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The '''Hindu Law Books''' derive from three principle sources: 1) ''śruti'', literally "what is heard," but referring to the Vedas or Vedic literature, the liturgical and praise hymns of the earliest Hindu tradition, 2) ''smŗti'', literally "what is remembered," but referring to the Dharmaśāstra texts as well as other Sanskrit texts such as the Purāņas and the Epics (''Mahābhārata'' and ''Rāmāyaņa''), and 3) ''ācāra'', literally "practice," but referring to the norms and standards established by educated people who know and live by the first two sources of [[dharma]].  In some texts, another source of dharma, ''ātmatuşţi'', "what is pleasing to oneself," is also given, but this source is not widely discussed and is never considered a primary source of dharma (''contra'' Menski 2003).
 
The '''Hindu Law Books''' derive from three principle sources: 1) ''śruti'', literally "what is heard," but referring to the Vedas or Vedic literature, the liturgical and praise hymns of the earliest Hindu tradition, 2) ''smŗti'', literally "what is remembered," but referring to the Dharmaśāstra texts as well as other Sanskrit texts such as the Purāņas and the Epics (''Mahābhārata'' and ''Rāmāyaņa''), and 3) ''ācāra'', literally "practice," but referring to the norms and standards established by educated people who know and live by the first two sources of [[dharma]].  In some texts, another source of dharma, ''ātmatuşţi'', "what is pleasing to oneself," is also given, but this source is not widely discussed and is never considered a primary source of dharma (''contra'' Menski 2003).
 
   
 
   

Revision as of 15:06, 29 October 2007

The Hindu Law Books derive from three principle sources: 1) śruti, literally "what is heard," but referring to the Vedas or Vedic literature, the liturgical and praise hymns of the earliest Hindu tradition, 2) smŗti, literally "what is remembered," but referring to the Dharmaśāstra texts as well as other Sanskrit texts such as the Purāņas and the Epics (Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaņa), and 3) ācāra, literally "practice," but referring to the norms and standards established by educated people who know and live by the first two sources of dharma. In some texts, another source of dharma, ātmatuşţi, "what is pleasing to oneself," is also given, but this source is not widely discussed and is never considered a primary source of dharma (contra Menski 2003).

The smŗtis are metrical texts. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of texts that fall into this category and it is remarkable how consistent the topics and reasoning used in these texts is. Though the smŗti texts acknowledge variability in regional religious and legal practices, their principal concern is to explain dharma. This unity of purpose led to a standardization of topics dealt with by the texts, even though the texts still exhibit differences between them. Whether these differences can be attributed to differences in the provenance or time period of the texts, to ideological or other disagreements between authors, or to some other factor is an issue open to debate.

The most famous and the earliest known smŗti text is the Laws of Manu, which dates to approximately the first century AD. The Laws of Manu, or Mānavadharmaśāstra, has recently been critically edited and translated by Patrick Olivelle (2004, 2005). His introduction and translation are perhaps the best starting point for understanding the nature of Dharmaśāstra and its contents. A major piece of the Hindu law tradition is, however, not represented in the main body of this translation, but rather in its footnotes - namely, the commentarial or scholastic tradition that took texts like the Laws of Manu and explained and elaborated upon them in an unbroken tradition that extended at least up to the time of the British and in some ways beyond. Similar to other scholastic traditions of religious law, the Dharmaśāstra commentators' first concern was to explain the sacred legal texts precisely, with careful attention to word meanings, grammatical structures, and principles of legal hermeneutics.

Effectively, the three ideal sources of dharma reduce to two - texts and the practiced norms of people who know the texts. It is the latter category that gave Hindu law a tremendous flexibility to adapt to different temporal and geographic contexts.

The Dharmasutras

The Dharmasutras are Sanskrit texts dealing with law and rituals. They include the four surviving written works of the ancient Indian tradition on the subject of dharma, or the rules of behavior recognized by a community. Unlike the later Dharmashastra, the dharmasutras are composed in prose. The oldest Dharmasutra is generally believed to have been that of Apastamba, followed by the dharmasutras of Gautama, Baudhayana, and Vasishtha. It is difficult to determine exact dates for these texts, but the dates between 500-300 B.C.E. have been suggested for the oldest Dharmasutras.

Later Dharmasutras include those of Kasyapa, Brhaspati, and Ushanas.

