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Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c15: Appendix I: Date of the Manu Smṛti with Special Reference to the Tenth Chapter

Śūdras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c15

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Appendix I: Date of the Manu Smṛti with Special Reference to the Tenth Chapter

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The time bracket 200 B.C.—A.D. 200 suggested by Bühler for the *Manu Smṛti* covers a period of four hundred years.¹ Jayaswal substantially delimits this period and ascribes Manu to the period of the brāhmaṇical ‘counterrevolution’ in the age of the Śuṅgas.² But a careful study of the law-book of Nārada (fifth-sixth century) would show that the brāhmaṇas are given equally, if not more, important privileges by that lawgiver. A comparison of some technical terms used in Manu with those found in inscriptions also suggests a late date for this law-book.

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¹ *SBE*, xxv, Introd., pp. CXIV-CXVIII.

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² *Manu and Yājñavalkya*, pp. 25-32; cf. Kane, *Hist. Dh. S.*, ii, p. XI. Ketkar (*History of Caste*, p. 66) argues that the work belongs to A.D. 272-320.

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Although the Yavanas mentioned by Manu and identical with the Indo-Greeks lose their importance in the early centuries of the Christian era this is not true of the Śakas, Pahlavas, and Ābhīras who continue to hold ground in north-western India during that period. Of course inscriptions do not mention the Parthians beyond the first century A.D., but they attest the existence of the Śakas till the end of the fourth century and that of the Ābhīras from the second to the fourth centuries. Curiously enough Manu speaks of a mixed caste called maitra;³ they may be identified with the Maitrakas of Valabhī, who appear in inscriptions in the fifth century although as a tribe they may have existed earlier.

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³ The earliest inscription of the Maitrakas belongs to A.D. 502, but they appear to have been the feudatories of the Guptas in the fifth century.

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Two mixed castes meda and andhra bracketted together in the tenth chapter of Manu⁴ appear in the same form in Pāla inscriptions.⁵ The ambasṭhas, who appear mentioned as a mixed caste in earlier texts, are described by Manu as physicians, a function associated with them in early medieval times.¹ The most striking thing about the tenth chapter of Manu is the sudden jump in the number of mixed castes to over sixty from about twenty in the earlier law-books. Since this is not found in any other smṛti, it makes the tenth chapter of Manu suspect. On the other hand the number of the mixed castes increases in such later texts as the Skanda Purāṇa and the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa. Manu’s number exceeds 100 if we add to it the list of mixed castes given in the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa.² All this might suggest that the tenth chapter of Manu is very late because none of these Purāṇas seem to have existed before *c.* A.D. 700.³

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⁴ X. 49-50.

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⁵ *EI*, iii, no. 36, ll. 5-6, 22-23.

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¹ D. C. Sircar, *Studies in the Society and Administration of Ancient and Medieval India*, i, 107-8.

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² *Brahma Khaṇḍa*, X. 14-136.

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³ R. C. Hazra, *Studies in Purāṇic Records on Hindu Rites and Customs* (2nd edn., Delhi, 1975), pp. 165-67.

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The provision for land gift in the fourth chapter of Manu may suggest its contemporaneity with the Smṛtis and inscriptions of the early Christian centuries. Manu recommends gift of land and points out the merit of granting it,⁴ which is touched on only in some Dharmasūtras. But it is in consonance with the teachings of the Śānti Parvan, of Viṣṇu,⁵ Yājñavalkya⁶ and Bṛhaspati.⁷ We have a section called *bhūmidānapraśamsā* in the Anuśāsana Parvan.⁸ The later text and the Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa⁹ (eighth century) declare the gift of land to be the best of all the gifts. But Manu holds a different view. According to him the gift of the Veda or learning (*brahmadāna*) is superior to all the other gifts including that of land.¹⁰ Manu does not favour the acceptance of land by a brāhmaṇa on the ground that such *pratigraha* destroys the merit of the recipient.¹¹ This obviously points to a situation in which land grants had become the order of the day, and Manu’s model of a puritan brāhmaṇa was in danger of being subverted. But the practice being widespread, Manu reluctantly allows a brāhmaṇa to accept land; provided untilled (*akṛta*) land is preferred to tilled (*kṛta*) land.¹ The epigraphic reference to the faint beginning of land grant can possibly be pushed back to the first century B.C., but clear evidence belongs to the second century A.D. in Maharashtra under the Sātavāhana rulers. However Manu’s law-book was applicable to the Āryāvarta, where we have hardly any instance of land grant in the first two-three centuries of the Christian era. It seems that by the fourth century or so the practice may have become common enough to have invited the attention of Manu. His recommendation regarding acceptance of the uncultivated land reminds us of the grant of *khila* or *aprahata* land to the brāhmaṇa according to the principle of *bhūmicchidranyāya*,² mentioned first in inscriptions of the fifth century. Manu also uses the term *kūṭa-śāsana* in the sense of forged land grant,³ which term is used in the law-books of Gupta times and in a land grant of Harṣavardhana.⁴ All this helps us to fix the lower limits for dating his law-book.

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⁴ IV. 230.

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⁵ *Viṣṇu*, Chs. 91-92, quoted in *SBE*, xxv, 165 fn.

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⁶ I. 210-11.

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⁷ I. 8.

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⁸ *Cr. edn.*, Ch. 61.

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⁹ III. 93.13.

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¹⁰ IV. 233.

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¹¹ IV. 188-89.

