from the rest of the book I am not willing to call this chapter a later addition; sufficient evidence does not exist to draw that conclusion The entire

attain-chapter is taken up with the theme of action (karma}, both the consequences of good and bad actions (karmavipaka) and the final triumph over action and the attainment

of the supreme good beyond the process of rebirth Broadly this discussion falls into two sections, the one dealing with the fruits of action (12.3-81) and the other dealing with actions leading to the supreme good (12.83-106) These two sections are di- vided by Manu's signature transitional verse (12.82):

esa sarvah samuddistah karmanäm vah phalodayah I naihsreyasakaram karma viprasyedam nibodhata II

I have declared to you above the fruits arising from actions Listen now

to these rules of action for a Brahmin, rules that secure the supreme good.

This chapter has also undergone redactorial interventions, which I will address low in the section on the work of redactors (see III).

be-1.2 A u t h o r , Title, and Date

Most modern scholars know the work of Manu under the title Manu Smrti In the introduction to his influential translation, BUhler uniformly uses the title Manu- smrti The term smrti is often used by scholars as a general term to cover all the Dharmasästras composed in verse, which are called "metrical smrtis." "Manusmrti"

is the term used also by Kane (1962-75) in his encyclopedic work on Dharmasästra,

by Lingat (1973), and by Dave (1972-84) The exceptions are the editions of

Mandlik (1886) and Jolly (1887), both of whom give the title as Dharmasästra.

Mänava-It is unclear when the word smrti came to be used to designate Dharmasästras composed in verse and in particular the MDh.21 In the manuscripts, the colophons at the end of each chapter and at the end of the entire work refer to it as

mänavadharmasästra The title of sastra is confirmed by the self-references found

in the MDh, which repeatedly calls itself sastra?2 It is, therefore, clear that the original title of the work, the title by which it was known to the manuscript tra-

dition, was mänavadharmasästra. The title manusmrti appears to have been a rather

late innovation.

The colophon at the end of each chapter reads: mänave dharmasästre bhrguproktäyäm samhitäyäm, that is, the Dharmasästra of Manu as arranged or compiled by Bhrgu The use of the term samhitä is clearly intentional and connects

the MDh to the samhitas of the Veda It also hints at the possibility that there may

be other samhitas of Manu's work than that of Bhrgu.23

The MDh (1.58) presents a textual history of itself, ascribing the original tise to the creator, the Imperishable One (avyaya, 1.57) and the Self-existent (svayambhü, 1.3, 6) According to the MDh, the creator taught this treatise to his

trea-son, Manu, and he in turn taught it to his pupils, including Bhrgu It is Bhrgu who becomes the spokesman and recites the treatise to the gathered seers The view that the creator should have produced a text for the governance of his creatures is found

also in other texts In the Mahäbhärata, Bhïsm a recounts the beginning of the world, the Krta age, when everything was perfect and laws were unnecessary When

21 Medieval authors who cite the MD h and other Dharmasästras are of little help, cause they simply say "nianuh" or "yäjnavalkyah." The earliest datable use of the term manusmrti that I find in the manuscripts is in the colophon of the ms NNg dated 1503 CE.

be-22 See 1.58, 59, 102, 104,118,119; 11.243; 12.107,126

23 The significance of Bhrgu in the formation of the Mahäbhärata has received erable attention both from Sukthankar, the chief editor of its critical edition, and a series ofsubsequent scholars For an overview, see Hiltebeitel 2001, 105-18

consid-things began to deteriorate, however, the creator composed a treatise in one

thou-sand chapters dealing with the three areas of human enterprise (trivarga), including dharma (12.59.29).24

Later tradition picks up on the theme of samhita in the sense of editions of the original text of Manu At the very beginning of the Naradasmrti, it is said that Manu

Prajäpat i created a text containing 1080 chapters and 100,000 verses Nârad a abridged it to 12,000 verses; the latter was further abridged by Mârkandeya , which was further condensed by Sumati Bhârgav a to 4,000 verses.25 The tradition that the original composition of Manu was subjected to repeated editorial revisions and abridgments appears to have been old Medhatithi, the gth-century commentator on

the MDh (on 1.58), refers to Nârada' s statement that the original composition in

100,000 verses of Prajäpati , the creator, was abridged by Manu and others The

SkandapurSna has preserved the tradition that there are four versions of the original

treatise, those edited by Bhrgu, Nârada , Brhaspati, and Añgiras.26

My own close examination of the MDh and its exquisite structure makes me

agree with BUhler (1886, xcii) that the text we have under the title

Mänavadharmasästra ascribed to Bhrgu is not an edition or version of a preexisting

text but an original composition I further believe that this text was authored by a single individual or at least by a strong chairman with a committee of research as- sistants The kind of deep structure, so subtle yet so clear, that I have discovered in

the MDh makes it impossible to have been composed either through unconscious

accumulation or through a series of editorial interventions spanning long intervals of time It was conceived and put together by a single individual with extraordinary ability and a systematic mind.

