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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Lxili its adoption was not the existence of a primeval Manava Dharma-sitra or SAstra, but the belief in the revelation of the law by Manu is proved also by the wide divergence of the doctrines attributed to the father of mankind from each other and from the teaching of the Manu-smriti. These legends and mythological conceptions are amply sufficient to show why the special law schools should have directed their attention to the Manava Dharma-sitra, and should have chosen that in preference to other similar works as the basis of one of their text-books. Even if the author of the Sftra, who in the tradition of the M4navas! is sometimes called Manvaéarya and sometimes M4nava£arya, really was a historical personage named after the progenitor of men, and was considered as such by the adherents of his own school, yet a confusion between him and his mythical namesake was in course of time inevitable. Even Apastamba, who himself claims to be no more than a common sinful mortal, has not escaped the fate of being turned into a half-divine being by the authors of the Mahabharata? and of the Purdzas, All I can adduce regarding the tradition of the Manavas is found in some not very clear verses of the Mangalalaramas, prefixed to the two books of Ash/avakra’s commentary on the Grihya-sitra. In the beginning of the prathamapurushabhashya he says, according to Professor Haug’s MS. (Munich Roy. Lib. Sansk. MSS,, No. 51), TAY ATOPRTET |] ATTATAT AT AA: | ETT: Warerergar wewreagine (7) aq wcerqramnfa (2) at a: ag WTA tl My MS, omits the invocation of the Bhashyakara and of Manava- Aarya and reads in the last line ATA ALATA RATIY ATW The dvittyapurushabhashya begins, according to my MS., ACTA: Raa atagrargc AAT ATS: VCORE USA: NAN weTseD Taq at gE y (2) acethy | at US y Tt fefqaifee vgn aretha wt Vat WRT Se MTA HT UTET ATR [ Verwrerge ?] TERA TTT U gH In the first line of the second verse I propose to read WeTaeU aq ‘Or Ty acer and to translate, ‘As the venerable MAnavakérya composed this (Sitra) by the favour of Sarasvatt, (even so) the (commentary) called Pfrana was carefully written by Ash/avakradeva after he had pleased Sarasvat!, when one hundred years (of the Lokakala) were completed, in the season called the dewy one.’ These verses seem to indicate that, according to the tradition of the Manavas, a historical Manavaéarya or Manvaéarya composed the Grihyasfitra, which was also called Bréhaddharma, by the special favour of the goddess Sarasvatt. 3 See Mah. XIII, 66, 12. xiv LAWS OF MANU. A Manu who composed a treatise on the sacred law which gained some notoriety was, therefore, sure of divine honours. As soon as the identification of the author of the Sitra with the father of mankind was made, it was a matter of course that the Manu-smriti obtained a particularly high position, and was accepted as the paramount authority on the sacred law.
2As soon as the identification of the author of the Sitra with the father of mankind was made, it was a matter of course that the Manu-smriti obtained a particularly high position, and was accepted as the paramount authority on the sacred law. The legends given above render us yet another service. They explain the origin of the seemingly contradictory statements of the Smriti regarding Manu. When he is represented there as a descendant of self-existent Brahman and a Pragdpati who takes a prominent part in the creation, or as identical with the supreme Brahman?, and on the other hand as a Xishi and as a king of the remotest antiquity, it is now patent that these conceptions have been taken over from Vedic literature and that, different as they are, they have all grown out of the one fundamental idea which makes the first man and progenitor a half-divine and half-human being, an assistant in the work of creation, and the founder of moral and social order among men. Some of the remaining elements of the myth of Manu, as told in the Smriti, are likewise clearly developments of Vedic ideas. Thus the interposition of the androgynous Virdg in Manu’s genealogy (I, 32-33) is foreshadowed by a curious passage of the Atharva-veda, VIII, 10, where the female Virag is said to have been ‘in the beginning this (whole world), and to have yielded blessings to various classes of beings. According to verse 24, ‘Manu, the son of Vivasvat, was her calf ?, when Prithi Vainya milked from her agriculture and grain-bearing plants.’ It would, therefore, seem that Virag, who repeatedly plays a part in Vedic cosmogony, was already there connected with Manu. Further, the substitution of seven or more Manus for one, has probably been caused, as the Petersburg Dictionary (s. v. manu) suggests, by the diversity of the genealogies found in the various Vedic passages. It is even not improbable that the Vedic schools believed, when K&ty4- 1 The same identification occurs Mah. I, 1, 32. ? This statement alludes to the fact that Indian cows do not allow themselves to be milked, except when their calves stand by. INTRODUCTION. Ixv yana composed his Sarvanukramanika of the Rig-veda, in the existence of several distinct Manus. Finally, the association of the ten great sages whom Manu Svayambhuva created, and who in turn created other Manus (I, 34-36), in the work of creation, rests on such passages as those quoted by Apastamba II, 24, 3-6, 13, where successive destructions of the world are mentioned, and ‘this creation is declared to be the work of PragApati and of the sages.’ But the complete development of the myth of Manu belongs to the schools of the Paurdzikas and Aitih4sikas, and we find in the Purdzas and in the Mahabharata many legends which are partly identical with or closely related to that told in our Smriti?.
