From time to time, people with vested interests try to revive the spirit of Manusmriti by making claims about its popularity in the past and its relevance in the future. There is also an effort on their part to imply that Manu, the elusive author of Manusmriti, was an important personality in Hinduism who, according to them, had a great influence on the Hindu thought and philosophy. They further claim that Adi Samkara (a seventh century Advaitin) strongly believed in the Manusmriti edicts and sought their support, by directly quoting them in reference to the sudras, in his commentary on the Brahm sutra.

Such great hype and claims by these people are without any merit. The Manusmriti was neither popular as important Hindu text in the past, nor does is it have any relevance to the society now or in future. The same type of uncertainty holds true about their claims on Manu. Note that it is quite difficult to ascertain the real role of Manu in relation to the Manusmriti even though it has the name Manu in its title. There were about fourteen men in the ancient Hindu literatures having the name Manu -- a type of a lineage -- and it is hard to say which one of them has his name associated with the Manusmriti.

In addition, none of the fourteen men having the name Manu in ancient literatures seems scholarly enough to have influenced the Hinduism or the Vedic philosophy greatly, except perhaps having his name somehow tied to the title of Manusmriti. There is even a debate regarding this that Manusmriti -- a collection of hodge-podge and random ideas that contradict the Vedas (Sruti) on several key issues thus violating the Mimamsa (1) -- might perhaps be a recent compilation by an unknown individual or a group of people, who gave it a recognizable title using the common Hindu name Manu so that it would become acceptable and popular among brahmins, temple-priests and rest of the society (APPENDIX - A comment on Manusmriti).

Furthermore, there is no real evidence to link Samkara, the Advaita philosopher, directly to the Manusmriti, and the idea that he might have used the Manusmriti as a reference on sudras is also far-fetched. Note that Samkara’s literary works, including the Bhashya (commentary on the Vedanta sutra or the Brahm sutra), just mention the difficulty encountered by a sudra in learning the Veda sometimes, in sruti tradition, because of the unpreparedness on his part as a potential student long ago (2). It basically had nothing to do with Samkara being obedient to Manu or Samkara adhering to the Manusmriti edicts.

In any case there is no similarity or area of common interest between the Manusmriti and the Advaita (Samkara’s chief concern). For example, the former, bearing the name Manu, relates mainly to some arbitrary proclamations, even upholding and promoting divisions in the society, whereas the latter represents a highly organized and logical ancient advaitic darshana (non-dualistic philosophy), promoting unity and oneness of everything.

In conclusion, there is no basis to promote Manusmriti as an important text or acclaim Manu as a great influence on Hinduism. Samkara (a great philosopher) and the Advaita (the philosophy of non-dualism) similarly should not be considered as supporting Manu or the Manusmriti. In any case, Advaita has been in existence for a long time, almost since the beginning of Vedas, which comprise several hymns implying the idea that Brahman is everything. Moreover, besides Samkara, Advaita had numerous great thinkers and philosophers since its beginning, including Kasakrtsna (recognized perhaps as the first famous advaitin) who lived at about the same time as Badarayana (around 400 B.C.) - the compiler of Brahm sutra (3).

References

(1) Subhash C. Sharma, “Manu, smriti and Manu's medical paradox”, http://www.geocities.com/lamberdar/manu_smriti.html

(2) Subhash C. Sharma, “The cost of learning: the parable of Yagnavalkaya’s cattle”, http://www.geocities.com/lamberdar/sruti_learning.html