The eponym "Manu," of course, is not the name of the historical author of this

text The name, however, was an astute choice The Taittirïya Samhitâ (2.2.10.2)

records what appears to have been a proverbial saying: "Whatever Manu has said is medicine." It is possible that numerous legal maxims were handed down ascribed to Manu, some of which, as BUhler (1886, Ixxv-xcii) has pointed out, are recorded in

the Mahäbhärata. Further, Manu was regarded not just as the first human being but,

at least according to one tradition, as the first king.27 With the rise of urban centers and large kingdoms in northern India around the middle of the first millennium BCE, the significance of royalty with regard to various aspects of social life appears to have increased In religion, leaders of new sects and ascetic communities were given royal pedigrees, including the Buddha and the Mahâvïra "King as teacher" is a mo- tif in the Upanisads, where numerous significant doctrines are ascribed to kings.

24 The motif of a large treatise composed in illo tempore and subsequently abridged for

the use of humans is a recurrent one in Indian literature Such claims are made for their

tex-tual histories by the Kamasutra (1.1.5-10), and Äyurvedi c texts (Susrutasamhita, SQtrasthana, 1.3) See also the Nätyasästra (1.15-24), whose origin is ascribed to Brahman

25 Lariviere (1989, II: 2) has shown that this passage did not belong to the original

Naradasmrti BUhler also had entertained this view, which he later rejected (Bühle r 1886,

xvii, n 2) Jolly (1885,44) also takes this to be part of Nârada Given that this section of the

NSm is referred to by Medhatithi, it must have been an old tradition.

26 Cited by Jolly (1889, 274) in the introduction to his translation of the Brhaspatismrti.

27 For a survey of the myths surrounding the figure of Manu, see BUhler 1886, Ivii-lxii

With the rise of devotional religions toward the end of the first millennium BCE, we

have the figures of Rama and Krsna, the divine avalaras, who are kings and not

Brahmins.28 Historically, the rise of the Maurya empire and the overwhelming ence of Asoka and his imperial reforms must have loomed large That a treatise on

pres-dharma with universal application should be ascribed not just to any king but to the

first king, therefore, should come as no surprise The clear intent was to make the work more authoritative by connecting it to both the sage responsible for the famous proverbial sayings and to the first king of humankind The historical and political reasons for the writing of this text makes this ascription even more significant I will examine these reasons presently.

I have used "Manu" here as a shorthand term for the historical author of the

MDh The name of this author is unknown, as are any details of his life: his date, his

geographical location, influences that may have shaped his life and thought, and a host of biographical questions that would shed light on the text itself.29 The most we can say is that he was a learned Brahmin from somewhere in northern India Some

of the socio-political influences that shaped his thought and that perhaps motivated the writing on the book, however, may at least be surmised by looking at the possi- ble date of its composition.30

With regard to the dating of the MDh we do not fare much better Its relative chronology, however, has widespread scholarly consensus The MDh was undoubt- edly composed after the Dharmasütras; it shows clear advances in thinking on

many fronts, especially in the sections relating to statecraft, royal functions, and

ju-dicial procedure These were probably borrowed from the artha tradition (see II.2) The MDh is older than any of the other metrical Dharmasästras, especially the four

old ones ascribed to Yâjnavalkya , Nârada , Brhaspati, and Kätyäyana Bühle r has discussed the relative chronology at length in the introduction to his translation of

the MDh, and I will not repeat all his arguments here A couple of observations will

suffice Unlike the later texts, Manu has very little to say about documentary

evi-dence in a court of law; he does not use the later word for a document, lekhya, ring to such documents by the terms karana and desa (see II.2) Manu is also less

refer-concerned with ordeals as means of proving the guilt or innocence of an accused.

The term divya, which becomes common in later texts, is absent; Manu uses instead the word sapatha, which he uses both for an ordeal proper and for an oath (8.109-

i6).31 The MDh, therefore, occupies the middle position at the point of transition from the prose and scholastic Dharmasütras to the metrical Dharmasästras ascribed

to authoritative divine beings.32

28 See Olivelle (1993, 61) for a discussion of this issue

29 Jayaswal's (1930, 51) conclusion that the "real author" of the MDh was Sumati Bhärgav a on the basis of the NSni evidence, and that it was a Sunga code is speculative and

without firm evidence

30 Another issue that cannot be fully resolved is whether the text was composed orally.That scholars in ancient India learned their texts by heart and that instruction involved memo-

rizing is beyond doubt However, I think that the MDh was originally composed in writing,

especially in view of the mention of manuscripts at 12.103

31.1 will discuss below (V.i) the influence of the MDh on the later Dharmasästras.

