The Laws of Manu (Penguin Classics)

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Summary: In the tradition of Colonial Ethnography
Review: It is arguable that Manu Smriti is a text that is as important as it is claimed by this author. The Manu Smriti is virtually unknown in Southern India (Traditional Vedic Hinduism survived virtually intact here) and definitely not considered an integral part of Vedic Learning. The claim that Manu Smriti defines Hindu Moral law is absurd since each region and sect of Hindus have their own Smritis and traditions. The true moral code accepted by all Hindus is in the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana.
An earlier reviewer above seems to be under the impression that Women were "purposefully left uneducated" in India - this is a simple case of absolute ignorance of Indian history and total acceptance of the British Colonialist misrepresentation. This book is truly in the tradition of condescending colonial interpretation of Indian history and society which denies India a history, it's people a consciousness and projects the entire history of India through the narrow prism of Colonial and Jesuit misrepresentation. These Indologists have done enough damage to India in colonial times by projecting literature that suited their purposes as the soul of India. It is sad that this tradition survives to this day.

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Summary: Author does not know of manusmriti's(non)importance in India
Review: Manusmriti is not the ancient Indian lawbook as this claims it to be. It is just one of many smriti's written. This was popularised by the british who wanted to impose one single law ove India where none existed. And, so they could claim that they ruled India using Indian laws. In India community law is always more important then manusmriti or any of the other number of smritis. To assume that manusmriti is The ancient lawbook of India would be a folly.

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Summary: A major disappointment
Review: The book was supposed to be a translation, but the author has ended up publishing her biases in the garb of presenting it in narrative form. A quick search on the author reveals that she is a controversial character and that Encarta removed her contribution after investigating her scholarship.

As someone interested in learning about Hinduism, I was looking for someone who could just give me the facts instead of a polemicist. The book was a huge disappointment. I wish I had known about Encarta yanking her piece on the grounds of poor scholarship before I embarked on reading her "translation."

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Summary: Deeply flawed
Review: The shortcomings of Doniger's general Indological scholarship have been detailed by Michael Witzel and Rajiv Malhotra. This book suffers from the same flaws. The translations are idiosyncratic, and she is obsessed with finding sex, even in situations that none is called for.

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Summary: Poor translation
Review: Wendy Doniger has done a disservice to an important Hindu work. She has misinterpreted the work in important passages.

Poor showing Wendy!

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Summary: second rate work passed off as research
Review: Wendy doniger has recently received a lot of flak for her so called "research". For the past 2 decades she virtually ruled the field of indology unchallenged. With the emergence of a new set of Indian scholars who have disputed the various premises of her work, Doniger has been caught o the back foot. An obessive desire to interpret virtually every fable or fact of hinduism using freud's psyco-analytical theories brings to light truely ridiculous conclusions. It is a well known fact that the Manu-smriti is not the final say of indian laws and opinions. People who do not know the difference between strutis and smritis should not have the arrogance to project hinduism in less than factual ways. For authoritative studies on indology read books by carl jung and Rajiv Malhotra. Doniger's books will only satisfy your appetite for tabloidy scandalous reports on hinduism.

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Summary: Authoritative translation
Review: Wendy Doniger is the doyenne of Indology today, and her translations of, and commentaries on, ancient Hindu texts testify to this. This translation is lucid and, given its subject matter, timely, displaying as it does both poetry and a variety of chauvinism that, sadly, Hindutva demagogues like to glorify (as some of the reviewers here are attempting to do).

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Summary: Fairly good translation of Vedic Law
Review: Wendy Doniger's translation of the Hindu Moral Law is fairly lucid and readable. The Manu Smriti maybe only one of the Smritis in the Hindu tradition, but it is the primary Smriti accepted as the authoritative text on Dharma within the Hindu canon. In the ancient Indian social and cultural structure, the Laws of Manu constitute the Vaidika Dharma, applicable to those enfolded within the way of the Vedas. While this may not encompass the entirity of the habitants of ancient India, there is no justifiable reason to belittle the importance of the Laws of Manu, as has been done by the previous reviewers here. Their reviews betray a lack of knowledge of the structure of Hindu society, and appear to be biased. The Manu Smriti is traditionally accepted as one of the supplementary arms of the Vedas.

Doniger's translation is refreshingly objective. It is remarkably free of Western bias that one often finds in works by Western authors on Indian texts. It is also free of the bias introduced by apologetic Indians, and other modern Indians trying to appear politically correct in an age of humanistic leanings.

There are many things in the Laws of Manu that a modern reader would find revolting; but there are many things too that are as timeless as they were during the time it was written, especially the openess in the applicability of Law depending on situational, cultural and historical contingencies. Whatever may be one's opinion on these matters, Doniger has given us a narrative translation of a book that is as important to us today as the Upanishads are if we are to understand ancient Indian culture in its totality. The Manu Smriti also gives us the four-fold structure of Hindu "classes", the "Varnas", which have been the object of much malignment in recent times. But it would be interesting to study this living phenomenon in comparision to that ideal Republic posited by Plato. Here, in Doniger's translation, one may find information on this singularly unique "experiment" in human civililazation, on this unique structure of a human society, with which was bound intimately the Law of Manu.

I wish Doniger had used the original Sanskrit terms for "Brahmin" and "Kshatriya" and other classes instead of the English "priest" and "warrior". The "priest" at best evokes an imperfect and partial meaning of the word "Brahmin" -- the Brahmin, in ancient Hindu India, was also the custodian of the timeless "Logos" of God through the purity of Vedic chanting, of Hindu metaphysics and culture, and of the Vedic Law.

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Summary: Authoritative translation
Review: What an irony it is that a woman has translated the Law of Manu, one of history's most oppressively patriarchal works. In this religious system, women were forbidden to study the Vedas, and were purposely left uneducated, until Hanna Marshmann began girls' schools in Bengal in the early 1800s.
Had the original writers of the Law of Manu known that one day a woman would translate it, they would have had strokes and fits.
By translating this work, Doniger has, in a way, subverted patriarchy. Below is just one of many female-bashing texts in the Law of Manu (taken from an earlier translation):

9: 17. When creating them, Manu allotted to women a love of their bed, of their seat and of ornament, impure desires, wrath,
dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct.