Great Indian Religion

Author(s): G T Bettany
Publisher: Ward Lock Bowden and Co

Page 51

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ALLEGED ORIGIN. substantially the same matter. It results, in fact, from the gradual transformation of the teaching of a school into a general lawbook. But in process of time this book became surrounded by a multitude of fictitious legends designed to support its divine authority and secure the obedience of all Aryans. The first chapter of Manu is an apt illustration of this, and we therefore quote a portion from Bühler's translation.
“The great sages approached Manu, who was seated with a collected mind, and having duly worshipped him, spoke as follows : .
6. Deign, divine one, to declare to us precisely and in due order the sacred laws of each of the four Alleged chief castes and of the intermediate ones.
origin. "For thou, O Lord, alone knowest the purport (i.e.) the rites, and the knowledge of the soul, taught in this whole ordinance of the Self-Existent, which is unknowable and unfathomable!
"He who can be perceived by the internal organ alone, who is subtile, indiscernible, and eternal, who contains all created beings and is inconceivable, shone forth of his own will.
"He, desiring to produce beings of many kinds from his own body, first with a thought created the waters, and placed his seed in them.
666 That seed became a golden egg, in brilliancy equal to the sun; in that (egg) he himself was born as Brahman, the progenitor of the whole world.'”
After a very fanciful account of the derivation of all creation and of the relations of the creator to the creatures, it is stated that the creator himself composed these Institutes and taught them to the author, Manu, who deputes Bhrigu his pupil to recite them.
It appears that the introduction of the Laws of Manu as a general authority was due to the great accumulation of older works, having but a local and limited authority, and to the gradual extension of the influence of a particular school of general religious and legal instruction. No doubt one factor which contributed to its wide reception was the extended description of the duties and