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LAWS OF MANU.
were settled according to the law of custom, which, as the Dharma-stras themselves indicate, was in ancient times even a greater power in India than it is in our days. When the sacred law became a separate science to which men devoted all or the best part of their energy, the case became different. However much the specialists might be convinced of the supreme importance of the moral side of the Dharma, they could not possibly shut their eyes against the glaring deficiencies of the old text-books, and they were, of a necessity, driven to remedy them. In order to effect this, two courses were open to them. They might either remodel the old existing works or compose entirely new ones. As might be expected from the universal tendency, observable throughout the whole of the sacred literature of India, they gave preference to the former alternative, and the result of their work was that class of the secondary Smritis, the chief surviving representatives of which are the Dharmasastras of Manu and Yågñavalkya. These works reveal their origin by the following marks. They are the exclusive property of the special law schools, and they show a fuller and more systematic treatment of all legal topics, while, at the same time, more or less clear traces of older redactions, connected with the Vedic schools, are to be found. They are free from all signs of sectarian influence, or of having been composed, like many of the later Digests, at royal command. They, finally, exhibit unmistakable marks of being school-books. If we examine our Manu-smriti with respect to these points, its connexion with an older Vedic
work has been shown above, and the fact that it is, and has · been ever since we have any information regarding its
existence, in the keeping of the Pandits, who especially devote themselves to the study of law, will be patent to every student of the Dharmasastras. That it treats all legal topics more fully and more systematically than the Dharma-sútras, and especially devotes much more space to those subjects which are briefly noticed in the latter works, is no less evident. It will suffice here to point out the fact that the description of the duties of the king, including
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