THE MANU SMRITI.

  Manu Smriti

 

A day in the life of Brahma is divided into 14  Manvantara, each of which lasts 71 Maha Yug i.e. 306,720,000 years. In every secondary cycle the world is recreated, and a new Manu appears to become the father of the next human race. The present age is considered the seventh Manu cycle. Each Maha Yug is 43 20 000 years.

The First Vaivaswata Manu,Satyavrita and wife Shatrupa had ten sons and a daughter Ela.  He is the author of  the Manu-Smrti. He is the first king, In the great flood, the Matsya Purana recounts how he was warned by the Holy Fish, to whom he had done a kindness, that a flood would destroy the whole of humanity.

In the Mahabharata, the Holy Fish is identified with the Lord Brahma, while in the Puranas, it is Matsya, the first incarnation of the lord Vishnu on this Earth.

He therefore built a boat, when the flood came, he tied this boat to the Holy Fish and the holy snake Vasuki as the rope and  was safely steered to a resting place on the Malaya mountaintop. When the flood receded, Manu, the sole human survivor, performed a sacrifice, pouring oblations of butter and sour milk into the waters. After a year there was born from the waters Lady Shutrupa.  These two then became the ancestors of a new human race to replenish the earth.

Manu-smrti  is officially known as Manava-dharma-shastra. It is attributed to the First Man and lawgiver, Manu.

The Manu-Smrti prescribes Dharma, that set of obligations incumbent on him as a member of one of the four Varnas and engaged in one of the four Ashramas. It contains 12 chapters of stanzas, which total 2,694. It deals with cosmogony, the definition of the dharma, the sacraments samskaras, initiation upanayana and study of the Veda, marriage, hospitality, obsequies, dietary restrictions, pollution and means of purification, the conduct of women and wives, and the law of kings.

The last leads to a consideration of matters of juridical interest, divided under 18 headings, after which the text returns to religious topics, such as donations, rites of reparation, the doctrine of karman, the soul, and hell. The text makes no categorical distinction between religious law and practices and secular law in its treatment. Its influence has been monumental, and it has provided to us all with a system of practical morality.

(to be continued)