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Dharmaśāstra is a genre of Sanskrit texts and refers to the śāstra, or Indic branch of learning, pertaining to Hindu 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.[1] Because of its sophisticated jurisprudence, Dharmaśāstra was taken by early British colonial administrators to be the law of the land for Hindus in India.[2] 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.[3] Others have, however, argued for a distinction of religious and secular law within Dharmaśāstra.[4] 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.

Contents

Contents of Dharmaśāstra

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.[5] 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 varṇas, 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)[6] includes the following topics:

  • Sources of dharma
  • Varṇa, or caste
  • Consecratory, or life-cycle, rites, especially marriage
  • Orders of life, or life-stages (āśramas)
  • Five great sacrifices
  • Rules for eating
  • Religious gifts (dāna)
  • Rules for renunciation
  • Duties of a king
  • Legal procedure
  • Eighteen titles of law
  • Categories of sin
  • Expiations and penances
  • Karma
  • Funerary and ancestral rites
  • Pilgrimage
  • Vows
  • Festivals
  • 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.[7] Other cognate disciplines important for understanding Dharmaśāstra are grammar and Nyāya.

Principal Texts

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 BC, 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, beginning in roughly the eighth century AD, 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 18 Smritis of Hindu scriptures are:

1. Ãngirasa Smriti

2. Vyåsa Smriti

3. Ãpastamba Smriti

4. DakSha Smriti

5. Vishnu Smriti

6. Yågyavalkya Smriti

7. Likhita Smriti

8. Samvartta Smriti

9. Shanka Smriti

10. Brihaspati Smriti

11. Atri Smriti

12. Kåtyåyana Smriti

13. Paråshara Smriti

14. Manu Smriti

15. Aushanasa Smriti

16. Hårita Smriti

17. Gautama Smriti

18. Yama Smriti

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

  • 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. ^ Patrick Olivelle, Manu's Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra (New York: Oxford UP, 2005), 64.
  2. ^ For a good overview of the British attitudes toward and administration of Hindu law, see J. Duncan M. Derrett, "The Administration of Hindu Law by the British," Comparative Studies in Society and History 4:1 (1961), pp.10-52.
  3. ^ See, for example, Ludo Rocher, "Hindu Law and Religion: Where to draw the line?" in Malik Ram Felicitation Volume, ed. S.A.J. Zaidi. (New Delhi, 1972), pp.167-194 and Richard W. Lariviere, "Law and Religion in India" in Law, Morality, and Religion: Global Perspectives, ed. Alan Watson (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp.75-94.
  4. ^ On this distinction in relation to punishment, see Timothy Lubin, "Punishment and Expiation: Overlapping Domains in Brahmanical Law," Indologica Taurinensia 33 (2007): 93-122.
  5. ^ Robert Lingat, The Classical Law of India. trans. J.D.M. Derrett (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 7-8.
  6. ^ P.V. Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra: (ancient and mediaeval, religious and civil law). (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1962 - 1975).
  7. ^ Kisori Lal Sarkar, The Mimansa Rules of Interpretation as applied to Hindu Law. Tagore Law Lectures of 1905 (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, 1909).

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