Manu Samhita: Principle and Implementation
June 4, 2008 - 1:04pm — sita-patiBeing the moderator of this site I get the privilege of promoting my comments to posts. I'd also like to use this as an opportunity to direct your attention to this comments exchange between Krishna-kirti Prabhu [website] and Amara Prabhu [website].
Discussions amongst devotees about how the people in general may be benefited are very auspicious.
Personally I have studied the edition of Manu Samhita pictured here, and also another similar dharma-sastra called the "Yakñavalkya-smrti".
Here's my contribution:
"Manu gave the law known as Manu-samhita, which is full of directions based on varna and asrama concerning how to live as a human being. These are very scientific ways of life, but under the rule of demons like Hiranyakasipu, human society breaks all these systems of law and order and gradually becomes lower and lower. Thus there is no peace in the world. The conclusion is that if we want real peace and order in the human society, we must follow the principles laid down by the Manu-samhita and confirmed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna."
- Srimad Bhagavatam 7.8.48
In this quote Srila Prabhupada makes a distinction between the time, place, and circumstance specific rules in Manu Samhita and the principles that these implement. Smrti-sastra is generated by empowered brahmanas for the specific situation that it addresses.
"We do not want all these rituals. Chanting Hare Krishna is our only business. According to the Manu-samhita you are all mlecchas and yavanas. You cannot touch the Manu-samhita, what to speak of translating it. So if you try to follow the Manu-samhita then you become a mleccha and yavana and your career is finished"
- Letter to Madhusudhana, May 19, 1977
We might take the particular point which Srila Prabhupada has broken out from Manu Samhita (about women not being CEOs) and highlighted in this commentary, as being specifically indicated by his Divine Grace as normative and desirable, and I'm happy to do that.
At the same time, as Madhava Ghosh pointed out [in this comment], the healthy implementation of the normative role of women cannot be separated from implementation of the normative qualification of men. Varnasrama is about qualification, not just birth. You're not a man just because you were born with male genitals. You have to man up and step up to the role.
When Men are Men, Women are Women
As His Holiness Bhakti Vidya Purna Maharaja put it so succinctly: "When men are men, women are women."
That's a simple yet powerful statement with profound implications in terms of both ideal and strategy for implementation.
A lot of problems come when unqualified men demand that roles be respected when qualification is not present. This is the same dynamic that lead the people to reject the varnas at the time of Buddha. Similarly people have rejected traditional gender roles.
Just as both Buddha and Sankara demonstrated at their relative points in the course of social development, we need intelligent readjustment. We have to keep the goal in sight like the pole star ("normative view" in the language of Krishna-kirti prabhu), and work our way back onto the "royal road" of varnasrama (as Srila Prabhupada describes it Bhagavad-gita—the safer path).
There's not much point dogmatically following the same route the road follows when you've stepped off it. We have to negotiate the actual terrain we are on, and make our way simultaneously forward, and back onto the road.
If we want to see traditional gender roles remanifested in a contemporary context, then we need to understand the essence of them, and also understand how their misuse has lead to their abandonment. Then we can create something that is at the one time contemporary, natural, organic, and functional.
First Deserve, then... you don't even have to Demand
From Satsvarupa Goswami's ISKCON in the 70s:
"If we gain political power, will we follow Manu-samhita?
"First gain power, he said. Then yes, Manu-samhita. Actually everything is in the Gita and Bhagavatam in gist. Manu-samhita is based on varnasrama and that is in the Gita, I created the four orders. First we would divide society into orders by quality and work, not birth. Someone made a brahmana would have to act like a brahmana or else he would be punished."
So first gain power. That means become qualified to lead before demanding that others follow.
As the maxim has it: "He who thinks he leads but has no-one following is merely taking a walk".
"Actually the qualified brahmanas are meant to give direction to the kings for proper administration in terms of the scriptures like the Manu-samhita and Dharma-sastras of Parasara. A typical king is the ideal of the people in general, and if the king is pious, religious, chivalrous and munificent, the citizens generally follow him."
- Srimad Bhagavatam 1.9.27
Qualification is a pre-requisite, and then implementation follows naturally. As Prabhupada points out here, if you have the qualification, you don't need to spend so much time arguing with people about how they should follow you, you just spend your time actually leading them. In the words of Srila Prabhupada, "first deserve, then desire".
So a lot of our time might be better spent focusing on our own qualification than railing at people for not following. It's a poor workman who blames his tools, and a poor leader who blames their "followers."
Andy Stanley puts it: "As soon as you blame your followers you've stopped leading".
This is not to devalue the valuable work that is done by thinkers who contemplate normative views and discuss implementation pathways. However, especially for new devotees their initial focus is better directed to the essential practices of bhakti, such as sadhana, study of sastra, and cultivating Vaisnava qualities and relationships.
I've found that if people respect you as a person they naturally respect what you say. When you give them relevant advice on their personal situation they are more likely to follow it. Change begins with us and then goes one person at a time. A brahmana is one who thinks globally (in fact universally, and beyond), and acts locally. He becomes an empowered agent of positive change.
H.H. Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami gave this very insightful and thought-provoking class on the grhasta ashram (married life) when he visited Brisbane a few months ago.
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