23 Facts About Manusmriti

Manusmriti, known as the Manava-Dharmasastra or Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitution among the many of Hinduism.

Over fifty manuscripts of the Manusmriti are now known, but the earliest discovered, most translated and presumed authentic version since the 18th century has been the "Kolkata manuscript with Kulluka Bhatta commentary".

Title Manusmriti is a relatively modern term and a late innovation, probably coined because the text is in a verse form.

The foundational texts of Manusmriti include many of these sutras, all from an era preceding the common era.

Structure and contents of the Manusmriti suggest it to be a document predominantly targeted at the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas.

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In other discovered manuscripts of Manusmriti, including the most translated Calcutta manuscript, the text declares in verse 4.

Manusmriti has various verses on duties a person has towards himself and to others, thus including moral codes as well as legal codes.

Manusmriti offers an inconsistent and internally conflicting perspective on women's rights.

Manusmriti provides a woman with property rights to six types of property in verses 9.

Flavia Agnes states that Manusmriti is a complex commentary from women's rights perspective, and the British colonial era codification of women's rights based on it for Hindus, and from Islamic texts for Muslims, picked and emphasised certain aspects while it ignored other sections.

Chapter 7 of the Manusmriti discusses the duties of a king, what virtues he must have, what vices he must avoid.

Manusmriti then lays out the laws of just war, stating that first and foremost, war should be avoided by negotiations and reconciliations.

Patrick Olivelle, credited with a 2005 translation of Manusmriti published by the Oxford University Press, states the concerns in postmodern scholarship about the presumed authenticity and reliability of Manusmriti manuscripts.

MDh [Manusmriti] was the first Indian legal text introduced to the western world through the translation of Sir William Jones in 1794.

Govindaraja's commentary, titled Manutika, is an 11th-century commentary on Manusmriti, referred to by Jimutavahana and Laksmidhara, and was plagiarised by Kulluka, states Olivelle.

Scholars doubt Manusmriti was ever administered as law text in ancient or medieval Hindu society.

British colonial officials mistook the Manusmriti as codes of law, failing to recognise that it was a commentary on morals and law and not a statement of positive law.

The colonial officials of the early 19th century failed to recognise that Manusmriti was one of many competing Dharmasastra texts, it was not in use for centuries during the Islamic rule period of India.

The officials resurrected Manusmriti, constructed statements of positive law from the text for non-Muslims, in order to remain faithful to its policy of using sharia for the South Asian Muslim population.

Manusmriti thus played a role in constructing the Anglo-Hindu law, as well as Western perceptions about ancient and medieval era Hindu culture from the colonial times.

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im states the significance and role of Manusmriti in governing India during the colonial era as follows,.

Gandhi considered Manusmriti to include lofty teachings but a text with inconsistency and contradictions, whose original text is in no one's possession.

Manusmriti recommended that one must read the entire text, accept those parts of Manusmriti which are consistent with "truth and ahimsa " and the rejection of other parts.