Veda Dharmasûtra[1]
R̥gveda Vasishtha Dharmasûtra
Sāmaveda Gautama Dharmasûtra
Kr̥sna Yajurveda Baudhāyana Dharmasûtra
Āpastamba Dharmasûtra

The Dharmashastras

Dharmaśāstra is a genre of Sanskrit texts and refers to the śāstra, or Hindu branch of learning, pertaining to dharma, religious and legal duty. The voluminous textual corpus of Dharmaśāstra is primarily a product of the Brahmanical tradition in India and represents the elaborate scholastic system of an expert tradition. Because of its sophisticated jurisprudence, Dharmaśāstra was taken by early British colonial administrators to be the law of the land for Hindus in India. Ever since, Dharmaśāstra has been linked with Hindu law, despite the fact that its contents deal as much or more with religious life as with law. In fact, a separation of religion and law within Dharmaśāstra is artificial and has been repeatedly questioned. Dharmaśāstra is important within the Hindu tradition—first, as a source of religious law describing the life of an ideal householder and, second, as symbol of the summation of Hindu knowledge about religion, law, ethics, etc.

All Dharmaśāstra derives its authority with reference to the Vedas, though few, if any, of the contents of most Dharmaśāstra texts can be directly linked with extant Vedic texts. Traditionally, Dharmaśāstra has, since the time of the Yājñvalkyasmṛti, been divided into three major topics: 1) ācāra, rules pertaining to daily rituals, life-cycle cites, and other duties of four castes or varnas, 2) vyavahāra, rules pertaining to the procedures for resolving doubts about dharma and rules of substantive law categorized according the standard eighteen titles of Hindu law, and 3) prāyaścitta, rules about expiations and penances for violations of the rules of dharma.

A more descriptive catalog of the contents of Dharmaśāstra (culled from the contents of P.V. Kane's History of Dharmaśāstra) includes the following topics:

  1. Sources of dharma
  2. Varna, or caste
  3. Consecratory, or life-cycle, rites (sanskāras), especially marriage
  4. Orders of life, or life-stages (āśramas)
  5. Five great sacrifices (mahāyajñas)
  6. Rules for eating
  7. Religious gifts (dāna)
  8. Rules for renunciation (sanyāsa)
  9. Duties of a king
  10. Legal procedure
  11. Eighteen titles of law (vyavahārapadas)
  12. Categories of sin
  13. Expiations and penances
  14. Karma
  15. Funerary and ancestral rites (antyeṣṭi and śrāddha)
  16. Pilgrimage
  17. Vows
  18. Festivals
  19. Propitiatory rites

In addition to these topics, Dharmaśāstra makes extensive use of the tradition of textual hermeneutics known as Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā, which describes in great detail how to interpret the ritual texts of the Vedic corpus. The principles of Mīmāṃsā have been borrowed and reapplied to a broader range of religious and legal phenomena in the Dharmaśāstra. Other cognate disciplines important for understanding Dharmaśāstra are grammar and Nyāya.

While there are literally hundreds of Dharmaśāstra texts and many more commentaries and digests, the principal Dharmaśāstra texts include 1) the four Dharmasūtras of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana, and Vāsiṣṭha, dating from around the third to first centuries B.C.E., 2) the major smṛtis of Manu, Yājñvalkya, Nārada, Viṣṇu, Bṛhaspati and Kātyāyana, tentatively dating from between the first and sixth centuries AD, and 3) the many commentaries and digests, including prominently those of Aparāditya, Asahāya, Bhaṭṭa Nīlakaṇtḥa, Devaṇṇabhaṭṭa, Hemādri, Jīmūtavāhana, Lakṣmīdhara, Mādhava, Mēdhātithi, Mitra Miśra, Raghunandana, Vācaspatimiśra, Varadarāja, Vijñāneśvara, and Viśvarūpa, among many others.

The Manusmriti

The Manusmriti (also known as the "Law book of Manu, or "Mānava Dharma Śāstra") is the most famous of the Hindu Law Books found in the collection of texts known as the Dharmasastra. It is considered to be the oldest and one of the most important texts of this genre.[2][3] Some of these codes of conduct pertain to the caste system and discuss the stages of life for "twice-born" males (the āśrama system).[4][5] It explains itself as a discourse given by Sage Manu to rishis who begged him to enlighten them on the topic. There are 2,684 verses divided into twelve chapters.[6]

