MANU, mi'noo, the reputed author of the most renowned law-book of the ancient Hindus, and likewise of an ancient Kalpa work on Vedic rites. It is matter, however, of considerable doubt whether both works belong to the same individual, and whether the name Manu, espe cially in the case of the author of the law-book, was intended to designate a historical person age; for, in several passages of the Vedas (q.v.), as well as the Mahabharata (q.v.), Manu is mentioned as the progenitor of the human race; and, in the first chapter of the law-book ascribed to him, he declares himself to have been pro duced by Viraj, an offspring of the Supreme Being, and to have created all this universe. Hindu mythology knows, moreover, a succes sion of Manus, each of whom created, in his own period, the world anew after it had per ished at the end of a mundane age.
According to theosophy, the Manu is a great Being (though once a man) who governs the earth planet; other Manus govern other planets, while the Logos (q.v.) created the universe. The word Manu is chiefly used with reference to the author of an ancient renowned Hindu lawbook. This work is not merely a law-book in the European sense of the word, it is likewise a system of cosmogony; it propounds metaphys ical doctrines, teaches the art of government, and, among other things, treats of the state of the soul after death. The chief topics of its 12
books are the following: (1) creation, (2) education and the duties of apupil, or the first order ; (3) marriage and the duties of a house holder, or the second order; (4) means of sub sistence and private morals; (5) diet, purifica tion and the duties of women; (6) the duties of an anchorite and an ascetic, or the duties of the third and fourth orders; (7) government and the duties of a king and the military caste; (8) judicature and law, private and criminal; (9) continuation of the former and the duties of the commercial and servile castes; (10) mixed castes and the duties of the castes in time of distress; (11) penance and expiation; (12) transmigration and final beatitude.
Biihler has proved that Max Muller was right in regarding the extant work as a versified recast of an ancient law-book, the manual of a particular Vedic school, the Manavas; and holds that the work, the date of which used to be given at 1200 a.c., was certainly extant in the 2d century A.D., and seems to have been com posed between that date and the 2d century B.0 There are many remarkable correspondences be tween this work and the Mahibharata, suggest ing the use in both of common materials.