MANU AND THE MODERN WORLD[i]
Dr. Kewal Motwani
Reproduced by Dr. Vivek Arya
The word Manu is usually associated with his Dharma Sastra,
which is wrongly translated as the Law of Manu or the Code of Manu. There is
nothing legal or judicially binding in the Sastra. It is an exposition of the
fundamental principles which should guide the life of the creatures known as
Manavas, endowed with the faculty of mind (manes). When philologically analyzed,
the expression means the science (shastras) of integration (dharma) of the
human beings (manus). Here a distinction is implied between integration and organization
of human beings as distinct from that of sub-human orders of life. Let us take
a few illustrations to bring out the point. A large quantity of building
materials may be lying about on a plot of land till eternity, without any value
or use for it, unless that material is put together into a house when its
usefulness and value emerge. This, it may be remarked parenthetically, is the
significance of the contribution of man. But let us go on. Take a house in
which numerous articles of furniture, utensils, cupboards for clothes etc., are
placed in perfect order, but they do not constitute an interactive organism in
which they affect each other. There is no communication between them. Physical
proximity does not constitute dharma or integration. Let us take an example
from life. Even here, a well knit and organized unit does not represent dharma,
in a hive of bees, there are workers, watchers, nectar-gatherers, rulers. But
their organization is not planned, conceived or carried out on mental basis. It
is hereditary or instinctive. It is not cultural achievement as the building of
a house. The latter implies knowledge of engineering, acquired through mental
effort, conscious communicability, and is based on symbols.
The word Manu represents not a person but an office. There
have been many Manus and names and numbers have been mentioned, it is
maintained that each Manu is in charge of a manvantara a vast cycle of time,
guiding the destinies of human beings and civilizations.[ii]
We now come to the words Dharma Sastra, without which the
word Manu by itself can have little significance. When understood as a treatise
(Sastra) of integration, synthesis togetherness call it what we will, it cannot
but cover the entire gamut the physical experience of man, this vision of the
cosmic universe embracing the terrestrial, organic, biological, psychological,
ethnical, numerical, ethical, aesthetical and spiritual aspects of the human
dharma. These are major segments or aspects of life and man has to come to
terms with them through understanding and their interaction. Having outlined
the task, the treatise plunges into a detailed discussion of every aspect of
human existence, in parts or segments, and as an integrated whole.[iii]
This is the main task of the Dharma Sastra of Manu.
The book opens with the description of Nirguna Brahman, the
Causeless Cause of the Universes and its division into Saguna Brahman and
Mulaprakrti, and man’s descent from these two aspects of the Divine Reality. It
deals with the totality of human nature, the path of descent of the Divine and
its ascent back to its original source, and with the human drama as but an
interlude in the cosmic process. It deals with the empirical existence of man,
his physical, psychic and spiritual endowments, but not forgetting the
constitution of matter that forms his physical being. The interaction between
the two, i.e. the physical and psychological (which also includes his affective
nature) constitutes human personality. The identity between spirit, the Divine
in man and matter, is studiously maintained. Conflict between the two is
strictly eschewed, never accepted or acknowledged. The ultimate purpose of
human goal, the merging into the Cosmic consciousness, “the drop merging in the
ocean”, is never lost sight of. In fact, the entire empirical existence is
planned in the light of this ideal. It behooves us, humble mortals, then to
attempt to get a grasp of the vast, cosmic consciousness and vision of Manu,
the Great Rishi, catch a glimpse of his Purpose and cooperate with Him, notwithstanding
our limited faculties.
It is, perhaps, relevant to remark here that in attempting
this task it will be necessary to dispense with the empirical method of
interpretation of the Dharma Sastra and the historical emphasis or Indological
approach as developed in the west by Max Muller and his students and colleagues
and turn the interpretation as given by some of the leading esotericists of the
world. Their names are not many: perhaps, a few leading ones may be recorded
for the benefit of the reader. H. P. Blavatsky the great Russian Occultist,
Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the Founder of the Arya Samaj, and Sri Aurobindo in
India and P. D. Guspensky of Russia, have rendered yeoman services to the cause
of esoteric interpretation of Manu. To be sure, a great many philosophers and
leaders of thought, have devoted their time and energy to the elucidation of
the teachings of Manu, but the esoteric interpretation has come from only a
few. This is not a subject of intellectual dilettantism, but one on which the
accumulated knowledge of man and the future of civilization depend.