3The third problem, to say how the conversion of the Manava Dharma-sitra into our Manu-smriti was effected, presents very considerable difficulties, and admits of an approximative solution only. It involves the consideration of three questions. First, which portions of our Manusmrzti are ancient and which are later additions? secondly, whence have the additions been derived? and thirdly, whether they have been added at one time or successively ? In our attempts to distinguish between the old and the modern elements in our Manu-samhitd we must be guided, except where we have quotations from the old Dharma-sitra, by the analogies which the other existing Dharma-sitras furnish, For it may be assumed as a general maxim, that rules and other statements of our Manu, which find counterparts in the critically unsuspicious portions of the Sftras of Gautama, Baudh4yana, Apastamba, and Vasish¢ha, probably occurred also in the Manava Dharma-sitra. Single exceptions are, of course, possible, because, though the Dharma-sftras show a very decided class-affinity, they yet differ in the details. The one devotes greater attention to one subject, and the other to others. Hence it may be, that occasionally a rule which is found in the Dharma-sitras, nevertheless did not occur in the MAanava-s(itra, but was added on its 1 See H. H. Wilson, Vishsru-purasa, vol. i, pp. 104-5 (ed. Hall); Professor Hopkins, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xi, pp. 247-256. (25) e Ixvi LAWS OF MANU.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Lxili its adoption was not the existence of a primeval Manava Dharma-sitra or SAstra, but the belief in the revelation of the law by Manu is proved also by the wide divergence of the doctrines attributed to the father of mankind from each other and from the teaching of the Manu-smriti. These legends and mythological conceptions are amply sufficient to show why the special law schools should have directed their attention to the Manava Dharma-sitra, and should have chosen that in preference to other similar works as the basis of one of their text-books. Even if the author of the Sftra, who in the tradition of the M4navas! is sometimes called Manvaéarya and sometimes M4nava£arya, really was a historical personage named after the progenitor of men, and was considered as such by the adherents of his own school, yet a confusion between him and his mythical namesake was in course of time inevitable. Even Apastamba, who himself claims to be no more than a common sinful mortal, has not escaped the fate of being turned into a half-divine being by the authors of the Mahabharata? and of the Purdzas, All I can adduce regarding the tradition of the Manavas is found in some not very clear verses of the Mangalalaramas, prefixed to the two books of Ash/avakra’s commentary on the Grihya-sitra. In the beginning of the prathamapurushabhashya he says, according to Professor Haug’s MS. (Munich Roy. Lib. Sansk. MSS,, No. 51), TAY ATOPRTET |] ATTATAT AT AA: | ETT: Warerergar wewreagine (7) aq wcerqramnfa (2) at a: ag WTA tl My MS, omits the invocation of the Bhashyakara and of Manava- Aarya and reads in the last line ATA ALATA RATIY ATW The dvittyapurushabhashya begins, according to my MS., ACTA: Raa atagrargc AAT ATS: VCORE USA: NAN weTseD Taq at gE y (2) acethy | at US y Tt fefqaifee vgn aretha wt Vat WRT Se MTA HT UTET ATR [ Verwrerge ?] TERA TTT U gH In the first line of the second verse I propose to read WeTaeU aq ‘Or Ty acer and to translate, ‘As the venerable MAnavakérya composed this (Sitra) by the favour of Sarasvatt, (even so) the (commentary) called Pfrana was carefully written by Ash/avakradeva after he had pleased Sarasvat!, when one hundred years (of the Lokakala) were completed, in the season called the dewy one.’ These verses seem to indicate that, according to the tradition of the Manavas, a historical Manavaéarya or Manvaéarya composed the Grihyasfitra, which was also called Bréhaddharma, by the special favour of the goddess Sarasvatt. 3 See Mah. XIII, 66, 12. xiv LAWS OF MANU. A Manu who composed a treatise on the sacred law which gained some notoriety was, therefore, sure of divine honours. As soon as the identification of the author of the Sitra with the father of mankind was made, it was a matter of course that the Manu-smriti obtained a particularly high position, and was accepted as the paramount authority on the sacred law.