Dating and historical context

A range of historical opinion generally dates composition of the text any time between 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E.[7][8][9][10][11][12] The dating is significant because the work was written during the period when Brahmanical tradition was seriously threatened by non-Vedic movements.[13][14] The Manu Smriti and other dharmashastras and the views of society that they represent were Brahmanical responses to those threats.[15] After the breakdown of the Maurya and Shunga empires, there was a period of uncertainty that led to renewed interest in traditional social norms.[16] In Thapar's view, "The severity of the Dharma-shastras was doubtless a commentary arising from the insecurity of the orthodox in an age of flux."[17]

The dharma class of texts were also noteworthy because they did not depend on the authority of particular Vedic schools, becoming the starting point of an independent tradition that emphasized dharma itself and not its Vedic origins.[18]

Views and criticism

The work is considered an important source for sociological, political and historical studies. Manusmriti is one of the most heavily criticized of the scriptures of Hinduism, having been attacked by a gamut of people including colonial scholars, Dalit advocates, feminists,[19] and Marxists.

The Manu Smriti was one of the first Sanskrit texts studied by the British. It was first translated into English by the founder of Indology, Sir William Jones, and the translated version was published in 1794.[20] British administrative requirements encouraged their interest in the Dharmashastras, which they believed to be legal codes, but which were in fact not codes of law but norms related to social obligations and ritual requirements.[21] According to Avari:

The text was never universally followed or acclaimed by the vast majority of Indians in their history; it came to the world's attention through a late eighteenth-century translation by Sir William Jones, who mistakenly exaggerated both its antiquity and its importance. Today many of its ideas are popularised as the golden norm of classical Hindu law by Hindu universalists. They are, however, anathema to modern thinkers and particularly feminists.[22]

Dr. Surendra Kumar, who counts a total of 2,685 verses, claims that only 1,214 are authentic, the other 1,471 being interpolations on the text.[23].

In reply to criticism of Shudras, verses critical of Shudras and women are proclaimed to be later interpolations, but not later than Adi Shankara (7th-8th century CE). The law in Manu Smriti also is claimed to be overtly positive towards Brahmins (priests) in terms of concessions made in fines and punishments. The stance of Manu Smriti about women is also an issue. While certain verses such as (III - 55, 56, 57, 59, 62) glorify the position of women, other verses (IX - 3, 17) seem to attack the position and freedom women have. The education of women is also an issue. Certain interpretations of Verse (IX - 18) claim that it discourages women from reading Vedic scriptures. Verse (II - 240), however, allows women to read Vedic scriptures. Similar contradictory phrases are encountered in relation to child marriage in verses (IX - 94) and (IX - 90).

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in his book "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in India" says that Manusmriti was written by a sage named Brigu during the times of Pushyamitra of Sangha in connection with social pressures caused by the rise of Buddhism.[citation needed] However, historians, such as Romila Thapar, debunk these claims as gross exaggerations. She writes that archaeological evidence casts doubt on the claims of Buddhist persecution by Pushyamitra.[24] Support of the Buddhist faith by the Sungas at some point is suggested by an epigraph on the gateway of Bharhut, which mentions its erection "during the supremacy of the Sungas"[25] Incidentally, it is also noted that Hinduism does not evangelize.[26][27].

Prominent Hindu figures such as Swami Dayananda Saraswati and Srila Prabhupada however hold the scripture to be authentic and authoritative, while widely appreciated by figures such as Annie Besant, P.D. Ouspensky, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Pandurang Shastri Athavale and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Nietzsche is noted to have said "Close the Bible and open the Manu Smriti."[28]

The Hindu sage Paramahansa Yogananda author of the worldwide bestseller Autobiography of a Yogi writes that Manu was a king in the last Golden Age (before 5000B.C.E.). He is believed to have formulated the Laws for the coming lower ages.

Major English Translations

1. Best for beginners

  • Olivelle, Patrick. 2004. The Law Code of Manu. New York: Oxford UP.
  • Olivelle, Patrick. 1999. Dharmasūtras: The Law Codes of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana, and Vāsiṣṭha. New York: Oxford UP.

2. Other major translations

  • Jolly, Julius (trans.) 1889. Minor Law-Books. SBE Vol. 33. Oxford, 1889. [contains both Bṛhaspatismṛti and Nāradasmṛti]
  • Kane, P.V. (ed. and trans.) 1933. Kātyāyanasmṛti on Vyavahāra (Law and Procedure). Poona: Oriental Book Agency.
  • Lariviere, Richard W. 2003. The Nāradasmṛti. 2nd rev. ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
  • Rocher, Ludo. 1956. Vyavahāracintāmani: a digest on Hindu legal procedure. Gent.

