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xcii
LAWS OF MANU.
thoroughly convinced of the truth of the dogma that Manu first taught the sacred law, would not hesitate to ascribe to that sage all the maxims which seemed to him to bear the stamp of authenticity, even if others attributed them to different authorities.
The answer to the next question, whether the conversion of the Mänava Dharma-sutra was effected at one time or by degrees, and whether Bhrigu's recension has to be considered as the immediate offspring or as a remoter descendant of the Sutra, must, I think, be answered, as has been tacitly assumed in the preceding discussion, in the sense of the first alternative. Not long ago it seemed that the contrary opinion was the more probable one. But the closer one examines the facts which at first sight seem to lead up to the inference that Bhrigu's Manu-samhità forms the last link in a long chain of metrical Manu-smritis, the more one sees that they possess no, or very little, importance. On the other hand, those arguments which speak in favour of our text being, if not the first, at least one of the first attempts at a conversion of a Vedic school- book into a special law-book, gain by the same process in force and increase in number. The points which have been brought forward in order to prove that the existing text of Manu has suffered many recasts are, first, its numerous contradictory passages; secondly, the explicit statement of the Hindu tradition in the preface to the Narada-smriti; thirdly, the quotations from a Brihat Manu and a Vriddha Manu met with in the medieval Digests of law; and fourthly, the untraceable or partly traceable quotations from Manu's Dharmasastra found in some of the older Sanskrit works. The existence of these facts is undeniable. But it is not difficult to show that they are partly useless as arguments, and partly, under a better interpretation, lead to quite other conclusions. Thus in weighing the value of the argument drawn from the occurrence of contradictory passages, two circumstances, which mostly have been left out of account, must be kept in mind : first, that it is a common habit of Indian authors to place conflicting opinions, supported by authorities of equal weight, side by side, and to allow an option, or to
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