Modern scholars tend to approach the Manusmriti as a layered, composite work rather than a single, unified law code issued at one moment in time. The core of the text is generally placed within a broad early historical window, and its language, style, and internal tensions suggest that multiple hands and redactors shaped it over an extended period. The figure of “Manu” is understood more as a symbolic lawgiver and progenitor, a bearer of authority in the tradition, than as a demonstrable historical author. This attribution functions as a seal of legitimacy within the Dharmaśāstra milieu, much like other texts ascribed to revered sages.

From this vantage point, the Manusmriti is read primarily as a normative document, articulating what certain Brahmanical circles thought should be the social and moral order, rather than as a straightforward record of what actually occurred in daily life. Epigraphical evidence, local customs, and legal practices often diverge from its prescriptions, indicating that it was one influential voice among many, not a universally enforced legal code. Its strong emphasis on varṇa hierarchy and on regulating the conduct of women and lower social groups is seen as revealing the interests and ideals of particular elites more than a consensus of the broader society. In this sense, the text becomes a mirror of aspiration and ideology rather than a simple window onto historical reality.

Manuscript study further reinforces this picture of a text in motion. Surviving manuscripts differ in verse counts and readings, pointing to a long history of interpolation, omission, and regional editorial activity. The absence of a single, stable “original” version, combined with passages that appear to contradict one another, suggests that the Manusmriti evolved as it was transmitted, commented upon, and adapted. Critical editions attempt to reconstruct a plausible earlier core, yet the very need for such reconstruction underscores the fluidity of the tradition.

Within the broader Dharmaśāstra corpus, the Manusmriti is seen as both formative and contested. It builds upon earlier Dharmasūtras and participates in an ongoing conversation with other Dharmaśāstras, some of which modify or reject its rulings. Later jurists and commentators cite it with respect but also with selectivity, balancing its authority against other texts and against local ācāra. For the spiritual seeker, this scholarly view invites a more nuanced engagement: the Manusmriti can be approached as a historically valuable record of Brahmanical thought and social imagination, while recognizing that its “authenticity” lies less in being a fixed, universal law and more in revealing the evolving ideals and tensions of the tradition that preserved it.