In the text, there is an orderly procession of discussion of
human nature, the psychic constituent element of the nature of matter
constituting his body, Sattva, rajas, and tamas, and the psychic factors
constituting his consciousness, such as Sat, Chit and Ananda, the interaction
between the two in accordance with hereditary affiliations, past achievements
and failures and the ultimate goal set in view (karma, reincarnation and purusartha
for the present life). We call this totality of various factors, under one
blanket term, human personality, and this is in strong contrast with the
western conception that concentrates its attention only on the interaction
between heredity and environment.
Manu posits four types of human personality, easily
classifiable into four groups. These are men of intellect, men of action, men
of feeling or desire and the fourth, being unclassifiable into any of these
three. These are Brahmanas, Ksatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras mentioned in the text.
The Brahmana, being a man of Sattvic nature, is a priest, preacher and teacher
of the group. The Ksatriya, being man of action, uses his brawn in defense of
the entire nation from internal disruption and outer attack. The third group
that of Vaisya, is devoted to commerce, production and promotion of economy.
The last, the Sudra, devotes himself to the physical needs of the society, and
learns to rise through association with the three higher groups.
This is the social aspect of human life. But Manu goes in
detail into the work and path of progress of the individual as well. During the
first stage as a student, he must learn to yoke his mental faculties to hard
study, conserve his physical energies through self-control and service of his
teacher, eschew the life of luxury, realise the esoteric significance of the
ritual handed down by the ancestors and prepare himself to continue the
spiritual and cultural heritage of the group. As a family man, in the second stage
of his life, he must earn a livelihood, support the family and other
non-earning groups of the social order, practise yoga and sacraments to
discharge his debt to the ancient Rishis, his ancestors and human and the
animal world. All along, he must study the sacred scriptures to keep reminding
himself of his essential divinity and the divine nature of the universe. The
third stage is that of the vanaprastha , one who has one foot in the forest and
the other in the maelstrom of social drama. Through accumulated experience, he
should help the rising generation in civic and political matters and thus save
them from the fatiguing process of trial and error. The last stage is that of
sanyasa, the man in whom all desire has ceased to exist, who has cultivated silence
and is determined to prepare himself to face the Finale. With him the social
hierarchy comes to an end. He is above all classification. He is mendicant by
practice, he is above royalty.
But classification of individuals and groups into
professional categories is not enough. Manu lays great stress on ethical
preparation, along with professional efficiency, for each stage of the
individual’s life and preparation to rise to the next. The classification of
individuals and formation of functional groups is intended to help both to
transform their inborn propensities, transform their weaknesses and transcend
them through appropriate training and thus keep ascending to the appointed goal
of Supreme Bliss.
It is important and relevant at this point to emphasize the
fact that it is not Manu’s intention to create a rigid, inflexible social
hierarchy in which the Brahman is placed at the top of the ladder, while the Sudra
is left to grovel at the bottom. We have to bear in mind the numerous factors
that Manu has in mind in devising this type of social order. The mutability and
multiplicity of human temperament, the hereditary changes and mutations, the
ceaseless flux of the human temperament, the hereditary changes and mutations,
the ceaseless flux of the human temperament to meet the challenge of time, the
influence of karma in the life of man, the use of his free will, the change of
varna and ashrama due to personal effort in one life time, the provision for caste
less ness of the individual who has risen to spiritual afflatus by force of his
present effort and discipline, must confirm the view of the baseless ness of
the western charge on hierarchical inflexibility in Manu’s teachings.