32 The dating of the four extant Dharmasütras is also problematic In my earlier work

Setting an absolute chronology is a more difficult task After analyzing all the

data available to him, Bühle r (1886, cxvii) concluded that the MDh must have

existed by the 2nd century CE and that it must have been composed between that

date and the 2nd century BCE Both Kane, in his monumental History of sästra (I: 344), and Lingat (1973, 96), in his influential study, broadly agree with

Dharma-Blihler's dating Jayaswal (1930, 29) has gone the farthest in narrowing the upper

and lower limits of the MDh He considers it to be a work of the Sunga period

during a time of Brahmanical revival after the Asokan reforms Jayaswal places the

MDh during the last 170 years before the common era, but thinks it was written

closer to the upper than the lower limit.

The issue is whether these upper and lower limits can be further refined and narrowed through internal and external evidence The lower limit is totally depend-

ent on internal evidence and on the relative chronology of the MDh and other cient texts, especially the Dharmasutras For the upper limit we have a few pieces

an-of external evidence.

Given my arguments for the unitary authorship and composition of the MDh,

we can take more seriously than in the past the few internal references within the text that would help us determine a lower limit In his discussion of mixed classes, Manu (10.44) refers to several ethnic groups that are identifiable.33 They are Yavana, Kämboja , Saka, Pahlava, and Cïna These are all viewed by Manu to be Ksatriyas who have fallen to the level of Südra s by neglecting rites and failing to honor Brahmins properly Given that they are considered in some sense Ksatriyas, it

is clear that Manu viewed these peoples as having military power and political authority, although he found them less than exemplary Yavana, a common Indian term for Greeks and for north-western border people of Greek heritage, is already used in Asokan inscriptions and by Pânin i (4.1.49) and does not help us in narrowing the date The same is true of Kämboja ; the term is already found in Pânin i (4.1.175) The term Pahlava, an Indian formation from the middle Persian

pahlav (Parthian), although absent in both Patañjali and the Dharmasutras, does not help much in narrowing the lower limit of the MDh.

The Sakas were the central Asian tribes who conquered parts of Persia and the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent Their appearance in this region can

be dated to around the middle of the 2nd century BCE The first Saka king in India(Olivelle 2000, 9-10) I placed Äpastamb a in the first half of the 3rd century BCE andGautama toward the middle of that century I still think this is reasonable, but because of my

further exploration of the semantic development of the term dharma (Olivelle, forthcoming a

and c), I am inclined now to place them somewhat later The earliest literary reference to the

Dharmasutras as a class of literature is in Patañjali's Mahäbhäsya: (dharmasütrakäräh) in

1.1.47; 5-1.119- The word dharmasästra already occurs in Kätyäyana' s Värttika on Pânin i

1.2.64

(39)-33 Even this piece of internal evidence is not altogether reliable The verse in questioncomes at the end of the section dealing with mixed classes This section contains several dis-courses, some repeating what was stated in earlier discourses Some doubt, therefore, is cast

on the authenticity of the later discourses; they may have been the result of redactors tempting to incorporate different interpretations of the mixed classes and to take into accountnew ethnic groups Lingat (1973, 94) also considers the verse in question to be an interpola-tion

at-proper, Maues, has been dated from 94 BCE to 22 BCE It is difficult to estimate when the presence of the Sakas as a military or political elite would have drawn the

attention of an Indian scholar like Manu They are absent in the Dharmasütras in general and significantly in the parallel list of mixed varnas in the Gautama Dharmasütra (4.16-28), which contains the word Yavana We do have, however, the mention of saka in the compound sakayavana by Patañjali (on Pânin i 2.4.10).

So, the word must have been in circulation by the middle of the 2nd century BCE.

Interestingly, we have the progression from yavana in Pânini , toyavana and saka in Patañjali, to yavana, saka, and etna in the MDh and the Mahabharata.

The reference to the Chinese with the word cïna is problematic The term is not used by Patañjali or the Dharmasütras The word was probably derived from a

central Asian language and is related to the Qin (Chin) dynasty (221-206 BCE), which, although short lived, was the first to unify China The term itself, however, may have been older, because the Qin was a state in Northwest China prior to that time with strong trade connections with Central Asia The term "China," like

"India" itself, is not a term of self-identification by the Chinese The term came back to China probably from India via Buddhist monks and texts.34 When a people

known as cïna came to be known in India is difficult to estimate The term's

ab-sence in the earlier literature, however, makes it likely that it could not have been known before the ist century BCE It was during this time or a little earlier under the Han dynasty that Chinese trade with the west began to flourish.35

This date also fits well with the broad relative chronology of texts belonging roughly to this period Patañjali probably lived in the middle of the 2nd century BCE.

