The Laws of Manu (Penguin Classics) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

The 1991 Penguin Classics translation of "The Laws of Manu," by Wendy Doniger (thus on the cover; earlier known as Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, and often so listed) and Brian Smith, is one of two relatively recent translations of the text. The other is "The Law Code of Manu: A New Translation," by Patrick Olivelle, in the Oxford World's Classics (2004), which was also published elsewhere with a new critical edition of the Sanskrit original. Olivelle had earlier translated four other, related, works as "Dharmasutras: The Law Codes of Ancient India" (1999), for the same series.

The reader may want to give precedence to Olivelle's newer translation, which has an elaborate commentary offering access to more recent literature. However, the Penguin version is still worth consulting; and I find some sections of it much more readable that Olivelle's version, although the reverse is sometimes true of other passages. Both are annotated (the Penguin with footnotes; there is some overlap with Olivelle's end-notes, but they tend to be complementary), and both have extremely detailed indexes (the Penguin volume's being in rather more legible type). Their introductions take different approaches, but cover much the same territory.

Those already somewhat familiar with the legal literature of ancient India may want to skip to the end for the rest of my comparison of these two to each other, and to an older (1886) translation, which has also been in paperback in recent years; and some general observations on its reputation.

For those unfamiliar with the work, even by reputation, or with the Western study of India:

The "Manavadharmashastra" or "Manusmrti" ("Manu's Dharma-Treatise" or "The Manu-Tradition"), or just "Manu," was revealed to the Western world in 1794 in a translation by Sir William Jones, who had been assigned by the Honorable East India Company to organize the judiciary for some of the vast territories it "managed" under contract to Indian rulers, both Muslim and Hindu. (One of the most strikingly original forms of imperial conquest; producing logical contradictions not resolved until Victoria was proclaimed Empress, and the Company was replaced by direct rule from London, with complications lingering until Independence, and still yielding problems, like the status of Kashmir.)

For some reason, Jones decided to consult the Indians themselves about their laws; particularly the Hindus (or Hindoos, as it would have been written at the time), under the impression that they were, after all, an Ancient and Highly Civilized people, not a gaggle of beastly heathens whose silly ideas could (and should) be disregarded by good Christians.

This required Jones to learn Sanskrit, the language of high culture; which introduced him to the brilliant Sanskrit grammarians, and, as a by-product, to the invention of modern Indology. And also made possible his demonstration of the relationship of Sanskrit to Avestan Persian, to Greek, to Latin, and indeed to most of the languages of Europe. The latter had momentous consequences, both good and bad, particularly when "Aryan" was treated as a biological rather than a linguistic classification.

However, Jones' original, judicial, project went a bit astray. Instead of working with the living legal traditions of different parts of (then) contemporary India, he was directed by his learned teachers to a legal manual, which, he was assured, was regarded with veneration by all good Hindus, and attributed to "the Indian Adam," the Father of Humankind (manava), Manu, himself. (Well, actually to one of the fourteen Manus; but that is another set of stories!)

Also, according to Olivelle, he was shown a local (Calcutta) text, which turns out to be less than reliable. (Deference to a manuscript has been a constant problem with European scholarship; a Brahmin was supposed memorize everything, anyway...) By all accounts, Jones was also greatly impressed by the elaborate traditional commentaries, which supplied ready solutions to problems; too impressed, setting a bad precedent, in some views.

It also didn't seem to have occurred to Jones to ask whether this remarkably comprehensive and well-ordered legal code, so reminiscent of the Code of Justinian, on the one hand, and the Five Books of Moses on the other, and thus familiar in concept, had recently, or indeed EVER, been applied by actual judges in India to real life. (Which was sort of the point of the exercise.)

Apparently it hadn't. And some of the actual familiarity of its contents to traditionally educated Hindus was due, not to pious consultation of "Manu," but to big chunks of it appearing, in virtually identical form, in the Sanskrit epic "Mahabharata." (The literary relationship of these passages is still open to debate.) This is made clear by Doniger and Smith and by Olivelle; although both focus on the work as an example of, and influence, in, the Indian cultural tradition.

In fact British jurisprudence in India seems to have gone its own way, as an ad-hoc mixture of observed customs, "common sense" (meaning what seemed obvious to an educated Englishman), and Common Law; with "Manu" now available for rhetorical flourishes on policy issues, if used at all.

Jones' translation was more influential in shaping educated European views of India, and its caste system; and, somewhat indirectly, to an emerging concept of "race" and "racial purity." It was rapidly translated into other European languages. And, thanks to its success, a variety of later, generally better translations of "Manu" appeared, in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, for several decades the only form readily available in English was the old-fashioned "Sacred Books of the East" version of 1886 by Georg Buehler, which had been reprinted by Dover in 1969.

Besides a rather clumsy English, and a tendency to insert traditional commentaries into the translated text, Buehler's version was marked by the assumption of superiority common to later nineteenth-century Indologists. Apparent contradictions were taken at face value, and held to demonstrate the illogical nature of the Oriental Mind, or sloppy editorial work by a compiler, or both. (This attitude closely resembled, in a particularly raw form, the nineteenth-century German Higher Critical approach to the Bible. It is not true that "the Higher Criticism was actually the Higher Anti-Semitism," but some of its practitioners made no secret of their general disdain for "the Hebrews" and modern Jews alike.)

The Doniger-Smith version was innovative compared to Buehler in that (a) it translated sections as prose paragraphs, instead of offering autonomous sentences, and (b) tried to translate the text as it stood, rather than as explained away by later commentators; their views were cited, not interpolated (even in brackets).

They also assumed that there was a logical coherence to the parts. A general rule followed by a contradiction and then another rule was treated not as a set of blunders, but as sharing the practice of the Sanskrit grammarians. In their works, a general rule is stated as it would be without exceptions, followed when necessary by empirically observed exceptions, and often by a rule to resolve contradictions with other rules. In this light, a "confused" text is shown to be a clear look at complex realities, as well as an exposition of preferred doctrines.

Olivelle's more recent version is quite similar in approach, although he often differs in details. As mentioned, he also translates from a new critical text, not the "received" version, which he claims is based on an atypical and inferior group of manuscripts which happened to be available when the work was first printed, and given undue precedence ever since.

Meanwhile, the association with Jones, and its resulting prominence in Indological literature, has made "The Laws of Manu" available as a target for those who, understandably, still resent British rule, criticizing it either for failing to respect the REAL India, or for showing TOO MUCH respect for traditions now found objectionable. And the translations are convenient targets for those who object to foreigners talking about their culture at all. Fair enough; but, to be consistent, shouldn't they refrain from talking in any detail about those foreigners and THEIR culture?

Doniger is unable to see the context in which Laws of Manu were written. She takes them as representing the ancient laws of India, and that is not true. Indian tradition knows of several competing smritis. Furthermore, community law always held precedence over normative books such as Manu Smriti. She is also overly literal and this causes her to often miss the import of the verses.

The book was supposed to be a translation, but the author has ended up publishing her biases in the garb of presenting it in narrative form. A quick search on the author reveals that she is a controversial character and that Encarta removed her contribution after investigating her scholarship.

As someone interested in learning about Hinduism, I was looking for someone who could just give me the facts instead of a polemicist. The book was a huge disappointment. I wish I had known about Encarta yanking her piece on the grounds of poor scholarship before I embarked on reading her "translation."