ame standards as Persians and
Arabs, Italians or French; and, measured by that standard, such works
as Kalidasa's plays are not superior to many plays that have long been
allowed to rest in dust and peace on the shelves of our libraries.
Their antiquity is no longer believed in by any critical Sanskrit
scholar. Kalidasa is mentioned with Bharavi as a famous poet in an
inscription[105] dated A.D. 585-6 (507 _S_aka era), and for the
present I see no reason to place him much earlier. As to the Laws of
Manu, which used to be assigned to a fabulous antiquity,[106] and are
so still sometimes by those who write at random or at second-hand, I
doubt whether, in their present form, they can be older than the
fourth century of our era, nay I am quite prepared to see an even
later date assigned to them. I know this will seem heresy to many
Sanskrit scholars, but we must try to be honest to ourselves. Is there
any evidence to constrain us to assign the Manava-dharma-_s_astra,
such as we now possess it, written in continuous _S_lokas, to any date
anterior to 300 A.D.? And if there is not, why should we not openly
state it, challenge opposition, and feel grateful if our doubts can be
removed?

That Manu was a name of high legal authority before that time, and
that Manu and the Manavam are frequently quoted in the ancient legal
Sutras, is quite true; but this serves only to confirm the conviction
that the literature which succeeded the Turanian invasion is full of
wrecks saved from the intervening deluge. If what we call the _Laws of
Manu_ had really existed as a code of laws, like the Code of
Justinian, during previous centuries, is it likely that it should
nowhere have been quoted and appealed to?

Varahamihira (who died 587 A.D.) refers to Manu several times, but not
to a Manava-dharma-_s_astra; and the only time where he seems actually
to quote a number of verses from Manu, these verses are not to be met
with in our text.[107]

I believe it will be found that the century in which Varahamihara
lived and wrote was the age of the literary Renaissance in India.[108]
That Kalidasa and Bharavi were famous at that time, we know from the
evidence of inscriptions. We also know that during that century the
fame of Indian literature had reached Persia, and that the King of
Persia, Khosru Nushirvan, sent his physician, Barzoi, to India, in
order to translate the fables of the Pa_nk_atantra, or rather their
original, from Sanskrit into Pahl