He is the first to use the expression äryävarta with reference to the middle country

of north India The term is found also in the Dharmasütras of Baudhâyan a and

Vasistha All three define the region in almost identical words.36 Significantly, the

expression is absent in the older Dharmasütras of Äpastamb a and Gautama The MDh is clearly posterior to Patañjali, Baudhâyana , and Vasistha A lower limit of

the ist century BCE, thus, fits with this relative chronology as well.

External evidence for the upper date of Manu comes from sources several centuries later.37 Thus, for example, we have possibly the earliest citation of the

34 I thank the many colleagues who responded to my e-mail request for information on

ana The migration of the term back into China and into Japan (under the form Shina) has been studied by Joshua A Fogel in "The Sino-Japanese Controversy over Shina as a Toponym for China" in his book The Cultural Dimension of Sino-Japanese Relations: Essays

on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe, 1995), pp 66-76 There he cites the work of a Chinese scholar, Su Zhongxiang, who argues that ciña may be

related not to the Qin but to the ancient state of Jing The issue becomes even more complex

when the possibility of a southern route to India via Assam is considered However, the MDh appears to place the ciña, as well as the other foreigners, in the northwest.

35 Parallel to the MDh, we find the use of ciña in the MBh along with the terms saka and hüna: see 2.23.29; 2.47.19; 3.48.215.19.15; 5.72.14;6.10.65; 12.65.13; 12120.15 We also have the compounds ctnapatta and cïnabhûmija in AS 2.11114.

36 For a discussion of this point, see Olivelle 2000,10

37 Unfortunately, inscriptional references to the MDh do not appear until at least the 6th

century CE Bühle r (1886, cxiii) refers to the Vallabhl inscriptions of Dhruvasena I etc., whichdate from 526 CE For a survey of the inscriptional evidence, see Hopkins 1885

MDh in Sahara's commentary on the Pûrvamîmâmsâsutra (6.1.12), where MDh 8.299 is cited with the simple evam smarati Sabara is generally dated to the sth century CE The clearest reference to the MDh in the early classical literature comes from the play Mrcchakatikä of Sudraka In Act IX, the judge notes that according to

Manu a Brahmin is exempt from capital punishment; he should be sent into exile instead.38 The date of Sudraka, however, is not certain, but the consensus appears to place him broadly during the Gupta period, although some make him a contempor- ary of Kälidäsa Kälidäsa' s date is also controversial, but the 4~5th centuries CE is

probably the best we can do He does not refer to the MDh directly His description

of the penance of following a cow in the Raghuvamsa, however, appears to be based

on the MDh 11.109-17 In a special way, Raghuvamsa 1.89 is clearly an adaptation

of Manu ii.ii2.39

The Kämasütra (1.1.5-10), in presenting its own mythical origins, claims that the creator, Prajäpati , produced a treatise of 100,000 chapters dealing with the three

aims of life The dharma portion of this treatise was made into a separate edition by

Manu SväyambhQ. 40 All this recalls the introductory verses of the MDh If we place the Kämasütra roughly in the 3rd century CE, then the fame of the MDh must have

reached some prominence by that time.

The relationship between the MDh and the Mahäbhärata has been a topic of discussion ever since Hopkins's (1885) study Hopkins (1885, 268) concluded that

the MDh was put together "between the time when the bulk of the epic was

com-posed and its final completion." Bühler , after a lengthy discussion of the parallel

passages in the two works, concluded that the MDh has not drawn on the rata and that both drew on the same stock of "floating proverbial wisdom." The ref-

Mahäbhä-erences and citations collected by Hopkins, I think, make a compelling case that the

author(s) of the epic knew of and drew upon material from the MDh It is more likely, I think, that a narrative epic would draw on expert sastras for its discussions

of legal matters than the other way round.41 The issue for dating the MDh, however,

is the date of the Mahäbhärata itself The latest estimate is by Hiltebeitel

(2001,18-20): "I suggest, then, that the Mahäbhärata was composed between the mid-second century BCE and the year zero." He also suggests that the epic was written by a committee or team over a relatively brief period of time spanning "at most a couple

38 ayam hi pätaki vipro na vadhyo nianur abravlt / rastrad asinät tu nirväsyo vibhavair aksatair saha // Act IX, verse 39 This provision is found in the MDh 8.380.

39 The MDh 11112 reads tisthantisv anutisthet tu vrajantlsv apy anuvrajet / ästnäsu tathâsîta niyato vîtamatsarah // The Raghuvamsa 1.89 reads: prasthitäyäm pratisthethäh sthitäyäin sthitim äcareh / nisaimäyäm nisîdasyâm pJtämbhasi piber apah // Some of the divergence is caused by the fact that in the Raghuvamsa Dillpa is told to follow just a single cow, the divine NandinI, whereas in the MDh the penitent follows a herd of ordinary cows.

