Viewed through the lens of contemporary human rights, the Manusmriti in its traditional, literal form stands in deep tension with core principles such as equality, non‑discrimination, and equal protection under law. Its endorsement of a rigid caste hierarchy, unequal social status by birth, and graded rights and duties conflicts with the idea that all human beings possess the same inherent dignity. The text also prescribes different punishments for the same offense depending on caste and social position, which clashes with the modern expectation of equal treatment before the law. Furthermore, the subordination of women, their legal dependence on male guardians, and restrictions on their autonomy and property rights are difficult to reconcile with contemporary commitments to gender equality.

Within the broader Hindu tradition, however, texts like the Manusmriti are classified as smṛti, understood as historically conditioned and therefore revisable, rather than as eternal revelation. This has allowed later dharma texts and commentators to modify, challenge, or set aside portions of Manu’s code, treating it as a product of a particular social context rather than as a timeless legal charter. On this basis, some modern interpreters argue that the discriminatory and harsh elements should be regarded as time‑bound provisions, not binding norms for all ages. They often emphasize instead those portions that stress truthfulness, non‑violence, self‑control, generosity, hospitality, and the protection of the vulnerable.

From this perspective, reconciliation becomes possible only in a qualified and highly selective sense. One path is to treat Manusmriti as a historical document that illuminates an earlier stage of social and legal thought, while explicitly rejecting its hierarchical and exclusionary framework as incompatible with present ethical standards. Another is to engage in creative reinterpretation: reading caste not as a birth‑based legal category but as a typology of psychological or ethical dispositions, and foregrounding the more universal ethical teachings while bracketing or re‑symbolizing the rest. Such approaches, however, effectively transform the text’s original social vision rather than preserve it intact.

What emerges is a layered relationship rather than a simple harmony or outright dismissal. As a comprehensive legal code, Manusmriti cannot be straightforwardly aligned with contemporary human rights without abandoning some of its central social assumptions. Yet as a source of certain moral insights and as part of a living interpretive tradition that recognizes the revisability of smṛti, it can still inspire reflection on duty, responsibility, and ethical conduct. Any spiritually serious engagement today therefore requires both honest acknowledgment of its conflicts with equality and a discerning, critical reading that refuses to sacralize injustice.