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Ivi
LAWS OF MANU:
If we accept the conclusion which the preceding discussion tends to establish, that the special law schools produced the first and the most ancient division of the secondary Smritis on the basis of older Dharma-sútras, and that one among these schools, which, however, cannot be further specified, turned the Mänava Dharma-stra into our metrical Smriti?, we obtain also satisfactory answers to two other questions. First, it becomes explicable why the latter work shows so little connexion with the special doctrines and usages of the Mânavas. If adherents of the Vedic Mânava school, as Professor E. Hopkins conjectures, had undertaken the revision of their Dharma-sútra, they would not have forgotten to mention such ceremonies as those which, according to their Grihya-sútra, must be performed on beginning the study of particular portions of their Samhita , and, above all, they would have allowed Mantras belonging to the Maitrayani Sakhå to stand. Again, if the task had fallen to the share of the members of some other Vedic school, we should find some points mentioned which were of special interest to them. The entire absence of all distinctive marks of any Vedic school which the Manu-smriti exhibits can only be explained on the hypothesis that it was remodelled by persons for whom such minute distinctions had no interest, and who concentrated their attention on those rules which they considered essential for all Aryas. Secondly, the view expressed above furnishes us with an answer to the question why the Manu-smriti, like all other works of its class, emphatically claims the allegiance of all Hindus. It is obvious that every special law school must assert, if its labour is not to be in vain, the general applicability of its doctrines and rules to all mankind.
If we now turn to the second point, what reasons induced the special law schools to select just the Manaya Dharma-sútra among the large number of similar works
This view, which I first taught in my lectures on the Hindu law, delivered in the Vienna University during the winter, 1881-82, has been accepted by Professor J. Jolly, Tagore Lectures, p. 41, and Lecture II passim, as well as p. 347 (end). * Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, October, 1883, p. xix, * See above, p. xxxix, note 5.
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