40 prajäpatir hi prajäh srstvä täsäin sthitinibandhanam trivargasya sädhanam yänäm satasahasrenägre provaca / tasyaikadesikam manuh sväyambhuvo dharmädliikäri- kam prthak cakära /

adhyä-41 Bühle r is quite skeptical about the citations, because they do not exactly replicate the

verses of the extant MDh I think the differences and confusions can easily be ascribed to the

team of workers engaged in the epic enterprise The work of committees often creates sions, misquotations, and misidentifications, especially in a work of such enormous propor-tions

confu-of generations." Fitzgerald confu-offers a more conservative view, acknowledging several redactions, the last taking place during the Gupta period.42 If we accept that the

MDh was known to the writers of the Mahäbhärata, then, even with a more vative dating than Hiltebeitel's, the MDh must have been in existence by about the

conser-2nd century CE.

Scholars as far back as Jolly thought they had found what appeared to be a solid piece of external evidence in Asvaghosa, a Brahmin convert to Buddhism, who is generally assigned to the ist-2nd centuries CE A work ascribed to him, the

Vajrasüci, repeatedly cites the MDh by name.43 Johnston had already cast serious doubts on the authenticity of this work, calling it "a clever piece of polemics argu- ing against Brahman claims" and concluding that it "shows no trace of Asvaghosa's style or mentality."44 A close examination of the Vajrasüci supports Johnston's con-

clusion It is probably a quite late Buddhist polemical pamphlet against Brahmins and cannot be dated even close to the and century CE.

All this, unfortunately, does not permit us to narrow the dating as much as we would like There is a further piece of evidence, however, that may help us in estab-

lishing a more secure lower limit At MDh 8.213 a fine of "one Suvarna'' is assessed for the non-delivery of a gift At MDh 8.361 a man who talks with a woman after he

is explicitly forbidden to do so is fined "one Suvarna."45 Now, fines in the MDh is

assessed in currency and there is no reason to doubt that Suvarna here means a gold

coin At MDh 8.393 a man who fails to feed a vedic scholar at a rite is forced to give

twice that amount of food and a gold Mâsaka Here also I think the reference is to a gold coin.46 It is significant that the Arthasâstra, which has a section on the minting

of copper and silver coins, does not refer to the minting of gold coins.47 There is also no unambiguous reference to gold coins (as opposed to gold articles and orna-

ments) in the Arthasâstra.^ There is a scholarly consensus that the minting of gold

currency did not take place until the Kushans P L Gupta (1969, 28) notes with erence to the Gupta king Vima Kadphises that "his most notable contribution is the

ref-42 See Hiltebeitel 2001, 25-26

43 See Jolly 1885, 44; Jayaswal 1930,26; Kane (1962-75) I: 330 The false ascription of

this text to Asvaghosa is perpetuated in the recent study by Sarla Khosla, Asvaghosa and his Times, New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House, 1986.

44 E H Johnston, Asvaghosa's Buddhacarita or Acts of the Buddha (1936; reprint,

Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), II: xxii As Johnston observes, the Chinese translation cribes this text to Dharmaklrti See also de Jong 1988

as-45 At MDh 8.220 the fine imposed on a man breaking an agreement is said to be catuhsuvarnaii sanniskan, which I have taken to mean "6 Niskas each weighing 4 Suvarnas."

Commentators, however, take the fine to be cumulative: 4 Suvarnas and 6 Niskas In anycase, it appears that here also a fine assessed in gold coins is meant A fine of 6 Niskas is also

47 See D C Sircar, Studies in Indian Coins (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968), p 78.

48 This supports the possibility that Manu may have borrowed some of his material

from the Arthasâstra; see section II.2

introduction of extensive gold coins for the first time in India."49 Vima Kadphises probably reigned the end of the first and beginning of the second century CE.50

Vima's successors also issued gold coins; and so did the Guptas.51 If this was the first time that gold coins were minted in any numbers in India proper, then lower

limit for the composition of the MDh must be pushed further forward to at least the

2nd century CE It is unlikely that the socio-political conditions during which the

MDh was composed reflects those of the indigenous Gupta empire (see 1.4) If this hypothesis is accepted, the likely period for the composition of the MDh would be

2nd-3rd centuries CE Indeed, this corresponds to the date of 3rd century CE

assigned to the MDh by the great Indian scholar of epigraphy and numismatics, D.

C Sircar (1968,52).

1.3 Narrative Structure and Composition

Manu introduced two major innovations in comparison to the previous literature of

the dharma tradition First, he composed his text entirely in slokas Second, he set

his text within a narrative structure that consists of a dialogue between an exalted being in the role of teacher and others desiring to learn from him.

