Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c9.s1.5

c9.s1.5

The exact dates of Smṛtis cannot be ascertained. Their origin perplexed even some ancient writers. For instance, Kumārila Bhaṭṭa in his Tantra Vārtika remarks that owing to the scattering of Śākhās, human error or carelessness and the variety of topics, the beginnings of Smṛtis could not be traced. Modern scholars at first assigned very ancient dates to these compositions. Sir William Jones, for instance, referred Manu to 1200 B.C. Later, some scholars brought it down to the twelfth or thirteenth century A.D. It is now generally accepted that the Smṛtis assumed their present shape sometime in the first millenium of the Christian era. Bhāndārkar placed them in the Kuṣān-Gupta period, or, between the middle of the third and the end of the fifth century A.D.² Hopkins refers Viṣṇu to the third, Yājñavalkya to the fourth and Nārada to the fifth century, while he would place Manu at the commencement of or even before the Christian era.³ Jolly thinks that Manusmṛti cannot be later than the second or third century A.D. while Viṣṇu cannot be earlier than the third. He would place Yājñavalkya in the fourth and Nārada about the commencement of the sixth century, while Bṛhaspati and Kātyāyana are referred to the sixth or seventh century A.D. It must be remembered, however, that all these texts have suffered from later interpolations. Yājñavalkya, for instance, bears clear traces of the influence of the seventh century which have led Śrīśa Chandra Basu to declare that century to be his upper limit.