Yajnavalkya Smriti

01The rishi of Mithila

The smriti opens with the rishis going to Yajnavalkya, "lord of yogis", in Mithila and asking him the dharmas of the varnas, the ashramas and the rest. This is the same Yajnavalkya who in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad debates at King Janaka's court and teaches Maitreyi. Where Manu runs long, Yajnavalkya is brief and arranged by subject, which is one reason later jurists preferred it.

02The rishi who learned from Surya

Yajnavalkya is the seer of the Shukla Yajurveda. The Vishnu Purana tells how he quarrelled with his guru Vaishampayana, gave back the Yajus he had learned, and then worshipped Surya, who taught him fresh Yajus mantras unknown to anyone else; these became the Vajasaneyi Samhita and the Shatapatha Brahmana. The smriti remembers this itself. Near the end of the third adhyaya Yajnavalkya says that whoever seeks yoga should know "the Aranyaka I received from Aditya" and the yogashastra he taught. The lawgiver, the Upanishadic teacher and the seer of the White Yajus are, for the tradition, one rishi.

03Fourteen sciences, twenty lawgivers

Before a single rule, Yajnavalkya sets out the library. The seats of knowledge and of dharma are fourteen: the four Vedas, their six angas, Purana, Nyaya, Mimamsa and Dharmashastra (1.3). Then come the twenty who taught dharma: Manu, Atri, Vishnu, Harita, Yajnavalkya himself, Ushanas, Angiras, Yama, Apastamba, Samvarta, Katyayana, Brihaspati, Parashara, Vyasa, Shankha, Likhita, Daksha, Gautama, Shatatapa and Vasishtha. Pandits still quote this list when they speak of "the smritis". The roots of dharma follow, as in Manu, with one addition: the desire born of a right resolve. And then the line that frames the whole book: of all dharma, the highest is to see the Self through yoga (1.8).

04A child's samskaras, month by month

The Achara Adhyaya gives the household calendar in a few tight verses. Garbhadhana in season, pumsavana before the child stirs, simantonnayana in the sixth or eighth month, jatakarma at birth. The name is given on the eleventh day. In the fourth month the baby is carried out to see the sun, in the sixth it is fed its first rice, and the chuda, the first cutting of hair, is done as the family's custom decides. Purohits fixing a naming day still count from these verses. The same adhyaya covers the brahmachari, marriage, the householder's day, food, gifts, shraddha and the duties of the king.

05Copper plates and courtrooms

When a king grants land, says Yajnavalkya, let him have it written on cloth or on a copper plate, marked with his seal, naming his ancestors and himself, the extent of the gift and its boundaries, signed in his own hand and dated (1.319–320). Thousands of such tamrapatras survive across India, and they read as if their scribes had this verse open. The Vyavahara Adhyaya then sets up the court: the king hears suits with learned brahmanas, free of anger and greed. Proof is of three kinds, documents, possession and witnesses, and only when none is available is an ordeal (divya) used (2.22). Where two smritis conflict, reasoning decides.

06The Mitakshara

Vijnaneshvara wrote the Mitakshara at Kalyani in the court of the Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI, in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. On inheritance it holds that a son acquires a share in ancestral property by birth. Under British rule the courts applied the Mitakshara across most of India, while Bengal followed Jimutavahana's Dayabhaga. The Hindu Succession Act of 1956 still speaks of the "Mitakshara coparcenary", and its 2005 amendment made daughters coparceners by birth.

07Four commentators

Vishvarupa's Balakrida is the oldest commentary to survive. Vijnaneshvara's Mitakshara came next and eclipsed every other; its name means "of measured syllables", and it is less a gloss than a full digest of Dharmashastra hung on Yajnavalkya's verses. Apararka, the Shilahara king Aparaditya of the Konkan, wrote a large commentary in the twelfth century that was respected in Kashmir as well. In Bengal Shulapani wrote the Dipakalika. The Mitakshara drew commentaries of its own, Vishveshvara's Subodhini and Balambhatta's gloss among them, and H. T. Colebrooke's 1810 translation of its inheritance chapter put it in the hands of every judge in British India.

08Yoga in a lawbook

The third adhyaya does not end with penance. It turns to yati dharma and to adhyatma: the body, the Self, rebirth and how the yogi reaches liberation. A smriti that sets the rules for a boundary dispute also teaches meditation on the Self, which is how the Dharmashastras saw a householder's life, as one road with liberation at its end. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajnavalkya himself divides his property between his wives and leaves home for the forest.

09The lamp in the heart

The adhyatma chapter is short and practical. Withdraw mind, intellect, memory and senses from every other object, says Yajnavalkya, and meditate on the Self that dwells in the heart like a lamp (3.111). He describes the channels of the body and the moon-bright circle at their centre where the Self rests, still as a lamp's flame; whoever knows it is not born again. A householder who has read the earlier chapters on debts and boundaries arrives here, at the end, at the same teaching Yajnavalkya gave Maitreyi in the Upanishad. The smriti closes with the rishis praising the fruit of its study, and Yajnavalkya, bowing to Svayambhu, answering "evam astu", so be it.

What it contains

1. 1
   Achara Adhyaya आचाराध्यायः

   The samskaras, the student, marriage, the householder's day, food, gifts, shraddha, and the duties of the king. It opens with the fourteen vidyas and the twenty lawgivers, and its section on rajadharma ends with the rules for land grants on copper plates. About 368 shlokas.

2. 2
   Vyavahara Adhyaya व्यवहाराध्यायः

   Courts, evidence, debts, partition and inheritance, boundaries, and offences. It is the book of procedure: the plaint, the reply, documents, witnesses and ordeals. Through the Mitakshara it became the working law of inheritance for most of India. About 307 shlokas.

3. 3
   Prayashchitta Adhyaya प्रायश्चित्ताध्यायः

   Impurity after birth and death, conduct in distress, the vanaprastha and the yati, the Self and liberation, and penances. The adhyatma section on meditation sits in its middle, before the long list of prayashchittas. About 335 shlokas.

Famous verses

पुराणन्यायमीमांसाधर्मशास्त्राङ्गमिश्रिताः । वेदाः स्थानानि विद्यानां धर्मस्य च चतुर्दश ॥

The Vedas, together with the Puranas, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Dharmashastra and the angas, are the fourteen seats of knowledge and of dharma.Yajnavalkya Smriti 1.3

इज्याचारदमाहिंसादानस्वाध्यायकर्मणाम् । अयं तु परमो धर्मो यद्योगेनात्मदर्शनम् ॥

Of all the duties, worship, right conduct, self-restraint, non-violence, giving and the study of the Veda, this is the highest dharma: to see the Self through yoga.Yajnavalkya Smriti 1.8

प्रमाणं लिखितं भुक्तिः साक्षिणश्चेति कीर्तितम् । एषामन्यतमाभावे दिव्यान्यतममुच्यते ॥

Documents, possession and witnesses are declared to be the means of proof; when none of these is available, one of the ordeals is prescribed.Yajnavalkya Smriti 2.22

ज्ञेयं चारण्यकमहं यदादित्यादवाप्तवान् । योगशास्त्रं च मत्प्रोक्तं ज्ञेयं योगमभीप्सता ॥

One who seeks yoga should know the Aranyaka that I received from Aditya, and the yogashastra that I have taught.Yajnavalkya Smriti 3.110