India, Dec. 4 -- By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik - Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist

In Sanskrit, the word for human is manava. It comes from manasa, the ability to imagine, that only humans have. From this word comes Manu, a mythological character.

Most people assume that Manu is simply the stern lawgiver of the Manusmriti, son of Brahma, entrusted with the task of framing rules for humankind. But this Manu is only one among many and a relatively late one at that - emerging around 200 AD.

Long before him, the Vedas and Brahmanas had already woven different stories of Manu, each revealing new aspects of how humans imagined their origins, duties and destiny.

The earliest Manu appears in the Rigveda around 1500 BC. Here, he is not a la...