There are one or two other questions that need to be
answered before we proceed further. It has always been asked, with a touch of
mockery, “Did such a social order, as conceived by Manu ever exist?” My
submission based on study of sociology of knowledge and numerous utopias with
which the west abounds, is that it did. Social knowledge is based on social fact:
without which it has no basis, no body of reality. And if we take into
consideration the various utopias, beginning with Plato’s Republic and ending
with Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward or Orwell’s 1984, or Aldous Huxley’s the
Brave New World Revisted, we shall, see quite clearly and convincingly that
they deal, one and all, with situations as they exist today and, do not indulge
in day dreams. Similarly, Manu’s Dharma Yuga, the Age the Synthesis, the Golden
Age of the Hindus, existed and in course of time, parts of it fell into disuse
till we come to the last age of Kali, the present age of iron, smoke, mental
and moral bleakness of the individual and the group.
Nor can we forget that it is Manu’s teachings that have been
responsible for creation and continuity of India’s ethnic virility,
intellectual supremacy, a vast cultural empire in both south and south-east
Asia, embracing Indonesia, Malayasia, Thailand, Burma,Cambodia, Laos,
Indo-China, Phillipine Islands, China and Japan in the east and many countries
in the west with which I shall deal presently. India’s vast resources and
wealth attracted alien invaders and the process of their amalgamation and
assimilation was done in an orderly manner, so that the invaders became
absorbed in India’s politic and became sons of the soil, rather than strangers.
Various ethnic groups have been absorbed into India’s life,
enriching the heredity of various communities and regions, the intellectual and
spiritual heritage of the sons of the soil. It is the spirit of tolerance and
nature of man as taught by Manu that have added to India s opulence in this
direction. Through selective amalgamation, India retained her ethnic identity and
viability, formed a bastion of cultural impenetrability kept the fundamentals
of Indian ethos against alien antagonistic forces, and yet promoted the right
type of admixture, giving to India a national identity that has defied death
and decay. The history of her ancient contemporaries, going back to 5,000 B.C.,
lies buried in sand dunes. But India still lives and throbs with life and the
continuity of her historic existence unbroken.
A brief history of the knowledge and impact of Manu on
nations ancient and modern is worth recording. Beginning with the Mohan-Jo-Daro
and Harrappa we find evidences of life, with all its institutions, educational,
social, and political, akin to those described in Manu. A similar situation
obtained in Sumeria, the contemporary of Mohan-jo-Daro. The spirit of tolerance
with which the various communities lived bears the impact of teachings higher
than what the native teachers could have provided. The cosmogony, law, poetry,
mythology bear close resemblance to those of her Indian contemporaries. The
Sumerians were not aware of the deluge, but were conscious of the physical,
biological and social organization and evolution as described in Manu. The word
Manu came to be shortened to ME, representing the universal rhythm the working
of the cosmos and the social life of man. The various institutions essential
for human existence and social progress were well developed. Briefly, evidences
of the impact of Manu’s teachings on Sumerian life are abundant, as historians
and archaeologists have proved it to be.[iv]
The early Egyptians, known to belong to the Caucasian group,
knew of Manu. Who became their first emperor? He changed the course of the
river Nile, united northern and southern Egypt. He came to be called Muenes,
and bull, Apis, which was a symbol among the Hindus (vrsa), was his symbol. He
was also known as the law-giver of Egypt. Crete, a neighboring country, called
their ancient king and law-giver, Minos, which bears a close resemblance to the
word Manu. Tradition has it that he went to India to learn the art of ruling
and on his return was given the honorific title of Minos. Sir William Jones,
writing in 1794, had a correct intuition of these events which he has recorded
then, and which have been later confirmed by archaeologists. He said : “There
is certainly a strong resemblance, though obscured and faded by time, between
our Manu, with his divine Bull, whom he names Dharma himself, or the genius of
abstract justice, and the Meunes of Egypt with his companion or symbol, Apis ;
and though we should be constantly on our guard against the delusion of
etymological conjecture, yet we cannot but admit that Minos and Meunes or
Meunis, have only Greek terminations, and that the crude noun is composed of
the same radical letters both in Greek and Sanskrit ; that Apis and Meunes,
