LIBERATING-43

{ Friends ! As you must have noticed my treatment is not straight but discursive. There was no other method to deal with glorified servitude prevalent among the better informed, better placed, highly demanded equally opportunistic intelligentsia in nations which had earlier their vested interest in keeping us under subjugation. They had not a good, but yet favourable opinion about those whose minds were shaped by them in their endeavour to perpetuate slavery even after the shackles were removed. They are on record to have said that Asiatics are born slaves. This may not be true but it applied to the high profile opportunist sections of our society. They enjoy the power and pose a threat to national self respect including national security. One has to be polymath and discursive to deal effectively with them under compulsion.

At the outset I had opted for dialogical approach to raise and discuss contrary views and ancillary issues. That to me appears to be the best way of dealing with such a multidimensional issue but had a hitch that it lapses into mannerisms which I dislike. The change in style leaves some of the aspects sidelined and ther treatment becomes one dimensional. For example I promised to compare almost verbatim repetitions of Indian ideas in the Bible without discussing the most controversial book MANUSMRITI which occasionally has been mistaken as a religious scripture by some otherwise brilliant brains. We must delve deeper into the subject to assess its authenticity as well as its value as a law book.}

MANUSMRITI

Of all the law books why was only this given prominence? It may be accidental let us suppose. Muslim law books were there, England had neither a law book nor a constitution, it followed convention that worked well. For civil grievances to redress the complaints of Hindus a code book of their own was required. Tarkpanchanan, a brilliant and legendary scholar who had enjoyed the patronage of Raja Nand Kumar, the Navab of Murshidabad and fabulously granted landed property, vehicles of all sorts to be cherished by anyone at that time, more than once by his patrons and lived in a stately grandeur, had written a book based on the MANUSMRITI perhaps on the demand of the Navab of Murshidabad that passed into the hands of Company officials. They called it Gentoo Laws, a derogatory name once you know that jantu ( जन्तु) was written as Gentoo by Englishmen. It was this book which was published by the Company privately but slipped into private hands and published for general readers soon after. It was this book that Stuart Mills refers to in his History of British India. We do not know the points of deviation if any from the Manusmriti, as we have not seen it.

When William Jones decided to get an authoritative version he employed the same Jagannath Tarkapanchanan on a fabulous fee of Re 3000 a month, i.e 36000 a year, while the Englishman who had translated Muslim law book from Persian got the maximum to a British scholar Re 2000 per month, say two thirds of the fee paid to the assistant of William Jones. The copy of the MANUSMRITI relied upon was also from a Bengali scholar kulluk Bhatt.

We have no information regarding any interpolation made by Tarkapanchanan nor his personal demeanor raises suspicions, not even the fabulous fee paid as he was in a position to bargain undermining his British rivals. He composed verses in Sanskrit with due command and was capable of inserting at will if he chose or was invited to do that. But that is nowhere near an evidence.

One thing of course is certain, authenticity of this version has been challenged by competent authorities.”Over fifty manuscripts of the Manusmriti are now known, but the earliest discovered, most translated and presumed authentic version since the 18th century has been the ‘Calcutta manuscript with Kulluka Bhatta commentary’. Modern scholarship states that its presumed authenticity is false, and the various manuscripts of Manusmriti discovered in India are inconsistent with each other, and within themselves, raising concerns of its authenticity, insertions and interpolations made into the text in later times.”(Wikipedia)

The most controversial of it’s provisions are those pertaining to the Shudras that agitated even as balanced a thinker as Dr. Ambedkar, who burnt a copy of it. We, examining the controversial version, find there was definitely an interpolation in this regard, because the text suffered from contradictions. How could the same book provide that a Brahmin should not refuse food from the hands of Shudras while out on begging spree:आर्धिक: कुलमित्रं च गोपालो दास नापित:, एते शूद्रेषु भोज्यान्ना यश्चात्मानं निवेदयेत। ४.२५३

Sanctions imposed on free movement of women of any age without an escort had again been made an issue by feminists gone berserk. We do not know how many societies are even to day safe for women to move freely with police presence, light arrangement, means of transport so improved.

There are provisions more favourable to a shudra vis a vis a Brahmin in matters of similar offence.

But we do not consider it a book for today nor evaluate it thus. We must see the time and find any book in any other society parallel or even approximately close to it. There in none.