Manusmriti, often rendered as the “Laws of Manu,” stands within the Hindu tradition as a central and highly influential dharmaśāstra, a text that seeks to codify dharma—right conduct—in a comprehensive manner. It addresses a wide range of domains: personal behavior, social duties, family life, property and inheritance, and judicial procedure, all framed within the broader spiritual aims of life. In this way, it does not separate law from morality or spirituality, but treats legal norms as expressions of dharma, binding together social order and inner obligation.

As a Smriti text, Manusmriti became a key source for what later came to be called Hindu law, especially when read alongside other dharmaśāstras. Traditional commentators and digest-writers repeatedly turned to it for guidance, and its formulations on marriage, succession, guardianship, and punishment helped shape the classical understanding of legal order. It offers a detailed vision of varṇa and āśrama, prescribing duties and privileges for different social groups and life stages, and thereby articulating an idealized model of social organization that influenced subsequent thought and practice.

Its historical role extends beyond purely religious or philosophical reflection. In earlier periods, it informed legal traditions across Hindu polities, and later it was treated by colonial interpreters as a primary legal code, which amplified its impact on formal legal systems. Through such processes, many of its principles were woven into what came to be known as Hindu personal law, particularly in matters such as marriage, adoption, and inheritance, even as they were reinterpreted and reshaped by later legislation and custom.

At the same time, Manusmriti’s authority has never been absolute or static. Within the traditional hermeneutic framework, it has always been read in conversation with other texts, with regional customs, and with changing social realities, and many of its more rigid or hierarchical prescriptions have been questioned and set aside. In contemporary legal practice it no longer holds binding force, yet it remains a crucial document for understanding how Hindu thought has sought to integrate law, social order, and spiritual duty into a single, though often contested, vision of dharma.