says the analyst of ancient mythology, were both representatives of some
ancient personage, appears from the testimony of Mycophron and his scholiasts ;
and that personage was the same who in Crete was styled Minos, and who was also
represented under the emblem of minotaur. Diodorus, who confines himself to
Egypt, speaks of him by the title of bull Meunes as the first lawgiver, and
says ‘that he lived after the age of the gods and the heroes, when a change was
made in the manner of life among men; that he was a man of most exalted soul,
and a great promoter of civil society, which benefited by his laws; that those
laws were unwritten and received by him from the chief Egyptian deity, Harmes,
who conferred them on the world as a gift of the highest importance. He was the
same, adds my learned friend, as Meunes whom the Egyptians represented as their
first king and principal benefactor who first sacrificed to the gods and
brought about changes in diet. If Minos, the sun of Jupiter, whom the Cretans,
from national vanity, might have made a native of the land, was really the same
person as Manu, we have the good fortune to restore by means of Indian
literature, the most celebrated system of heathen jurisprudence and this work
might have been entitled the laws of Minos; but the paradox is too singular to
be confidently asserted, and the geographical part of the book with most
allusions to the natural history, must indubitably have been written after the
Hindu race had settled to the south of
Himalayas.”[v]
Following these ancient civilisations of
Mohan-Jo-Daro-Harrappa, Sumeria and Egypt came Babylon, Assyria, Hatti and
Mittanis and we find in all of them a distinct record of the teachings of Manu or
a close resemblance to them. Their ethnic composition, names of some of their
kings relatives and of their cities have Indian origin. According to Dr.
Harshe, we find some relatives of mentioned in one of these civilisations.
Babylon is known to have had a College of Sanskrit. Its knowledge of astronomy
and calculations of epochs, bearing identity with those of Manu, give us an
assurance that Manu’s teachings were a part of the mental equipment of the
people. Manu’s teachings were known in Palestine. Not a few of their customs
resemble those of the Hindus, while the word Moses is said to be an adaptation
from the Hindu word Manu, via Minos, of Crete.[vi]
When we come to ancient Greece, we see ancient India
transplanted there en bloc. Confining our attention to the impact of Manu, it
is maintained that Plato’s Republic copied many ideas from Manu. According to
Professor E. J. Utwick, formerly of London University, and later of Toronto, in
his Message of Plato, has maintained the position that those without a
knowledge of Hindu philosophy, would call Plato the first original thinker of
Europe.
Tacitus, the Roman historian, (78 A.D.) records that the
early German tribes described Manusc as the founder of their race. See his
Germania , verses no. 3-4. This name sounds like Manu who is the progenitor of
man. According to contemporary historians, the social organization of Germany
was fourfold, like that of the Hindus, and the functions assigned to each group
were the same as their Indian analogues, Rightly or wrongly, Chamberlain, the
German ethnologist attributes to Manu the racial psychology of Germany of
modern times.
It is a well-known fact that when Emperor Justinian wanted
the Laws of his Empire to be systematized and codified, he appointed jurists
from Greece and they were deeply influenced by Manu’s thought. This is also the
opinion of H. G. Wells and Sir Paul Vinogradoff, former Professor of
Jurisprudence of the University of London. This was in 600 A.D. Earlier, when
King Darius, (5th cent. BC) of Iran, was framing a Code of Laws, he is said to
have turned to Manu, since India was near to him and it was a part of his
empire.
During the last decades of the 18th century, Europe was
caught in a great economic, social, political and cultural ferment. The various
wars, the emergence of science and machine, involving complete transformation
of life, rapid communication between villages and cities and nations, changes
in agricultural and economic patterns of life, and secularization of all
knowledge had burst upon Europe and there was a feeling of utter helplessness
and loss of values. People thought that there was to be no more joys of simple
rural life, and that they would have to live in a world of power and economic
imperialism and quick change. Then something appeared that led to a revival of
hope and some semblance of joy among both the masses and the intellectuals, and
that was the translations by William Jones of the Bhagavad Gita, Manu Dharma Shastra
and Sakuntala of Kalidasa. The first laid emphasis on the fundamentals of
Indian philosophy, the second on the principles of social organization, while
the last revealed the dramatic and poetical genius of India.
