---
type: Reference
title: "Manusmṛti (Mānava Dharmaśāstra)"
description: "The most cited Dharmaśāstra; a primary source for ācāra (1.108, conduct as the highest dharma), the sources of dharma, and the duties of station and stage."
darshana:
  - Dharmaśāstra
  - pan-dharmic (sādhāraṇa-dharma)
tags:
  - primary-source
  - dharmashastra
  - smriti
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Manusmṛti (Mānava Dharmaśāstra)

## What It Is

The best known of the Dharmaśāstra texts, a verse treatise on dharma covering conduct, duty, law, and the ordering of life by stage (āśrama) and station. It enumerates the sources of dharma (2.6, 2.12: Veda, smṛti, the conduct of the good, and the satisfaction of one's own conscience) and famously elevates ācāra, right conduct, to the rank of highest dharma (1.108). It treats giving (dāna), purification (śauca), the duties of the student stage, and much of the social-ethical vocabulary this bundle draws on.

## Why It Matters Here

A primary source for ācāra and dāna, and a supporting witness for asteya, brahmacharya (the āśrama), saucha, and svadharma. Cited with the bundle's own guardrail in view: ācāra is honored as sadācāra, the conduct of the good measured against the universal dharma, never as a warrant for inherited injustice. Where Dharmaśāstra prescriptions conflict with the universal yamas, the bundle subordinates custom to the universal, as the tradition's own appeal to viveka requires.
