This question has taken lot of space in Hindu Dharmic discussions. Some people accept and assign equal importance to Manu Smriti, accepting it at par with other Religious (Dharmic) texts, and yet some even accord it a much greater importance.
Manu Smriti accepts caste system and even indirectly, and, some say directly blesses it.
It also tries to provide rules for Sanatan Dharm, where none exists.
Sanatan Dharm (SD) is the only religion of the world which does not bind society following it with rules. Instead, in SD, existing societies, depending on information, growth and development, frame its own civic code.
Remember: VEDAS are KNOWLEDGE TO LIVE IN CIVIL SOCIETY and NOT RULES.
Some examples would help:
1. Chanakya was the First Indian who advocated, worked for Bharat and made serious efforts to gather people under the patriotic banner of Bharat Rashtra(nationalism). He did make lot of progress in this venture, and installed Chandragupta on Magadha Throne. Before that no such efforts were made. All Kingdoms were of Hindus, following Sanatan Dharm(SD), but none thought of Nationalism. Since there are no rules in SD, Chanakya could manage to succeed, though with lot of resistance from people and religious persons in power, and even established this Dharm for all future Dharm Gurus.
Compare this with what happened in France, more recently. Joan of Arc talked of Nationalism, and motivated French people to fight British people who were occupying their territory; and what happened? The whole church united and ORDAINED that Joan of Arc is a Witch, and should be burnt alive, and she was burnt alive. This happens in a rule based religion, Christianity. True later on they made changes and even conferred her with Sainthood, but that is different.
2. Post Chanakya; because Chanakya nationalism left little room for exploitation, it was NOT followed by successive generations, and if we look at the history of recent past 1000 years when we were slaves, we can easily see every kingdom has had a Raj Guru, yet because of selfish interest, the spirit of nationalism was NEVER revived. Divided, we were swallowed up earlier by Muslim invaders, and later by British company, not even representing a country. Once again flexibility and lack of rule allowed this to happen.
So we have had both negative and positive effect of ‘lack of rules’ in SD. Though in all fairness, lack of rules requires a centralized committee of experts to monitor things, which was called Sapt Rishi Committee, but which had been dumped and forgotten long back.
Now back to the subject. What exactly is the meaning of Smriti? Why it was NOT called Manu’s Rules for followers of Sanatan Dharm?
These two questions require serious discussion and answers.
Smriti is a Sanskrit word meaning memories, jotted down, more so like a diary. And since history tells us that Manu (a different one every time) was in charge of ships that sailed over water for thousands or more years, as and when earth recharged itself and nature enforced correction, which correction, otherwise should have been made by humans, we can straight away make a fairly accurate guess that these were rules framed over a long period of time during their passage over sea at a very difficult period of history.
Perhaps these rules, or Smriti started with punishment given to offenders, where punishment ensured that work required for existence continued. These were noted down in log books of various ships and later compiled into text which could be used as rules during the then desperate times. Since people from all over the world following different belief were there, they was NO WAY that it could be classified as Dharm, or religious text. So to that extent, honesty prevailed, and it was called Smriti. [Smriti started with punishment given to offenders, which ensured that work required for existence continued. These were noted down in log books and used as rules during the then desperate times]
Why was the Smriti not dumped as soon as the voyage ended? The answer is simple. The caste system had already classified humans into four different groups, for carrying out work, as required for a civil society, so why disturb this, bring in new set of honest reasonable rules and deprive the then powerful from power. No, this has never happened anywhere, ever. Humans are the worst exploiters and have never hesitated in exploiting other humans. So the Smriti continued. Satyug had the caste system built in by desperate persons during their voyage over sea, and it has continued ever since.
What exactly happened in the voyage over sea? For details one can read the following:
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