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¹ X. 114.

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² CII, iii, no. 31, ll. 7-11, 13.

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³ IX. 232.

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⁴ EI, vii, no. 22, l. 10.

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Although Manu recommends payment of lower class servants in cash or paṇa, he is the first lawgiver to ordain that fiscal and administrative functionaries should be paid by grants of land,⁵ a provision also repeated by Bṛhaspati.⁶ This again reminds us of the situation in which both religious and non-religious services are paid through land grants. Direct epigraphic corroboration of non-religious grants is not available because these were recorded on such perishable material as piece of cloth or the bark of the birch tree, but we have a few instances of land grants to secular parties in the fifth century.⁷ The term *daśagrāmi* used by Kauṭilya and *daśagrāmapati* by Manu¹ is however mentioned first in a Pāla inscription of the ninth century.²

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⁵ VII. 115-20.

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⁶ Quoted in *Vyavahāramayūkha* (tr. P. V. Kane & S. G. Patwardhan), pp. 25-27.

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⁷ *Indian Feudalism*, pp. 13-14.

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¹ VII. 115.

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² *EI*, xxix, no. 13, ll. 28-29; the term used is *daśagrāmika*.

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In his law of inheritance Manu recommends that the *kināśa* or cultivator should go to the eldest son of a brāhmaṇa.³ This would suggest that certain cultivators or cultivating tenants were attached to the family lands, and although division of landed property is not explicitly recommended by Manu, it is difficult to think of cultivators in isolation from the land they tilled. A Pallava Prākṛt copper plate charter of about A.D. 250-350 transfers sharecroppers to a beneficiary along with the land.⁴ The allied provision in Manu therefore may not have been of an earlier date.

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³ IX. 150.

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⁴ *EI*, i, no. 1, l. 39.

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The establishment of a military unit called *gulma* for two to five villages in backward areas appears as a device in Manu.⁵ Its head can be identified as *gulmika* or *gumika* mentioned in a Pallava Prākṛt inscription of the middle of the fourth century A.D.⁶ But *gaulmika* clearly appears in inscriptions of Bihar and Bengal in the fifth century,⁷ and repeatedly in the list of royal officers mentioned in later Chamba, Pāla and Sena grants.⁸

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⁵ VII. 114.

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⁶ *Sel. Inscrr.*, i, Bk. III, no. 65, l. 5; the term *gumika* is used. Sukthankar reads *gāmika* as *gumika* in a Sātavāhana inscription of the first half of the third century A.D. *ibid.*, p. 212, fn. 6.

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⁷ *CII*, iii, no. 12, l. 29.

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⁸ N. G. Majumdar, *Inscriptions of Bengal*, iii (Rajshahi, 1929), 184.

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The divinity of kingship is a distinctive feature of the law-book of Manu, who assigns the attributes of eight gods to the king.⁹ The Kuṣāṇa and Sātavāhana inscriptions introduce the idea of royal divinity,¹⁰ but the Gupta epigraphs provide a more convincing counterpart for the ideas of Manu. The Allahabad inscription of Samudra Gupta, possibly belonging to the middle of the fourth century, compares the king to four gods.¹¹ This suggests that the order of eight gods found in Manu may have developed later. Similarly the term daivata applied by Manu to the brāhmaṇa¹ is applied as paramadaivata to Gupta kings first in the Bengal inscriptions of the fifth century.² All this would indicate a late date for chapters VII, IX and XI of Manu where these ideas occur. On the other hand the term akṣayanidhi used by Manu in the sense of perpetual deposit³ occurs as akṣayanivi in the second century inscriptions⁴ of the Kuṣāṇas and Sātavāhanas and is found later in several land grants.

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⁹ VIII. 4-8.

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¹⁰ *Sel. Inscrr.*, i, Bk. II, nos. 40, 41, 44, etc., cf no. 86.

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¹¹ Line 26.

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¹ IX. 317; XI. 84.

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² Sel. Inscrr., i, Bk. III, nos. 18-19.

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³ VII. 83.

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⁴ Sel. Inscrr., i, Bk. II, no. 49, l. 11; no. 58, l. 1.

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Some indication of the date can be given on the basis of the references to coins in Manu. For various offences Manu prescribes fines in paṇas, and there is no doubt that the age of the Kuṣāṇas and Guptas saw an extensive use of coins. The standard Kuṣāṇa gold coin weighed 144 grains, which seems to be the equivalent of 80 kṛṣṇalas or rattis for a suvarṇa (coin) given in Manu.⁵ But the rate of interest recommended by Manu is higher than the rate in a Nasik inscription of the second century A.D.⁶

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⁵ VIII. 134.

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⁶ VIII. 139-42; Sel. Inscrr., i, Bk. II. no. 58, ll. 1-3.

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In the second century, inscriptions of Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi and Rudradāman emphasise the preservation of varṇas as one of the main royal functions. This aspect is also stressed by Manu, who is very keen on avoiding varṇasaṃkara. All this may point to a date around A.D. 200 for the earlier portions of Manu. But an epigraphic examination of some of the other contents of Manu would place them in the fifth century or even later. We can therefore suggest a revised time bracket, between A.D. 220 and 400. This fits in with the dating of the Śānti Parvan in which some of Manu’s verses exactly occur; it is difficult to say who borrowed from whom. However the tenth chapter, which deals with over five dozen mixed castes, may belong to late Gupta or even post-Gupta times.

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