The English translations were quickly translated into other
European languages and the leaders of thought in each country went into
ecstasies over the discovery of this new continent of knowledge. In Germany,
Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Schlegel brothers, Heine, Herder, Humboldt and many
others took part in painting verbal pictures of the type of the country that
could have given birth to such profound systems of philosophy, sociology and
drama.[vii]
This is what is known as the Romantic Movement in European
thought. It found expression in France in translations by various scholars.
Count Bonald and Count Maistre wrote extensively on politics and government
along lines of Manu’s teachings, while the latter used to lecture on this
subject in salons of St. Petersburg when accredited to the Russian Court as
representative of the King of Sardinia. Comte, considered to be the father of
modern sociology came under the influence of Manu’s teachings through the
writings of these scholars and of his teacher St. Simon, while numerous other
thinkers, poets, novelists wrote and spoke of India extensively.
Voltaire considered Manu, one of the books translated into
French as the best book that had ever come from the East, while Emile zola,
Victor Hugo, Chateuabriand praised Indian thought to the skies. It is said that
the framers of the Napoleanic Code drew on Manu when commissioned by Napoleon
to do the job.[viii]
The revelations of Manu s impact on English writers has not
been complete. Of course, when the book was published in 1795, one Joseph
Priestley wrote a volume of many hundred pages, opposing Manu’s teachings and
defending the Christian theology and sociology. But other thinkers of Romantic Movement
were familiar with Manu’s teachings. Some of these were Thomas Carlyle, S. T.
Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats, Southey and others, till we come down to the
present century when E. J. Urwick compared Republic of Plato with Manu's Dharma
Sastra, and Professor H. S. Mackenzie, one of the leading thinkers of England,
referred to Manu’s teachings.
From Europe, Manu went to the U.S. and influenced the
leaders of the Transcendentalist movement, Emerson, Walt Whitman and Thoreau.
Thoreau had received a copy of Sir William Jones’s translation from a friend
and passed it on to Emerson. Emerson studied the book, carefully saw its
implications for the rising civilization of the U.S. and, with the permission
of the publishers, serialized it, chapter by chapter, in this weekly journal,
The Dial. The book was extensively studied by American scholars, not a few of
whom became leading sociologists of the U.S. on their return from German
universities where they came under its influence. The leading sociologists of
the US. Of those times who refer to Manu’s teachings were Lester F. Ward and
Thomas Harris, a Professor of Washington University in St. Louis, who later
became the first Commissioner of Education of the United States. According to
Walter Leifer, the Romantic Movement of Europe affected the Russian world of
letters. As remarked earlier, Count Bonald used to lecture on Manu in Russian
Salons. A Russian translation was published during the fifties and its new
translation appeared during the fifties of the present century.
We must now face the question as to why Manu Dharma Sastra
has enjoyed such popularity and continuity since ancient times, beginning with
the Indus Valley civilization and continuing up to today ? Our statement of the
causes of this phenomenon must be brief. There are four outstanding features of
Manu’s social theory that have imparted to it a touch of eternity, and these
are monistic cosmology, supremacy of consciousness, design in the universe and
freedom, moksha, as the ultimate goal of human life.
There is another characteristic of Manu which we must
mention in passing. First with regard to social progress, Manu maintains that
it is possible to ensure social progress, provided the laws that give
continuity to human civilization are properly observed and put into practice.
Firstly social progress must be distinguished from evolution. The latter is a
neutral category, snatched from the science of biology, while progress is a
social and positive phenomenon. Secondly progress involves evaluation from time
to time, as every planner in modern times knows. Thirdly, progress implies
control of the situation. Progress in the animal world just happens, but at the
human level it has to be willed and planned.