2As soon as the identification of the author of the Sitra with the father of mankind was made, it was a matter of course that the Manu-smriti obtained a particularly high position, and was accepted as the paramount authority on the sacred law. The legends given above render us yet another service. They explain the origin of the seemingly contradictory statements of the Smriti regarding Manu. When he is represented there as a descendant of self-existent Brahman and a Pragdpati who takes a prominent part in the creation, or as identical with the supreme Brahman?, and on the other hand as a Xishi and as a king of the remotest antiquity, it is now patent that these conceptions have been taken over from Vedic literature and that, different as they are, they have all grown out of the one fundamental idea which makes the first man and progenitor a half-divine and half-human being, an assistant in the work of creation, and the founder of moral and social order among men. Some of the remaining elements of the myth of Manu, as told in the Smriti, are likewise clearly developments of Vedic ideas. Thus the interposition of the androgynous Virdg in Manu’s genealogy (I, 32-33) is foreshadowed by a curious passage of the Atharva-veda, VIII, 10, where the female Virag is said to have been ‘in the beginning this (whole world), and to have yielded blessings to various classes of beings. According to verse 24, ‘Manu, the son of Vivasvat, was her calf ?, when Prithi Vainya milked from her agriculture and grain-bearing plants.’ It would, therefore, seem that Virag, who repeatedly plays a part in Vedic cosmogony, was already there connected with Manu. Further, the substitution of seven or more Manus for one, has probably been caused, as the Petersburg Dictionary (s. v. manu) suggests, by the diversity of the genealogies found in the various Vedic passages. It is even not improbable that the Vedic schools believed, when K&ty4- 1 The same identification occurs Mah. I, 1, 32. ? This statement alludes to the fact that Indian cows do not allow themselves to be milked, except when their calves stand by. INTRODUCTION. Ixv yana composed his Sarvanukramanika of the Rig-veda, in the existence of several distinct Manus. Finally, the association of the ten great sages whom Manu Svayambhuva created, and who in turn created other Manus (I, 34-36), in the work of creation, rests on such passages as those quoted by Apastamba II, 24, 3-6, 13, where successive destructions of the world are mentioned, and ‘this creation is declared to be the work of PragApati and of the sages.’ But the complete development of the myth of Manu belongs to the schools of the Paurdzikas and Aitih4sikas, and we find in the Purdzas and in the Mahabharata many legends which are partly identical with or closely related to that told in our Smriti?.
3The third problem, to say how the conversion of the Manava Dharma-sitra into our Manu-smriti was effected, presents very considerable difficulties, and admits of an approximative solution only. It involves the consideration of three questions. First, which portions of our Manusmrzti are ancient and which are later additions? secondly, whence have the additions been derived? and thirdly, whether they have been added at one time or successively ? In our attempts to distinguish between the old and the modern elements in our Manu-samhitd we must be guided, except where we have quotations from the old Dharma-sitra, by the analogies which the other existing Dharma-sitras furnish, For it may be assumed as a general maxim, that rules and other statements of our Manu, which find counterparts in the critically unsuspicious portions of the Sftras of Gautama, Baudh4yana, Apastamba, and Vasish¢ha, probably occurred also in the Manava Dharma-sitra. Single exceptions are, of course, possible, because, though the Dharma-sftras show a very decided class-affinity, they yet differ in the details. The one devotes greater attention to one subject, and the other to others. Hence it may be, that occasionally a rule which is found in the Dharma-sitras, nevertheless did not occur in the MAanava-s(itra, but was added on its 1 See H. H. Wilson, Vishsru-purasa, vol. i, pp. 104-5 (ed. Hall); Professor Hopkins, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xi, pp. 247-256. (25) e Ixvi LAWS OF MANU.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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