Late vedic texts, especially the early prose Upanisads, regularly cite verses in support of statements and viewpoints.52 It appears that these verses were somehow viewed as having greater authority and, therefore, able to lend greater support to the

author's views, much like citations from scripture The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, for example, frequently cites supporting verses with the introduction tad esa sloko bhavati ("In this connection there is this verse").53 The significance of these verses

in the eyes of the authors is indicated by the fact that they write commentaries on

some of them, as in Brhadaranyaka 1.5 We see this practice continued by the authors of the Dharmasutras.54 They also present verses as providing support for or confirmation of views they have already presented in prose and introduce them with

athäpy udäharanti ("Now, they also quote"), indicating that these verses were

well-known sayings that experts would cite in support of a particular practice or point.55 In the later Dharmasütras, however, we find increasing use of verses not

view-49 There were gold coins issued by the Graeco-Bactrian kings of the north-west and theScythian dynasties It is, however, unlikely that fines would be assessed in a coin that musthave been rare in the Indian heartland

50 See H Kulke and D Rothermund, A History of India (London: Routledge, 1986), p.

81

51 "The coins of these Gupta emperors are known chiefly in gold They issued goldcoins so profusely that a contemporary poet has allegorically termed the phenomenon 'rain ofgold'" (Gupta 1969, 52)

52 For a study of verses in the vedic corpus, see Paul Horsch, Die vedische Gäthä- und Sloka-Literatur Bern: Francke Verlag, 1966.

53 See 2.2.3:4.3.11; 4.4.6, 7, 8 See also ChU, 3.112; 5.2.9; 5.10.9; 5-24-5; 7-26.2; 8.6.6.

54 The exception is Gautama For a discussion, see Olivelle 2000

55 See ÄpDh 1.19.15; 1.25.9; 1.31.23; 1.32.23; 2.9.13; 2.13.6; 2.17.7 At 2.23.3 two verses are cited with the introduction atha puräne slokäv udäharanti ("Now, they quote a couple of

verses in a Puräna" ) indicating that such verses may have been found in the genre Purâna ,

although this probably does not refer to any extant Puräna See BDh 1.1.8; 1.2.11, 15, 17; 1.7.1;

simply as citations but integrated into the composition.56 This strategy is used with

increasing frequency by Vasistha, the author of the latest Dharmasutra; chapters

25-7, for example, are completely in verse.

It appears that during the last few centuries prior to the common era slokas

had assumed an aura of authority, and proverbial wisdom was transmitted as rable verses The logical outcome of this tendency was for authoritative texts them- selves to be composed in verse, lending authority to the text by its very literary genre We see this already in some of the earliest Buddhist texts, such as the an-

memo-thologies of the Suttanipäta and the Dhammapada and in the verses of the Jätakas.

The same process was probably responsible for the fact that the early prose

Upanisads, such as the Brhadäranyaka and the Chandogya, are followed by a series

of Upanisads composed entirely in verse, such as the Katha, the Mundaka, and the Svetäsvatara.

The parallel between the older and the later Upanisads is true of the dharma

literature as well Whereas the earlier texts are in prose with verse citations, the later ones are composed entirely in verse The first such text was that of Manu His use of

verse for the composition of his Dharmasastra, therefore, must have been part of a

deliberate plan to lend the kind of authority to his text that would come only through this literary genre We have, of course, the parallel examples of the epics

Mahäbhärata and Rämäyana composed in verse and claiming religious authority.

This move away from prose to verse continues especially in religious compositions such as the Purânas In what could be regarded as expert traditions, however, the

picture is mixed The artha and karna traditions continued to produce prose works,

as did the ritual, philosophical, and grammatical traditions The dharma tradition followed the trail blazed by Manu; all later Dharmasästras are written in verse, prose entering the tradition only in commentaries and medieval digests (nibandha) The second innovation in the composition of the MDh is its narrative struc- ture The Dharmasutras are not only written in prose but are also presented as

nothing more than scholarly works.57 There is no literary introduction; the author gets right down to business He presents his material in a straightforward manner, and on points of controversy and debate he presents opposing viewpoints All this is eliminated by Manu Here the real author is presented not as a scholar but as the primeval lawgiver, the Creator SvayambhQ, and his intermediaries, his son Manu and the latter's disciple Bhrgu The law is promulgated authoritatively; there cannot

be any debate, dissension, or scholarly give and take.

