(‘Chatuh Shloki Manusmriti: An English Commentary’ by Nithin Sridhar is a pioneering attempt to bring the traditional Sanskrit ṭīkā style into English commentary. Focusing on four key verses that encapsulate the Manusmṛti’s foundational ideas, Sridhar addresses questions of authorship, coherence, and dharma’s contextual application. Drawing from śāstra traditions, he presents the text as a unified ethical vision rather than a fragmented relic. The foreword by Dr. Bharat Gupt—Padma Sri Awardee and renowned cultural theorist—situates the work in the larger context of Indian intellectual traditions and defends its relevance against modern misreadings.
Nithin Sridhar, a Mysuru-based author and scholar of Hindu thought, is the Director of the INDICA Center for Moksha Studies. Known for his accessible yet rooted style, he has written widely on Vedānta, dharma, and temple traditions, seeking to reintroduce classical frameworks into contemporary discourse.)
Foreword
This is a remarkable work that sets out to make observations in English in the traditional vyākhyā/ṭīkā style followed in Sanskrit writing for many centuries in India. Besides reflecting a respect for tradition, this sort of commentary is best suited for analysing the whole of the text synchronically along with the scholarship available on it so far.
Nithin Sridhar begins with discussing the problems of the origination, transmission, and authorship of Manusmṛti. He then moves to the three issues which have been wrangled upon too often: 1. Is the text a patchwork or a careful construction? 2. Place and function of smṛtis and dharmaśāstra in Hindu worldview 3. Decoding Manusmṛti: Some pointers to make sense of dharmasastra texts.
Needless to say, all these questions and the many debates about the authorship and validity of the textual recensions are initiated by Western scholarship, conditioned by their familiarity with Greek, Roman, and medieval European texts. In these texts, the author of a given text is usually a single person. He is often locatable in a known time, span and region. It is the individualised nature of the text that reflects the mind of a known person. The author, thus, may belong to a school of philosophical thought or be a known disciple of an earlier master, but nevertheless he is a distinct individual and thus a recognised historical figure.
In contrast to the authors of the classical Greco-Roman and medieval Christian traditions, the texts of ancient India emanate, not from an individual author but from śāstra traditions. In India, it was not the person or the individual scholar but an area of knowledge or a discipline (śāstra or lakṣaṇagrantha) which was important and in which the individual author located himself. He was not aiming to announce some fresh and distinct observations in the area of study but was merely offering a variation of information on a body of scholarship (in a specific area such as medicine, theatre, poetics, sexuality and so on) that had been ongoing for a long time. Hence, whereas the Nicomachean Ethics is a personal vision of Aristotle on ethical issues, the Manusmṛti is the product of a school of scholars trained in preserving a tradition or saṃpradāya of ethics. Whereas Aristotle wished to be original and distinct from others in his vision, the śāstrakāras of Manusmṛti only wished to further embellish a tradition. Whereas Aristotle was concerned with analysing, defining and prescribing eudaimonia or how to achieve uninterrupted happiness, the Indian codifiers were largely descriptive of how people had evolved patterns of ethical behaviour, and how these norms alter as time passes.
While the authorial voice of the śāstrakāras was constantly upholding the eternal principles of dharma or ṛta, it was shown to be achieved through a moral conduct or ācāra which was an evolving and diverse process to be followed according to the needs of a specific time, place, and person. Where the moral codes of the Bible, Quran or Hadith are stuck in a time frame and do not provide for modification that can be justifiably adopted with changing environment, the Smṛti principles of varṇa and āśrama though based on unchanging principles/siddhāntas, uphold the view that conduct/ācāra under these very siddhāntas will vary according to place/deśa and times/kāla. The force of time and place/region or loka was so powerful that so many rules of conduct followed in specific regions and given the name of lokācāra were allowed to set aside the conduct as described in the Smṛtis and called śāstrācāra.
Nithin Sridhar thus reconciles many seeming anomalies that plague a modern investigator of Manusmṛti about multiple authorship and contradictions in the content of verses as found in the different recensions. He shows that a tradition of a particular śāstra over time does not mean random collection of ideas but a unified vision which upholds some well-defined ideals. Assuming that even if there were later contributors, these contributors did not make random additions suiting their whims but in accordance with the main thrust of the dharmaśāstras and Manu in particular. Nithin Sridhar has given in detail his reasons for believing that the main recension in which Manusmṛti was preserved belonged to the Bhṛgu tradition/saṃpradāya. Thus, it is this unified vision of Manu that needs to be deciphered and it is to be seen how it served the four aims/puruṣārthas. Modern Indians, under a pseudo-reformist zeal have fallen shy of doing this. A traditional format commentary will help to get over this modern syndrome.
Nithin Sridhar has also pointed out very ably the comprehensive nature of the text. Most discussions on smṛtis in general and Manusmṛti in particular keep harping on the hierarchy of varṇas as foundation of discrimination and inequality. The Euro notions of equality, liberty and fraternity as envisaged in post-industrial societies have made the ancient world of Hindus look like a monument of Brahminical tyranny over all other sections of society. As a result, apart from the sections on varṇa, all the other sections of Manusmṛti that begin with cosmology and go on to establish the concepts of karma, dharma, pañcamahāyajña/five obligations of an individual, four āśramas/stages of life, dispensation of justice, rules of inheritance and governance, marriage and household duties, renunciation and self-realisation/ātmatuṣṭi as instruments of making Hindu life meaningful are seen as not even worthy of a cursory glance, let alone any serious discussion.
While the present work has given a commentary on the first four verses of Manusmṛti, the discussion on nearly all the fundamental notions in all the twelve chapters is made through the defining and analysing of each and every word of the four ślokas. The four ślokas not only happen to contain the essential definitional terms, but they are part of a plan—writing such verses at the outset that would introduce the cardinal terms. This was the methodology of śāstras and also of the commentators and no less of the able teachers who taught these śāstras to their worthy disciples. Those few who have studied these texts in the traditional system from an authentic guru would be able to recognise this method.
Thus, that this work for sure will promote a deep understanding of Manusmṛti is a safe guess.
About the Book
Book: Chatuh Shloki Manusmriti: An English Commentary
Author: Nithin Sridhar, Director, INDICA Moksha
Year of Publication: 2025
Publisher: Vitasta Publishing
Available on Amazon, Padhega India, Hindu Eshop, and other booksellers.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author. Indic Today is neither responsible nor liable for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in the article.
