Manu

MANU. - Demigod, progenitor of the human race, who appears for the first time in the Rgveda (v. VEDISM) under the name of "father M." (I, 80, 16; 114, 2; II, 33, 13 etc.). When the flood submerged the earth, according to the legend of the Satapatha-brāhmaṇa, I, 8, 1, 1, he saved himself by boarding a ship he had built, and by means of a sacrifice he created Ida, his adopted daughter, from whom the human race again took its origin. A work of great importance is attributed to him, concerning the religious and civil duties of the Aryan-Indians, and bearing the title Mānava-dharma-śāstra, "Treatise on the sacred laws of M." (v. DHARMA ŚĀSTRA). But in ch. 1 (sts. 58-59), M. himself makes known that heavenly laws were revealed to him by the Self-Born (Brahmā); M. then communicated them to his son Bhṛgu who, on his father's commission, gave communication of them to certain "great sages," desirous of knowing the rights and duties of the castes.

For historians of Indian literature, the M. Dh. Ś. is an anonymous treatise in verse (metre śloka), which served for instruction in the Brahmanic schools, as attests stanza 103 of ch. 1, which proposes it to a learned Brahman so that he may instruct his disciples in caste duties. It is not easy to determine the age to which the work belongs, but the entirely metrical form, the allusion to written documents (VIII, 168) and the evident connections between the M. Dh. Ś. and the more recent parts of the Mahābhārata (v.) are so many indications that the treatise cannot be older than the 2nd century B.C. nor later than the 2nd century A.D. As regards the content, it must be noted that the precepts relating to religious life are far more numerous than the norms of a juridical character, which occupy little more than a fourth part of the book. There precede the observances obligatory for the Aryan castes; the saṃskāra, "consecrations" or sacraments (12 according to M.), the duties of the father of the family, the daily domestic rites, the monthly cult to the deceased "fathers," are the subject of the first five chapters. To the rights and duties of the king is dedicated ch. 7, which also deals with politics and the art of government. Chs. 8-9 treat of civil and criminal law, and the material is subdivided into eighteen parts, the last of which concerns gambling and betting. The text then returns to deal with the castes and with religious prescriptions (chs. 10-11) in order to pass, in the last chapter, to metaphysical subjects, such as the consequences of good or evil actions in the other life, the migration of souls and liberation (v. MOKRA). The M. Dh. Ś. is not an arid collection of aphorisms; a certain elevation of style, similes and poetic images, indicate here and there the author's intention of producing also a work of literary value.

Ferdinando Belloni Filippi