MANU. – A demigod and progenitor of the human race, who first appears in the Ṛgveda (v. VEDISMO) 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 ascending a ship he had built, and through a sacrifice he created Ā, his adopted daughter, from whom the human race was born anew. To him is attributed a work of great importance concerning the religious and civil duties of the Āryans, entitled Mānava-dharma-śāstra, “The Treatise on the Sacred Laws of Manu” (v. DHARMA ŚASTRA). Yet in chapter 1 (verses 58–59) Manu himself declares that these laws were revealed to him by the Self-existent (Brahmā); Manu then communicated them to his son Bhrgu, who, by his father’s command, imparted them to certain “great sages” eager to learn the rights and duties of the castes.
For historians of Indian literature, the Mānava-dharma-śāstra is an anonymous treatise in verse (metre śloka) used in Brahmanical schools, as attested by verse 103 of chapter 1, which commends it to a Brahman teacher for instructing his pupils in caste duties. Its exact date is hard to determine, but the entirely metrical form, allusions to written documents (VIII, 168), and clear affinities with later sections of the Mahābhārata (v.) suggest that the treatise cannot be earlier than the 2nd century BCE or later than the 2nd century CE. As to its contents, religious precepts far outnumber legal rules, which occupy little more than a quarter of the book. The first five chapters set forth obligatory observances for the Āryan castes: the saṃskāras, “consecrations” or sacraments (twelve according to Manu), the duties of the householder, daily domestic rites, and the monthly cult of the “deceased ancestors.” Chapter 7 deals with the rights and duties of kings, touching also on politics and the art of government. Chapters 8–9 treat civil and criminal law, subdivided into eighteen parts, the last of which concerns gambling and wagering. The text then returns to caste regulations and religious prescriptions (chapters 10–11) before turning in the final chapter to metaphysical topics such as the consequences of good or bad actions in the next life, the transmigration of souls, and liberation (v. MOKŚA). The Mānava-dharma-śāstra is no dry collection of aphorisms; a certain loftiness of style, similes, and poetic imagery betray the author’s intention to produce a work of literary merit as well.