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 Manusmṛiti (मनुस्मृति), also spelled as Manusmruti, is an ancient legal text among the many Dharmaśāstras of Hinduism. It was one of the first Sanskrit texts to have been translated into English in 1794, by Sir William Jones, and was used to formulate the Hindu law by the British colonial government.

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 this 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.

The metrical text is in Sanskrit, is variously dated to be from the 2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE, and it presents itself as a discourse given by Manu Maharaj (Svayambhuva) and Bhrigu on dharma topics such as duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues, and others. The text's fame spread outside India, long before the colonial era. The medieval era Buddhistic law of Myanmar and Thailand are also ascribed to Manu, and the text influenced past Hindu kingdoms in Cambodia and Indonesia.

Structure

The modern version of the text has been subdivided into twelve Adhyayas (chapters), but the original text had no such division. The text covers different topics and is unique among ancient Indian texts in using “transitional verses” to mark the end of one subject and the start of the next. The text can be broadly divided into four, each of different lengths. and each further divided into subsections:

1. Creation of the world
2. Source of dharma
3. The dharma of the four social classes
4. Law of karma, rebirth and final liberation

The text is composed in metric Shlokas (verses), in the form of a dialogue between an exalted teacher and disciples who are eager to learn about the various aspects of dharma. The first 58 verses are attributed by the text to Manu, while the remaining more than two thousand verses are attributed to his student Bhrigu. Olivelle lists the subsections as follows:

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BOOK NAME - MANUSMRITI

WRITER - MANU

TYPE - DHARMASHASTRA

USED AS - HINDU LAW BOOK DURING BRITISH RULE 

TIME PERIOD - 2ND TO 3RD CENTURY BCE