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LAWS OF MANU<br />
These are the datings of writing Puranas as collected from Hindu Websites.<br />
Different scholars have given a range of timings for creation of this text, from 1500<br />
BC to 500 AD. 1500 BC assumes that it was brought in by the Aryans and AD dates<br />
are based on socio-cultural and linguistic reasons. Since it is written in Sanskrit<br />
language it must have been written after 150 AD. But that does not mean the legend<br />
and the system were not in existence till then. There must have been scattered<br />
teachings in the various areas which were collected, codified, modified and rendered<br />
in new literary forms and languages. The former existence of a Mânava<br />
Dharmasastra, consisting of prose mixed with verses in several metres, has been<br />
established by the discovery of some quotations in the Vâsishtha Dharmastra. The<br />
contents show that the work known to the author of the latter Sâstra was closely<br />
related to our Manu-smriti as we have today. We can therefore safely assert that the<br />
basic teachings of the present Smriti was handed down through generations of<br />
sishya paramparas with different branches whereby each branch developed<br />
independently. Manusmriti as is today may have been codified from various separate<br />
transmissions from separate subject areas. That is exactly why this is a Smriti –What<br />
is remembered. Thus its accuracy and authenticity is not equal to the directly<br />
revealed knowledge. As the teachings are handed down through generations each<br />
society might have added laws which were relevant based on their specific needs<br />
and to the benefit of the Brahminic community who wanted to control the society. As<br />
a result the laws are not always cogent if not contradictory.<br />
The first to propose such a hypothesis was E. Washburn Hopkins (1885):<br />
“I draw the conclusion that the sastram was in great part collated between the time<br />
when the bulk of the epic Maha Bharata was composed and its final completion, that<br />
previous to its collation there had existed a vast number of sententious remarks,<br />
proverbial wisdom, rules of morality etc. which were ascribed, not to this treatise of<br />
Manu at all, but to the ancient hero Manu as a type of godly wisdom. These I<br />
conceive to have floated about in the mouths of the people, not brought together but<br />
all loosely quoted as laws or saying of Manu and these sayings were afterwards<br />
welded Into one with the laws of a particular text [sect?] called the Manavas—a union<br />
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