Medhātithi is one of the oldest and most famous commentators

Commentary (philology)

In philology, a commentary is a line-by-line or even word-by-word explication usually attached to an edition of a text in the same or an accompanying volume. It may draw on methodologies of close reading and literary criticism, but its primary purpose is to elucidate the language of the text and...

 on the , more commonly known as the Laws of Manu. The text is a part of the Hindu Dharmaśāstra

Dharmasastra

Dharmaśāstra is a genre of Sanskrit texts and refers to the śāstra, or Indic branch of learning, pertaining to Hindu dharma, religious and legal duty. The voluminous textual corpus of Dharmaśāstra is primarily a product of the Brahmanical tradition in India and represents the elaborate scholastic...

 tradition, which attempts to record the laws of dharma

Dharma

Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...

.

Location

There is some debate over the exact location in which Medhātithi composed his commentary, but there is significant evidence which places him in Kashmir. Julius Jolly

Julius Jolly

Professor Julius Jolly was a German scholar and translator of Indian law and medicine.Jolly was born in Heidelberg, the son of physicist Philipp Johann Gustav von Jolly , and studied comparative linguistics, Sanskrit, and Iranian languages in Berlin and Leipzig...

 argues that he was an inhabitant of Southern India, while G. Buhler argues (and PV Kane tends to agree) that he was a Kashmirian, or at least an inhabitant of Northern India. Robert Lingat does not acknowledge a debate about Medhātithi's origin, stating explicitly "one knows nothing about him save that he lived in Kashmir." Clearly, the exact origin is unknown and may never be known, but there seems to be a tendency to place him at least in the northern part of India, if not in Kashmir.

Dating and Historical Context

As with most ancient texts, the exact date that Medhātithi's commentary was written is unknown. Kane argues that, because Medhātithi names several other commentators that are dated earlier than he is, and because the author of the Mitākṣarā (a commentary on the Yajnavalkya Smriti) considers him as authoritative, he has to be writing later than 820 CE and before 1050 CE. Lingat places him in the ninth century or in the early tenth century at the latest.