Analysis: The Laws of Manu, Chapter 1

Date: c. 100 BCE

Geographic Region: India

Translator: George Bühler

Summary Overview

The Laws of Manu (Manusmṛti in Sanskrit) formed a moral and legal code in 2,685 verses and was one of the first written bodies of law in Asia. Although there is serious debate about its origin and age, the work—said to articulate the will of the deity Manu—is considered a foundational text in Hindu culture. The laws outlined regulations for the behavior of members of the four castes, establishing the class of Brahmins—the priests and judges—as uppermost, with three other castes beneath them. Laws for women and marriage, religious rites, ritual purification, and conduct were all included. Religious teachings, including the doctrine of karma and the soul, were also laid out. The opening chapter of the Laws of Manu describes the creation of the world. Manu describes first the creation of Brahma; from there, lower castes were formed in the order of their status. After the Brahmins came the Kshatriya, who were warriors and nobles; the Vaisya, or farmers; and the Sudra, servants. The Laws of Manu established the caste system as divinely ordained, and it had a profound influence on Hindu thought and social and religious practice.

Defining Moment

The later Vedic period (1000/800 BCE–500 BCE) is considered the formative period of Indian civilization, when disparate tribal customs unified into a somewhat cohesive set of beliefs. During this time, the foundational texts of Hinduism were composed, and the caste system was developed.

The Vedic period began when the Aryans, central Asian peoples who spoke an Indo-European language, began to migrate into northwest India, bringing their polytheistic religious traditions with them. A text known as the Rig Veda, thought to have been composed between 1700 and 1100 BCE, described a seminomadic tribal society led by warrior chieftains. This book of hymns is the first of the Vedas, the oldest scriptures in Hinduism, and is based on a much older oral tradition.

After the initial influx of the Aryan settlers, Vedic society began to gather in agricultural settlements in river valleys, particularly around the Ganges River. Iron tools allowed for agricultural advancement, and plows appeared to turn the fertile river ground. The tribes indigenous to the area were considered socially inferior to the settlers, and as the Aryan tribes formed larger administrative units, they enforced their control through the varna, or caste system, which divided the people of northern India into strict hierarchical categories, with the Brahmin priest class at the top and indigenous people at the bottom, considered unclean and untouchable. The division of Vedic society into four castes was reinforced by religious texts that identified the caste system as divinely ordered and created. The rigid separation of these groups required complex restrictions and traditions of ritual purification. A Brahmin could not even pass through the shadow of an “untouchable” and would have to purify himself before being allowed in the temple. Next in the hierarchy was the Kshatriya class of warriors and rulers; followed by the Vaisya, or farmers; and Sudra, or servant classes. This hierarchical order was bolstered by the belief that each caste had sprung from a different part of the body of Brahma, the creator god—his mouth, arms, thighs, and feet. These teachings, and the religious traditions and rituals to reinforce them, served to stabilize the settlements of the Vedic age and consolidated the power of the Brahmin elite, who also produced and distributed these texts.

Document Information

Serving as the consolidation and organization of much older strands of oral tradition, the Laws of Manu were written down by members of the priestly, or Brahmin class, and were intended as a guide to appropriate behavior and as a revealed religious text. There is significant debate as to the age of the written Laws of Manu; the very earliest estimate is around 1000 BCE, and the most recent is around 200 CE, but current scholarly consensus suggests the text was most likely generated somewhere around 100 BCE. The earliest English translation was done in 1794 by Sir William Jones, one of the first Western scholars of Indian history, and it was one of the first documents translated into English from Sanskrit. This translation was published in German in 1797 and also quickly appeared in Portuguese, Russian, and French versions. Its early reputation as the greatest legal and religious work to come out of ancient India was sealed by its inclusion in Sacred Books of the East, a monumental series of Asian texts printed by Oxford University between 1879 and 1910. The Laws of Manu appeared in 1886 as volume 25 in this series, translated by the German scholar of Indian languages George Bühler. In addition to being revered by Victorian “orientalists,” the Laws of Manu influenced other Western thinkers, particularly Friedrich Nietzsche, who saw its construction of castes as an appropriate natural ordering of society and believed that it offered a more robust, celebratory view of the human condition.

Document Analysis

The opening verses of the Laws of Manu describe how ten great sages approached the divine Manu, father of the first humans, and asked him to describe to them the proper rules and roles of the four castes, as established by Brahma, the creator god (rendered in this text as “Brahman”). Manu begins his lesson by explaining the divine creation of the world. As in other religious traditions, in the beginning nothing existed but the self-existent deity, at first called Svayambhu, and the world issued from the body of the deity. He also created himself in the form of Brahma; from Brahma came Manu, and from Manu came humanity. The hierarchy of people, animals, plants, and insects was determined by their creation, and this is the key element of the creation of humankind. The four castes of people were created from various parts of Brahma's body, in order of rank, beginning with the Brahmins (here referred to collectively as “Brahmana”). “But for the sake of the prosperity of the worlds he caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his thighs, and his feet.” Animals, plants, planets, even time were created at the command of this god, with the help of other gods that were created first. “Thus was this whole (creation), both the immovable and the movable, produced by those high-minded ones by means of austerities and at my command, (each being) according to (the results of) its actions.”

Manu then turns over the transmission of the divine laws to a great sage. “Bhrigu, here, will fully recite to you these Institutes; for that sage learned the whole in its entirety from me.” The verses recited by Bhrigu cover several elements in detail, particularly the structure of divine time, as different from other conceptions of time, since “the sum of one thousand ages of the gods (makes) one day of Brahman,” and so humankind cannot even conceptualize divine time. With the description of the creation of the world comes the description of the hierarchy created to “protect this universe,” assigning “separate (duties and) occupation” to the four categories of humankind. The Brahmin class was created from the mouth of the god, and so was dominant. “Man is stated to be purer above the navel (than below); hence the Self-existent (Svayambhu) has declared the purest (part) of him (to be) his mouth.”

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Mallory, J. P. & D. Q. Adams. The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.

Olivelle, Patrick. The Law Code of Manu. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.

Singhal, K. C. The Ancient History of India, Vedic Period: A New Interpretation. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2003. Print.