An anonymous group of seers approaches Manu and asks him to teach them

dharma Manu accedes to their wishes He narrates the creation of the world up to the emergence of human society hierarchically arranged into the four varnas Then

he asks his pupil Bhrgu to teach them the rest (1.59), reminding me of a busy sor letting his graduate assistant do the dirty work of teaching an undergraduate

class Bhrgu takes up the task in earnest; the rest of the book is the oral teaching of Bhrgu The seers reappear only twice—once at the beginning of chapter 5 when they ask how Brahmins can be subject to death, a question that leads to a discussion

of food practices, purification, and duties of women; and a second time at the

begin-ning of chapter 12 when they ask Bhrgu to teach them the effects of actions (karma).

The narrative structure given prominence at the opening of the text fizzles out; there

is no conclusion to the narrative A similar structure is found in the Pañcatantra,

where the original setting—Visnusarman's instruction of princes in statecraft and policy under the guise of animal stories—is lost sight of in the conclusion.

We have no way of knowing all the reasons for Manu's strategy of departing

from the tradition of textual composition found in the earlier dharma tradition The

tradition of dialogue where a teacher instructs a pupil, a son, or a king goes back to the Brähmana s and the Upanisads The literary structure of these dialogues, how- ever, places these individuals within human history The transition into divine in-

struction is found already in the Chändogya Upanisad, where we have the

instruction of Nârad a by Sanatkumâr a (7.1) and of Indra and Virocana by Prajäpat i (8.7) Nevertheless, I think the example of the Buddhist texts was also a likely fac- tor Hiltebeitel (2001,167) has argued that the Mahâyân a literature, especially the

Lotus Sutra, offers a parallel to the narrative structure of the Mahäbhärata For the

first time in India, the words of a single charismatic individual were taken as the

sole fountain of authority in a religious tradition The doctrine of buddhavacana,

that the sole form of textual authority is the words of the Buddha, governed the duction of texts both in the early forms of Buddhism and in the Mahâyâna. 58 All texts begin with the preamble "Thus have I heard," placing the text in the mouth of the Buddha and making the function of the "author" merely that of a transcriber or re-teller of what he had heard The narrator narrating what he had heard and placing

pro-his narrative in the distant past is also at the heart of the Mahäbhärata structure.59

Although its narrative structure is much simpler, the same is true of the MDh

as well We have here five layers of "telling," "hearing," and re-telling At the most remote level, we have the creator himself soon after his creative activity composing

a treatise and reciting it to his son Manu (1.58) Manu is the first "hearer." He transmits it to Marïc i and the other sages (1.58), who form the second tier of

"hearers." At Manu's command, one of these sages, Bhrgu, teaches the seers who

had come to Manu with the mission of learning dharma Bhrgu's first word (1.60), significantly, is "Listen" (srüyatäm) This group of seers, still placed in illo tern- pore, constitutes the third tier of "hearers." The narrator of the entire text makes

only a fleeting and implicit appearance in the very first verse of the text: "As Manu was seated, absorbed in contemplation, the great seers came up to him, paid him homage in the proper manner, and said to him." Here we have the voice of the

58 For an interesting study on ancient instructions on how to "produce" a new Buddhisttext, see Gregory Schopen, "If You Can't Remember, How to Make it Up: Some Monastic

Rules for Redacting Canonical Texts," in Bauddhavidyäsudhäkarah: Studies in Honour of Heinz Bechert on the Occasion of his 6gth Birthday, ed P Kieffer-PUlz and Jens-Uwe

Hartmann, Indica et Tibetica 30 (Swisttal-Odendorf, 1997), pp 571-82

59 C Minkowski, "Snakes, Sattras, and the Mahäbhärata" in A Sharma, ed., Essays

on the Mahäbhärata (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 384-400; Hiltebeitel 2001.

narrator introducing the first group of characters; then he becomes silent except for two other fleeting appearances to introduce the seers' further request at 5.1-2 and to introduce Bhrgu's final discourse at 12.2 Evidently the narrator himself, who at one level can be identified with the historical author of the text, heard the text presuma- bly from the seers; or he has been eavesdropping on Bhrgu's instruction of the seers This narrator is the fourth "hearer." There is then the implied fifth "hearer", that is, all those who listen to or read this text, including modern scholars The last verse of the book, possibly part of an interpolated section (see III), is directed at this audi- ence: "When a twice-born recites this Treatise of Manu proclaimed by Bhrgu, he will always follow the proper conduct and obtain whatever state he desires."

