The Laws of Manu is one of the most exemplary texts of ideology in the entire history of humanity. The first reason is that while its ideology encompasses the entire universe, inclusive of its mythic origins, it focuses on everyday practices as the immediate materiality of ideology: how (what, where, with whom, when…) we eat, defecate, have sex, walk, enter a building, work, make war, etc. The second reason is that the book stages a radical shift with regard to its starting point (presupposition): the ancient code of Veda. What we find in Veda is the brutal cosmology based on killing and eating: higher things kill and eat/consume lower ones, stronger eat weaker, i.e., life is a zero-sum game where one’s victory is another’s defeat. The “great chain of being” appears here as founded in the “food chain,” the great chain of eating: gods eat mortal humans, humans eat mammals, mammals eat lesser animals who eat plants, plants “eat” water and earth… such is the eternal cycle of being. So why does...

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