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INTRODUCTION.
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its adoption was not the existence of a primeval Mânava Dharma-sûtra or Såstra, but the belief in the revelation of the law by Manu is proved also by the wide divergence of the doctrines attributed to the father of mankind from each other and from the teaching of the Manu-smriti.
These legends and mythological conceptions are amply sufficient to show why the special law schools should have directed their attention to the Mânava Dharma-sûtra, and should have chosen that in preference to other similar works as the basis of one of their text-books. Even if the author of the Sutra, who in the tradition of the Mânavas1 is sometimes called Manvakarya and sometimes Mânavâkârya, really was a historical personage named after the progenitor of men, and was considered as such by the adherents of his own school, yet a confusion between him and his mythical namesake was in course of time inevitable. Even Apastamba, who himself claims to be no more than a common sinful mortal, has not escaped the fate of being turned into a half-divine being by the authors of the Mahabharata2 and of the Puranas.
1 All I can adduce regarding the tradition of the Mânavas is found in some not very clear verses of the Mangalâkaranas, prefixed to the two books of Ashtavakra's commentary on the Grihya-sûtra. In the beginning of the prathama purushabhâshya he says, according to Professor Haug's MS. (Munich Roy. Lib. Sansk. MSS., No. 51), नमो भाष्यकारा [य] मानवाचार्याय नमः । यस्याः प्रसादान्मनुना शब्दशास्त्रमिदं (?) कृतम् । सरस्वत्युपनामानि (?) सा नः पातु My MS. omits the invocation of the Bhâshyakâra and of Mânavâkarya and reads in the last line सरखत्यूनानि कल्पयतु सा ॥ The dvitIyapurushabhashya begins, according to my MS., सरस्वत्याः प्रसादेन यथैतत्कृतवान्पुरा । भगवान्मानवाचार्यः पूरणाख्यं प्रयत्नतः ॥ १ ॥ अष्टावक्रेण देवेन तां तुष्ट्वा तु ( ? ) सरस्वतीम् । शते पूर्णे तु वर्षायामृतो शिशिरसंज्ञिके ॥ २ ॥ नमस्करोमि तां देवीं यस्या एव प्रभावतः। प्राप्तं यतन्महात्पुख्य [एतन्महापुयं ? ] वृहद्धर्माभिधायकम् ॥३॥ In the first line of the second verse I propose to read अष्टावक्रेण देवेन कृतं तुष्टा and to translate, 'As the venerable Mânavâkârya composed this (Sûtra) by the favour of Sarasvati, (even so) the (commentary) called Purana was carefully written by Ashrâvakradeva after he had pleased Sarasvati, when one hundred years (of the Lokakâla) were completed, in the season called the dewy one.' These verses seem to indicate that, according to the tradition of the Mânavas, a historical Mânavâkârya or Manvâkârya composed the Grihyasûtra, which was also called Brihaddharma, by the special favour of the goddess Sarasvati.
"See Mah. XIII, 66, 12.
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