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1xxvi
LAWS OF MANU.
thou shouldst keep in thy heart (23). Fire sprang from water, Kshatriyas from Brahmanas, iron from stone, the all-penetrating power of these (three) has no effect on that whence they were produced (24). When iron strikes stone, when fire meets water, when a Kshatriya shows hostility to a Brahmana, then these (three assailants) perish. Again, Mah. XIII, 46, 30–36, in a discussion on the prerogatives of a Brahmana's Brahmani wife who, we are told, is alone entitled to attend her husband and to assist him in the performance of his religious duties, the conclusion runs as follows: 'And in those Institutes which Manu proclaimed (manunabhihitam sastram), O great king, descended from Kuru, this same eternal law is found (35). Now if (a man) out of love acts differently, O Yudhishthira, he is declared to be (as despicable as) a Kandala (sprung from the) Brahmana (caste 36).' Nothing can be clearer than these two passages. The second speaks plainly of a Sastra proclaimed by Manu, and the first of his Dharmah, a word in the plural, very commonly used to denote a book on the sacred law. Moreover, the second is clearly a paraphrase of Manu IX, 87, and reproduces its second line to the letter. Of the two verses quoted in the first, one agrees with Manu IX, 321, but the other one is not traceable. While these two quotations would seem to indicate a very close connexion between the Mänava Sastra of the Mahabharata and our Smriti, a third from the Rågadharmas of Manu Praketasa-i. e. from the section on the duties of kings belonging to the Mânava reveals a greater dis
1 Though I will not deny that some show of argument might be made for the supposition that the Râgadharmas of Manu Praketasa were a separate work, different from the Sastra referred to in the preceding quotations, because the epithet Pråketasa is here added to Manu's name, and because at Mah. XII, 38, 2, we find Manu Prâketasa named as the author of a Râgasastra in company with Brihaspati and Usanas, to whom separate Nitisástras were attributed, I yet hold this to be improbable. For the legends regarding the descent of the lawgiver Manu vary in the Mahâbhârata. He is in other passages sometimes called Svayambhuva, and sometimes (e. g. XII, 349, 51) Vaivasvata. Further, a separate Nitisâstra of Manu is not quoted elsewhere. On the other hand, the section on the duties of kings bears in every law-book the separate title Rågadharmâh, and the commentators of our Manu-smriti call its seventh chapter expressly by this name.
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