3. Early translations with full-text online

Notes

  1. ↑ Kochar, Rajesh Vedic People:Their History and Geography, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2000, ISBN 81 250 1080 7, p.18
  2. ↑ See: Flood (1996), p. 56.
  3. ↑ For Manusmriti and the Yājñyavalkya Smriti as the two most important early Dharma Shastras, see: Hopkins, p. 74.
  4. ↑ For discussion of the stages of life (āśrama) system and references in Manusmriti, see: Flood (1996), pp. 61-65.
  5. ↑ For application of the stages of life system (āśrama) to "twice-born" Hindu males belonging to the top three classes (Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas, see: Flood (1996), p. 202.
  6. ↑ For 2,684 verses and twelve chapters, see: Avari, p. 142.
  7. ↑ For composition between 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E. see: Avari, p. 142.
  8. ↑ For dating of composition "between the second century B.C.E. and third century CE" see: Flood (1996), p. 56.
  9. ↑ For dating of Manusmriti in "final form" to the second century CE, see: Keay, p. 103.
  10. ↑ For dating as completed some time between 200 B.C.E. and 100 C.E. see: Hopkins, p. 74.
  11. ↑ For probable origination during the second or third centuries AD, see: Kulke and Rothermund, p. 85.
  12. ↑ For the text as preserved dated to around the 1st century B.C.E. see: Encyclopedia Britannica Concise. Retrieved 2007-06-24 
  13. ↑ For significance of dating during time of non-Vedic movements, see: Hopkins, p. 74.
  14. ↑ For Manu Dharmashastra as dating to the period which was opening to trade, new ideas, and social movements, see: Thapar, p. 261.
  15. ↑ For characterization of the Manu Smriti as a response to a perceived threat, see: Hopkins, pp. 74, 84.
  16. ↑ For significance of post-empire social uncertainty as a factor in the development of the Code of Manu, see: Kulke and Rothermund, p. 85.
  17. ↑ Tharpar (2002), p. 279.
  18. ↑ For the dharmashastras, including Manusmriti, as the starting point for an independent tradition not dependent on Vedic origins, see: Hopkins, p. 74.
  19. ↑ For objections to the work by feminists, see: Avari, pp. 142-143.
  20. ↑ For Manu Smiriti as as one of the first Sanskrit texts noted by the British and translation by Sir William Jones in 1794, see: Flood (1996), p. 56.
  21. ↑ For British interest in Dharmashastras due to administrative needs, and their misinterpretation of them as legal codes rather than as social and ritual texts, see: Thapar (2002), pp. 2-3.
  22. ↑ Avari, p. 142.
  23. ↑ Vishuddha Manusmriti by Dr. Surendra Kumar, Published by Arsh Sahitya Prachar Trust, Delhi, Fourth Edition (page 5)
  24. ↑ Romila Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Oxford University Press (1960) p. 200.
  25. ↑ John Marshall, "An Historical and Artistic Description of Sanchi", from A Guide to Sanchi, citing p. 11. Calcutta: Superintendent, Government Printing (1918). Pp. 7-29 on line, Project South Asia.
  26. ↑ K. V. Rao, Socialism, Secularism, and Democracy in India, pp. 28-30.
  27. ↑ Nagendra K. Singh, Enforcement of Human Rights in Peace and War and the Future of Humanity, p. 35. Martinus Nijhoff (1986) ISBN 9024733022
  28. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, vol. 1.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Avari, Burjor (2007). India: The Ancient Past. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-35616-9. 
  • Flood, Gavin (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43878-0. 
  • Hopkins, Thomas J. (1971). The Hindu Religious Tradition. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company. 
  • Kane, Pandurang Vaman. (1880 - 1972): History of Dharmaśāstra : (ancient and mediaeval, religious and civil law). Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. 1962 - 1975.
  • Keay, John (2000). India: A History. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3797-0. 
  • Kulke, Hermann and Rothermund, Dietmar (1986). A History of India. New York: Barnes & Noble. ISBN 0-88029-577-5. 
  • Thapar, Romila (2002). Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24225-4. 
  • Translation by G. Bühler (1886). Sacred Books of the East: The Laws of Manu (Vol. XXV). Oxford.  Available online as The Laws of Manu

EXTERNAL LINKS

  • [[wikisource:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/The Laws of Manu "|The Laws of Manu]".] Catholic Encyclopedia. (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.

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