Hand to heart, how many of us have actually read the Manusmriti from cover to cover? Forget the original Sanskrit; have we even skimmed the translation? Yet, we have no problem judging it. We’ve all heard about its misogyny and caste-based oppression.
A quick Google search will throw up its most notorious verse about arrogant women who are unfaithful to their husbands being devoured by dogs in a public place. No one mentions that the next verse stipulates that the man she is unfaithful with is to be burnt upon a heated iron bed. “They should stack logs and burn up that villain there,” the text reads. (Manusmriti 8.372)
The text is equally harsh toward offending males, sometimes even harsher.
Manusmriti, the most famous text of the Dharmashastra tradition, is essentially a male-oriented normative text, stipulating how dvijas (twice-born) should conduct themselves as members of an arya (noble) society. It directs male behaviour from the time of initiation to Vedic studies to the end of their lives.
Anyone who takes the trouble to read the entire text would find that it proposes highly regimented and demanding behaviour from the time a boy begins his studies. It regulates his behaviour toward his teacher, his teacher’s family, and his fellow students. It tells him never to let the sun rise or set while he is asleep (Manusmriti 2.219). It stipulates that he never address his teacher while lying down, being seated, eating, or facing away from him (Manusmriti 2.196-198). He must never occupy a higher seat than his teacher. This didacticism follows a man all his life. Every moment is regulated, even after he finishes his studies and enters the grihasta (householder) stage. There, he must protect his parents, his wife, his family. He must honour guests and perform the five great sacrifices. The ultimate purpose of the shastra is to ensure harmony at home, in society as a unit, and the preservation and transmission of the Vedas.
The severity of Manusmriti
The harshness toward offending males who transgress dharma is completely ignored when Manusmriti is discussed. A quick look at the penances (prayaschittas) for the most heinous crimes demonstrates this. If a Brahmin drinks liquor, his penance is to drink boiling liquor, scalding his body. As an alternative, he may drink boiling cow urine, water, milk, ghee, or watery cow dung until death. (Manusmriti 11.91-92). If a man has sex with an elder’s wife (gurutalpagaamin), he should proclaim his crime, lie down on a heated iron bed, or embrace a red-hot metal cylinder—he is purified by death. Or he may cut off his penis and testicles by himself, hold them in his cupped hands and walk straight toward the southwest until he falls dead.
While focusing on Manusmriti, it may be noted that strictness and severity are features of the dharma shastras. Apastamba Dharmasutra 1.25.11 stipulates that if a non-Brahmin man (even if he is a dvija) kills a Brahmin, he should have his body hair, skin, and flesh offered as a sacrifice into the fire and then throw himself into that fire.
The intention here is not to trot out the usual counter-verses in which Manusmriti honours women and enjoins the husband to respect and protect the wife. Although, if you wish to read them, you will find them in the following portions of the text: 3.60.55-62 and 9.26-29. The intention is to show that Manusmriti is extremely taxing in its requirements of vyavahaara (conduct).
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Atrocities against non-‘dvijas’, women
Most of the difficult duties and penances fall to the lot of men. There are also other considerations, which are never brought to the fore. What about transgressions that attract nearly equal punishment? Manusmriti 8.367 states that if a man arrogantly violates a virgin by force, two of his fingers should be cut off immediately. And verse 8.370 makes clear that if a woman violates a virgin, two of her fingers should be cut off, or her head ought to be shaved, and she should be paraded on a donkey.
Another unexplored aspect is the vitriol reserved exclusively for Manusmriti. Consider the following:
A Brahmin enters the court of Rama, clutching the dead body of his five-year-old son. It is ascertained that some terrible transgression of dharma has taken place for this untimely death to occur in Rama’s realm. Sage Narada gleans that a Shudra is reciting the Vedas. Rama finds the man hanging upside down and indeed reciting the Vedas. He asks him ‘out of curiosity’ (kautuhalaat tvaam prcchaami) who he is. The Shudra truthfully identifies himself, and even as he is speaking, Rama draws his sword and slices his head off. (Valmiki Ramayana 7.64-67).
Here is an instance from another text:
A man should approach a splendid woman at the end of her period and invite her for sex. If she refuses, he should bribe her, and if she still refuses, he should beat her with a stick or his fists and overpower her. (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 6.4.6-7).
Have you ever heard of a ‘book burning’ of an Upanishad or the Ramayana? It is inconceivable.
When atrocities (to the modern mind) against non-dvijas and women appear in revered texts, we are accustomed to turning a blind eye to them. With the Manusmriti, instead, we have developed tunnel vision, focusing only on the sections that oppress selected sections of society rather than taking an all-encompassing view. Ever since that fateful day in 1927, in Mahad, Maharashtra, when BR Ambedkar led the first public burning of the Manusmriti, it has become a lightning rod for conservatives and liberals alike. You may still want to burn the book after reading it, but at least make an informed decision. Read the text in English, Hindi, or any other language. Better yet, why not learn Sanskrit and read the original?
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Translations are guided by:
Bibek Debroy, The Valmiki Ramayana, Vol 3, Translated, 2017, Penguin Books
Robert P Goldman and Sally J Sutherland Goldman, The Ramayana of Valmiki, 2021, Princeton University Press
Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads, Translated & Annotated (Sanskrit and English), 1998, Oxford University Press
Patrick Olivelle, Manu’s Law Code, Critical Edition, (Sanskrit and English), 2005, Oxford University Press
Rohini Bakshi has an MA in Hindu Studies and Sanskrit from SOAS, University of London. She has taught Sanskrit at the SOAS Language Centre and CityLit, London, between 2015 and 2022. Her X handle is @RohiniBakshi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)