Manusmriti

Also called: Manu Smriti, Manava Dharmashastra, Laws of Manu · Topic: Society in Early India: Kinship, Varna-Jati, Women · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 5 "State and Society up to 1000 CE"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"

Meaning

The Manusmriti (also called Manava Dharmashastra or the Laws of Manu) is the best-known Dharmashastra, a Sanskrit book of rules on right living. It was compiled c. 200 BCE – 200 CE and lays down rules on marriage, varna, inheritance, women, the king's law and punishment. It matters because historians use it to see what Brahmana authors wanted society to look like. It is also the text most often used to show that rules in a book are not the same as what people actually did.

Explanation

Background: why such a text was written

• Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras are Sanskrit codes of conduct, books of rules about right living. Their compilation began c. 500 BCE.
• Why then?
• New cities grew up in the Ganga valley (the second urbanisation). They brought new groups, new wealth and new ideas.
• Buddhism and Jainism were questioning old beliefs.

• Brahmana authors responded by writing social rules down, at a time when people were doubting those rules.

• The Manusmriti is the most important text in this tradition. It was compiled c. 200 BCE – 200 CE.

What the text covers

• It covers a very wide field [2]:
• how the world began and what dharma (right duty) means
• the eight forms of marriage
• rules for guests and funerals, food rules, and purity and pollution
• rules for women and wives

• the king's law, court matters, gifts, penance (acts done to make up for a wrong), karma, the soul and punishment

• Varna duties. The Dharmashastras gave each varna (one of the four ideal social orders) its own work:

• Brahmanas: study and teach the Vedas, perform sacrifices, give and receive gifts.
• Kshatriyas: fight, protect people and give justice.
• Vaishyas: farming, herding animals and trade.

• Shudras: serve the three higher varnas.

• Marriage. Of the eight forms of marriage, the first four were treated as "good". The rest were condemned.

• Property and inheritance.
• After the parents died, the father's estate was split equally among the sons, with a special share for the eldest. Women could not claim a share of this property.
• Women could keep stridhana ("a woman's wealth"): gifts she received at her marriage. Her children could inherit it, and her husband had no claim on it.
• Men could gain wealth in seven ways, for example by inheritance, purchase, conquest, investment and work. Women had only six, all of them gifts from the bridal fire, the bridal procession, a brother, mother, father or husband.

• The text also warned women not to store up family property, or even their own valuables, without the husband's permission.

• Chandalas (people placed at the very bottom of the social order, seen as "untouchable"):

• They had to live outside the village, use thrown-away pots, and wear the clothes of the dead and iron ornaments.
• They could not walk in villages at night.

• They had to dispose of the bodies of people with no relatives, and serve as executioners.

• Land. The text advised that village boundaries should be marked with hidden objects, such as stones, bones, ash, broken pottery and cow-dung, so that disputes could be settled.

The nature of its rules

• The Dharmashastra style stresses duties rather than rights. It places women under the watch of male relatives: father, husband and son. [2]
• The Manusmriti is classed as smriti ("that which is remembered"). Smriti explains and puts Vedic ideas into rules, but it is held to be less authoritative than shruti (the Vedas themselves). [2]
• Britannica dates the text to "about 100 CE" and counts 2,694 stanzas in 12 chapters. [2] This date falls inside the NCERT range, so keep c. 200 BCE – 200 CE for the exam.

How the tradition continued, and its limits

• The Manusmriti was not the last word. Further Dharmashastras were written c. 300–600 CE. This was a long, growing tradition, not one fixed book.
• The Manusmriti is a normative text: it says what people should do. It is not a descriptive text, which shows what people actually did.
• In modern times it became a target of reformers. On 25 December 1927, during the Mahad Satyagraha, B.R. Ambedkar publicly burned the Manusmriti as a symbol of caste inequality.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: compiled c. 200 BCE – 200 CE (NCERT). Britannica gives about 100 CE. [2]
• Language and authors: Sanskrit, written by Brahmana authors. Its readers were mainly the literate Brahmana elite.
• Region: it belongs to the Brahmanical tradition of north India that grew in the Ganga valley. But no census, survey or diary exists for this period that could show how widely it was followed.
• Other evidence to read alongside it:
• Inscriptions of donors, traders, artisans, nuns and guilds. They show real people, not ideal ones.
• Pali Buddhist texts such as the Tipitaka (c. 500–100 BCE), Prakrit inscriptions and Jaina works, and the Tamil Sangam corpus. These show that Brahmanical norms were accepted as authoritative but were also questioned and sometimes rejected.

• The Mahabharata, which both lays down rules and shows its heroes breaking them.

• The historian's checklist: before using any rule in the Manusmriti, ask about its language, kind of text, author, audience, date and place.

Don't confuse with

• Dharmasutras: these are the earlier rule books (major ones c. 500–200 BCE). The Manusmriti (c. 200 BCE – 200 CE) is a later Dharmashastra in the same tradition.
• Shruti (the Vedas): shruti is "that which is heard" and is held to be the highest authority. The Manusmriti is smriti, which ranks below shruti. [2]
• Mahabharata: this is both normative and descriptive, because it shows rules being broken. The Manusmriti is purely normative, a rulebook.
• Arthashastra: this is Kautilya's text on statecraft and running a kingdom. The Manusmriti is a code of social and religious conduct (dharma).

Prelims Hooks

• The Manusmriti is dated c. 200 BCE – 200 CE. The compilation of Dharmasutras/Dharmashastras began c. 500 BCE.
• The Manusmriti is classed as smriti, held less authoritative than shruti. Britannica counts 2,694 stanzas in 12 chapters. [2]
• It names eight forms of marriage. Only the first four were treated as "good".
• Under the Manusmriti, the father's estate went equally to the sons, with a special share for the eldest. Women could keep only stridhana (marriage gifts).
• Chronological order: Dharmasutras (c. 500–200 BCE) → Manusmriti (c. 200 BCE – 200 CE) → Puranas (c. 200 CE onwards) → other Dharmashastras (c. 300–600 CE).
• Trap: the Manusmriti is in Sanskrit. The Tipitaka is in Pali, and the Sangam texts are in Tamil.

Mains Points

• A rulebook is not a mirror of society. The Manusmriti tells us what a Brahmana elite wanted, not what a village did.
• Inscriptions naming women donors, traders and artisans show a more varied society.

• When a text keeps insisting on a rule, the rule was probably being broken.

• A response to change. The Dharmashastra tradition arose as cities, new wealth, Buddhism and Jainism challenged the old order. So the Manusmriti is evidence of social tension, not of a calm, fixed society.

• Limited reach, lasting debate. Pali, Prakrit and Tamil sources show that its norms were respected but also questioned and rejected, especially in regions like the Tamil country. [3] Its rules on women, property and chandalas later made it a target of reformers such as Ambedkar, who burned it in 1927.

Related concepts

• Dharmasutras
• Dharmashastras
• Narada Smriti
• Yajnavalkya Smriti
• Mahabharata
• Critical Edition of the Mahabharata
• V.S. Sukthankar
• Dharma

Read more

• How historians reconstruct social history