The priesthoods of the various districts must have made a beginning by influencing and modifying in the spirit of the new doctrine the customs and usages of the land; they then proceeded to draw up the customs of family law, of marriage and inheritance, the rights and duties of the castes. In this compilation it was inevitable that the hereditary customs should be revised in the spirit of the priesthood. Collections of this kind serving as rules for certain departments of life have been preserved in certain _Grihya-Sutras_, _i.e._ books of household customs, and _Dharma-Sutras_, _i.e._ catalogues or tables of laws.[221] Out of the oldest records of household customs and legal usages, altered and systematised in the spirit of the priests, out of the collections and revisions of the customs of law and morals made in various schools of priests, a book of law at last grew up for the Brahmans, which comprised both the civic and religious life, and in all relations set forth the ideal scheme, according to which they should be arranged in the spirit of the priesthood, _i.e._ in a manner suitable to the divine will. This book of the law bears the name of Manu, the first man, the progenitor of the race. It has been shown above that the victory of the Brahmans, the new faith and code of morals, was first won in the regions between the Yamuna and the Ganges, in the land of the Bharatas, Panchalas, Matsyas, and Çurasenas. As it was there that the pre-eminence of the Brahmans was first completely acknowledged, it was there that they were first able to exercise an influence on the customs and ordinances of law; there also that the need of a comprehensive regulation of life upon the Brahman view was most strongly felt. "The land between the Sarasvati and the Drishadvati was created by the gods (_devata_); and therefore the sages give it the name of Brahmavarta"--so we are told in the book of the law. The custom of Brahmavarta (_achara_), preserved unbroken in this land, is for the book of the law the right custom, the correct law. Hence it follows that the rules given in that book rest on the observances which grew up in this region under the predominating influence of the Brahmans. The book further tells us that on the borders of Brahmavarta is Brahmarshideça, _i.e._ the land of the Brahmanic saints; this includes the land of the Kurus (Kurukshetra) and that of the Panchalas, Matsyas, and Çurasenas. From a Brahman born in this land all men are to learn their right conduct upon earth. The "land of the middle" (Madhyadeça), according to the book, extends from Vinaçana in the west to Prayaga, _i.e._ to the confluence of the Yamuna and the Ganges; but the law is to prevail from the Vindhyas to the Himalayas, from the western to the eastern sea, over the whole of Aryavarta (_i.e._ the land of the Aryas): "wherever the black gazelle is found, an efficacious sacrifice can always be offered." In that land the Dvijas are to dwell;