Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Manusmriti and its relevance



People just quote Manu from secondary or tertiary sources..
and many things are quoted out of context too.
Added to this some views which could have been relevant or tolerable during the period when the smrithi evolved but obviously, could not be applied these days..
And Most of us are flaunting our views without even having a simple reading of the text.. running to 2700 or so stanzas with twelve chapters..
The jurisprudence, and the basic framework of social and spiritual ethics developed and propounded in the Manusmriti, even if we remove many part of which would appear to be objectionable for many in their secular avatar, is still a fine and educative work and can be a great guide and reference even now..
But such situation is not unique to Manusmriti..
Any ancient text of the East or the West or anywhere, be is Gita, or Iliad or Odyssey cannot be relevant if they are quoted to explain many items which are unique to modern life but were alien to lifestyles eons back ..
Even Vedas and Upanishads are like that .. They may look out of place in certain contexts

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