English: This is the manuscript of the primary dharma-shastra text on legal matters in the Malla Hindu kingdom in the Himalayas. It is called the Naradasmriti, or in some parts of India as Naradiyamanusmriti.

The language is Sanskrit, but the script is a Nepalese variant found in the history of Newar people. The original scribe signed his name as Ramadatta. According to the Indologist Richard Lariviere, it is likely that the Naradasmriti was the legal text adopted and implemented by the Malla kings in their region, rather than one of the many other dharmasastra texts.

Cecil Bendall purchased this manuscript in 1885 somewhere in Western or Northern India, according to archival notes. It is embedded inside the Mānavanyāyaśāstraṭīkā manuscript, which is a commentary on Naradasmriti – this primary text. It starts on folio 28 front side (recto), in verse 5.8c. The entire manuscript, this text and the tika is a set, which is now archived and preserved as MS Add.2137 at the Cambridge University LIbrary.

Language: Sanskrit

Script: Bhujimol

The photo above is of a 2D artwork created before the 19th-century, and purchased in 1885. The artwork and this 2D photograph, therefore, fall under Wikimedia Commons PD-Art licensing guidelines. Any rights I have as a photographer is herewith donated to wikimedia commons under CC 4.0 license.