We now come to the second part of this paper, the Modern
world. Manu has given an indication of what can happen to man and the social
fabric if man ignores these fundamental laws and invents myths of his own
making. The present-day world labors under numerous myths: the myth of
uniformity of human nature, the myth of equality, the myth of democracy involving
social, economic political equality, the myth of classless society, the myth of
non-hierarchical ‘‘social order, the myth of proletarian dictatorship, the myth
of multiple party government, the myth of centralization of power, the myth of
the omniscience of inconspicuous politicians catapulted into position of power,
the myth of bigness, and so on. All these militate against what Manu has taught
throughout ages, and he may be credited with also having anticipated results of
our non-compliance with these eternal principles.
The observance and compliance with these eternal varieties
slowly deteriorates. From Satya Yuga, the Golden Age, man descends into Kali
Yuga, the age of darkness, iron, steel, etc. of interpersonal and inter-group
conflicts and tensions. The myth making age, which is the modern age, is the
age of adharma in which there ‘is complete reversal of value and virtues, of
standards and ideals’. Manu gives salient features of this social disorganization,
culminating in ‘Brahmahatya’, extensive use of intoxicants, and other great
sins (the pancamaha patakas); also several other sins.
Put in modern sociological jargon, the description means this.
“These are the marks of the individual and groups who are in a state of moral
and spiritual collapse, and of the age which is in a state of advanced
decadence. They together represent social disorganization in excelsis.
Expressed in the language of our times, they represent man’s senseless
destruction of the fine web of ecological balance, a wanton destruction of
natural resources, such as minerals, plants, and animals, a false
class-consciousness, use of intoxicants, a highly incensed populace whose
sexual propensities know no limits or decency, and is capable of grossest
transgression, low business ethics, neglect of spiritual study and discipline,
of normal domestic life, exercise of ruthless power of man over man and
liquidation of his body, mind and soul. It represents the age when man’s entire
intelligence is devoted to a debauch of his sense-life, and the human and
spiritual elements are in complete abeyance. It is the age of conflict between
man and Nature, between man and woman, between various groups, between
individual and state, between the country and the city, between man’s natural
and spiritual being.” Has any author in human history given such accurate
description of the modern situation and could anyone improve on it? Man must
retrace his steps or Self-annihilation is the destiny that awaits him.
[i]
This article is reproduced from Proceedings of the World First Sanskrit
Conference held in March 26-31, 1972, Vigyan Bhavan, Delhi.
[ii] This
subject is dealt with in detail in the author’s larger work, Manu Dharma Sastra,
A Sociological and Historical Analysis. 1958
[iii] See
Chapter i. Laws of Manu. Buhler’s translation in the Sacred Books of the East
Series.
[iv] Kramer,
S. N., Keeper of the Sumerian Museum in the University of Pennsylvania, see his
From the Tablets of Sumer ,Colorado 1956. Also his article in the Scientific
Monthly , October, 1957. On a letter regarding close resemblence between the
wordings of a verse found in a Sumerian Stone the Rig Vedic verse, “God is one.
We call him by many Names, “Professor Karmer wrote : “We have noted some
possible parallels between the Rig Veda and the Sumerican material, but very
little that is tangible. In any case, most of us admit that we are only
‘scratching the surface,* although put in another way we are also’ laying the
foundation.’ See author’s work on Manu, page 259.
[v] Jones,
Sir William, Works of Sir William Jones , edited by Lord Teignmouth, Vol. VII.,
pp. 81-882, London, 1794,]
[vi] See
author’s Manu Dharma Shastra , pages 287-290
[vii] The
reader will find considerable material in Glassenapp’s book, still not
translated into English, in A Mythical Image : The Ideal of India., On German
Romanticism, by Leslie Wilson, Duke University Press, 1964, and in India and
the Germans : 500 Years of Indo-German Contact, by Walter Leifer, by Shakuntala
Publishing House , Bombay, 1971.
[viii]
See Bible in India , by Mons Louis Jacolliot. See also the present author’s
lectures at the Bangalore University, 1971.
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