Manu (from the Sanskrit man, 'to think,' lit. 'the thinking being') is the reputed author of the most renowned law-book of the ancient Hindus, and likewise of an ancient Kalpa work on Vedic rites. It is matter, however, of considerable doubt whether both works belong to the same individual, and whether the name Manu, especially in the case of the author of the law-book, was intended to designate an historical personage; for, in several passages of the Vedas (q.v.), as well as the Mahâbhârata (q.v.), Manu is mentioned as the progenitor of the human race; and, in the first chapter of the law-book ascribed to him, he declares himself to have been produced by Virâj, an offspring of the Supreme Being, and to have created all this universe. Hindu mythology knows, moreover, a succession of Manus, each of whom created, in his own period, the world anew after it had perished at the end of a mundane age. The word Manu—akin to our 'man'—belongs therefore, properly speaking, to ancient Hindu mythology, and it was connected with the renowned law-book in order to impart to the latter the sanctity on which its authority rests. This work is not merely a law-book in the European sense of the word, it is likewise a system of cosmogony; it propounds metaphysical doctrines, teaches the art of government, and, amongst other things, treats of the state of the soul after death. The chief topics of its twelve books are the following: (1) creation; (2) education and the duties of a pupil, or the first order; (3) marriage and the duties of a householder, or the second order; (4) means of subsistence and private morals; (5) diet, purification, and the duties of women; (6) the duties of an anchorite and an ascetic, or the duties of the third and fourth orders; (7) government and the duties of a king and the military caste; (8) judicature and law, private and criminal; (9) continuation of the former and the duties of the commercial and servile castes; (10) mixed castes and the duties of the castes in time of distress; (11) penance and expiation; (12) transmigration and final beatitude. Bühler has proved that Max
Müller was right in regarding the extant work as a versified recast of an ancient law-book, the manual of a particular Vedic school, the Mânavas; and holds that the work, the date of which used to be given at 1200 B.C., was certainly extant in the 2d century A.D., and seems to have been composed between that date and the 2d century B.C. There are many remarkable correspondences between this work and the Mahâbhârata, suggesting the use in both of common materials.
The laws of Manu were translated by Sir William Jones (1794). See also The Ordinances of Manu, translated from the Sanskrit, with introduction by Burnell, completed by Hopkins (1886); The Laws of Manu, translated with extracts from seven commentaries by G. Bühler (in 'Sacred Books of the East,' 1888).