Although mediated by a series of tellers and hearers, the ultimate authority of the text lies in its original promulgator, the Creator himself.60 Paralleling the Bud-

dhist doctrine of buddhavacana and doing one better than that, the MDh grounds its authority (promana) on the svayambhuvacana, the words of the Self-existent One,

the very ground of creation This appeal to a single source of authority stands in sharp contrast to the traditional source of authority for and means of knowing

dharma, namely the Veda supplemented by traditional texts (smrti) and the conduct

of the virtuous (acara).61 Indeed, the MDh itself presents the latter doctrine when it discusses the sources of dharma in chapter 2 There is thus a disjuncture between

the narrative structure of chapter i and the body of the text The author is a tional pandit, and his habitual methods of reasoning, argumentation, and public presentation take over in the substantive parts of the text.62 One may ignore the ref- erences to "that is the teaching of Manu" or "so said Manu,"63 which are peculiar in

tradi-a text thtradi-at wtradi-as composed by Mtradi-anu's ftradi-ather tradi-and perhtradi-aps edited by Mtradi-anu The whole text, after all, constitutes the "sayings of Manu." But such self-referential statements occur also in other Sanskrit texts More revealing are the following.

"Whatever Law Manu has proclaimed with respect to anyone, all that has been taught in the Veda, for it contains all knowledge" (2.7) This assertion is strange within a text that is Manu's own composition It appears that the author is trying here to reconcile the authority of Manu with the authority of the Veda as the

source of dharma "Tradition holds that the various groups of ancestors are the sons

of all the seers headed by Marlci, seers who are the children of Manu, the son of

Hiranyagarbha" (3.194): why ascribe to tradition (smrtäh) a view when the creator

himself is the speaker? "Because of discipline, on the other hand, Prthu, as well as Manu, obtained a kingdom; Kubera, lordship over wealth; and the son of Gädhi , the rank of a Brahmin" (7.42) Here Manu, along with other traditional heroes, is treated

in the third person "Bed, seat, ornaments, lust, hatred, behavior unworthy of an

60 We, of course, have parallels in other religious traditions for divinely authored law,such as the Pentateuch in the Jewish tradition and the Koran (and derivatively, Sharia) inIslam

61 This contrasts even more with the "community standards" (sämayäcärika) espoused

in the ÄpDh (1.1.1-2).

62 We find similar forgetfulness in other texts as well See, for example, Brhaspati's

reference to the contradictions in the MDh cited below in section V.l.

63 iti manor anusäsanam: 8.139, 279; 9.239; abravln manuh, inanur aha: 3.150, 222;

4.103; 5.41, 131; 6.54; 8.124, 168, 204, 242, 292, 339;9-i58,182; 10.63, 78

Ärya , malice, and bad conduct—Manu assigned these to women" (9.17) Again, Manu appears here in the third person At 2.16, moreover, a view is ascribed to Bhrgu, even though Bhrgu is the narrator! There are also verses that appear to be commentaries on a previous verse, making it likely that the verse on which the comments are based has been incorporated into the text from a different source.64

The author of the MDh does not, indeed cannot, openly present diverse

opin-ions of scholars both due to metrical reasons, as Bühle r (1886, xciii) has already pointed out, and because it would violate his narrative structure; how can the creator present diverse opinions on points of law? Yet, the pandit mentality is hard to sup- press, and our author repeatedly forgets his narrative and engages in ordinary schol-

arly give and take (see II.i) The most obvious is the expression iti cet ("if you argue

thus"), which marks an objection or a doubt, occurring at 9.122; 10.66, 82; 12.108.

At 8.140 we have a particular interest rate set by Vasistha, and at 8.110 an appeal to the practice of former sages and gods with reference to the legitimacy of oaths.65

The author sometimes refers to the opinions of others with the common iti kecit

("some say") At 3.53 the opinion of some that a bull and a cow are given as a bride price at a seer's type of marriage is refuted; at 3.261 the author refers to different customs regarding the disposal of ancestral offerings; and at 9.32 he introduces two opinions about the person to whom a son belongs, the biological father or the husband of the mother.

Contradictions in the MDh

The text of the MDh as it has come down to us contains numerous contradictory

statements This feature has drawn the attention not only of modern scholars66 but

also of ancient commentators The author of the Brhaspati Smrti, a text written a few centuries after the MDh, had the same problem with Manu In his section on niyoga

(levirate), Brhaspati comments (1.25.16):

uktvä niyogo manunä nisiddhah svayam eva tu I

yugahrasad asakyo 'yam kartum sarvair vidhänatah II

Manu has prescribed leviratic union, and then he himself has forbidden

it Because of the shortening in each age, no one can carry it out in cordance with the prescriptions.67

ac-Brhaspati provides a traditional solution to the problem; the contradictory rules apply to different ages So there is no true contradiction.

Modern scholars cannot accept the traditional hermeneutical solution Many have seen these contradictions as proof that the text had multiple authors over a long period of time; the contradictions represent changing customs and norms BUhler

64 See for example, MDh 3.171-4; 4.147-9, 195-6, 254-6.

65 There are also historical references: MDh 8.110, 116; 10.105-8.

66 For further discussion and other viewpoints, see Bühle r 1886, xcii-xcv; Doniger