[Advaita-l] kshatriya dharma according to manu smriti and its interpretation today?

[Murali k]

Namaste,

On a general note, can.anyone please enlighten me about the importance of
manu-smriri in our canon when compared to the gita and the upanishads?

Manu-smriti is highly disparaged by all haters of Sanatan Dharma esp the
leftists. Hence my question.

Thanks and sorry if this question is off-topic.



On 12 Jan 2018 19:34, "Venkatesh Murthy via Advaita-l" <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste
>
> Now the modern technology and weapons have become so advanced the military
> people are only pushing buttons remotely to drop bombs with Drones. It will
> advance so much Robots will fight and not real people. Now I can see why
> Krishna and Parashu Rama did not care to maintain Kshatriya race.
> Kshatriyas are not required to fight wars nowadays. Maybe role of
> Kshatriyas is to maintain internal law and order like police work. But that
> also can be done by Robots in the future. But Robots cannot replace
> Brahmin's intelligence. They are saying intelligent robots will do that
> also but many scientists say it is not possible a machine will become more
> intelligent than us.
>
> Robots can do also Sudra's work like sweeping and cleaning the house and
> digging tunnels but they cannot do Vaishya's work like business ventures.
> Therefore robots can replace Kshatriyas and Sudras but not Brahmins and
> Vaishyas.
>
> On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 2:48 PM, Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> > Namaste Everyone
> > Thank you Venkatraghavan ji for the manu smriti pdf references to
> kshatriya
> > dharma in its 7th chapter.
> >
> > https://archive.org/details/ManuSmriti_201601
> >
> >
> >  The general sense i get is that the kshatriya king who is committed to
> > dharma and protection of shrotiyas is to challenge and wage war against
> > unrightoeus kshatriyas who do not become his allies or vassals. This is
> of
> > course quite natural. However i did not come across any explicit shastra
> > reference to a 'dharma yuddha'  idea yet. What should be the primary
> > *motive* for war for a kxatriya? The smRti seems more intent to look at
> war
> > as an inherent dharma of kshatriya. Will read it a little more carefully
> > and get back.
> >
> > On a different note,when Sri Krishna declares, paritrANAya sAdhUnAm
> > vinAshAya ca duShkRtAm - is that not a fairly good motto forany dharmic
> > kxatriya as well, not to speak of an avatara like SriRama or SriKrishna?
> >
> >  I get the sense that every kshatriya is enjoined by the smRti to first
> > strive to purify his own mind and align his mind with the highest truths
> of
> > the Vedas (the quintessential philospoher-king) and then take initiative
> > and claim overlordship over other kings who had better bow down to his
> > authority or they invite war upon themselves. In other words, its not
> > overtly pacifist in outlook - such pacifism from a kshatriya (read: those
> > in power) is just tamas? War is for a kshatriya what
> > entrepeneurship/start-ups are for a vaishya. Although it seems like
> > needless war-mongering at times, the equally strong injunction for the
> > kshatriya king to purify the mind, bring the senses under control etc.,
> > indicate that the use of force is only for the larger good of all - to
> > establish dharma on a stronger footing - that's implicit?
> >
> > The smriti seems to strive for a "Super-King" who upholds the dharma and
> > others kings have to fall in line with him or fight him. Rather like, how
> > Yudhishthira performed the rajasuya and challenged other kings to either
> > accept him as supreme or fight him. There was no 'live and let live'
> policy
> > in the mandate for kshatriya kings. Other dharmik forces like the yadavas
> > and vrishnis etc., had no hesitation in accepting Yudhishthira as the
> > 'Super-King' (chakravartin?). Although I did not see any specific
> reference
> > to such a mandate either viz., a kshatriya king should submit to a more
> > powerful dharmik king and accept him as the Chakravartin who 'moves the
> > wheels of dharma' or 'whose chariot can freely move anywhere indicating
> his
> > supremacy over other Kings.'
> >
> > The silver lining is that even those kings who were defeated would be
> asked
> > to become vassals of the Chakravartin King or if they got killed, then
> > their son or relative who was willing to become an ally of the Super-King
> > was enthroned. (Like Vibhishana or Sugriva a la Ramayana). The reference
> to
> > this is there in manu smriti.
> >
> > There is no shying away from the use of force when the situation demands
> it
> > and a kshatriya should necessarily bring other kings under his control. A
> > bandwagon model of kshatriya kingly power was encouraged where other
> kings
> > bandwagon and line up behind the Chakravartin who is the King of Kings.
> > There was no balance-of-power encouraged where several kings who
> considered
> > themselves mutual equals balanced each others' power to prevent any one
> > king from becoming too powerful. (I think Samuel Huntington had his take
> on
> > this.) This 'balance-of-power' between equally powerful kings was not
> > encouraged by manu smriti.
> >
> > Its not surprising that India was stronger to repel invaders when such a
> > bandwagon model of kshatriya power obtained under the Mauryas, Guptas
> etc.,
> > and India had one massive kingdom rather than several smaller
> > principalities tentatively balancing each other's power.
> >
> >
> > Om
> >
> > Raghav
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
> --
> Regards
>
> -Venkatesh
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