DHARMASUTRAS The Arthashastra concerns economic affairs; and the

Kamashastra concerns love generally and pleasure in

The shastras in Sanskrit Hindu literature are the textbooks particular. (The best known of its component works in the
of religious and legal duty. Shastra literally means “rule, Western world is the Kama sutra, though contrary to popular
command, code of laws, science,” and these works focus on belief, it is not a “sex book”). These texts are composed of books
many different subjects, including the three principal goals for from individual schools of Vedic and Sanskrit commentary,
human beings: each school often contributing a sutra named for the school. The
Dharmashastra includes the following dharmasutras:
 Dharma (law)
Gautama, Baudhayana, Apastamba, Vasishtha,
 Artha (wealth, profit, business, or property), and
Vishnu, and Vikhanas, as well as the metrical Laws of Manu.
 Kama (passion, desire, pleasure).
o The shastras, including the Dharmashastra, are classified as
smriti, a word indicating “what is remembered,” as
The Dharmashastra concerns dharma, a concept that
distinct from the Vedas and the Upanishads, which are
incorporates the shruti, “what is heard.”
 nature of the world, o The Vedas and the Upanishads are considered to be
divinely perceived—that is, the early seers were held to
 eternal or cosmic law, and have perceived eternal truths—and the Dharmashastra, as
well as other smriti texts, are the thoughts and explanations
 social law, applied to rituals and life-cycle rites, of Hindu scholars in response to the shruti books.

 procedures for resolving disputes, and o Chronologically, the sutras of the Dharmahshastra follow
sometime after the Vedic period, but these works have been
 penalties for violations of these rules; notoriously difficult to date.
 o Most scholars agree, however, that the first three sutras  Most likely composed sometime between 450 and 350
from which selections are included in this volume, B.C. It is an extensive work with many aphoristic verses
Gautama, Apastamba, and Vasishtha, fall sometime and meticulously detailed rituals for daily life.
between the 6th century B.C. and the 1st century B.C.,
 Some of the prominent subject matter includes rules about
o The Laws of Manu probably date from between about 200 marriage and married life, forbidden foods and dietary
B.C. to 200 A.D. From the time of their composition, the regulations, ritual purity, property laws, rebirth, and
works of the Dharmashastra have played a significant role various penances.
in influencing Hindu culture and law.
 This sutra details various methods of self-destruction that
o In fact, the shastras were still being cited in cases of legal will exculpate violators of certain Hindu laws—fornication
contracts as late as the mid-19th century in some regions of with the wife of a religious teacher, drinking alcohol,
India. theft, or murder of a high-caste man—and relieve them
of their impurity.
The Gautama Dharmasutra
 It also includes contrary rules, including a prohibition of
 The oldest of the texts of the Dharmashastra, probably self-killing.
composed sometime between 600 and 400 B.C., concerns
the sources of dharma, standards for both students and The Vasishtha Dharmasutra
the uninitiated, the four stages of life, dietary rules,
penance, rules concerning impurity, and many other  Probably written sometime between 300 and 100 B.C.
regulations and rituals for Hindu life
 This sutra is known for its sections on adoption, but it also
 The section presented here concerns impurity and holds that concerns justice, legal testimony, inheritance, interest
after the burial of a suicide victim who voluntarily sought rates, and other matters of social law
death, purity (rather than impurity) follows for their
relatives.  Several issues surrounding suicide are raised in the text,
including penances for those who contemplate suicide or
The Dharmasutra of Apastamba fail in an attempt at self-killing; these are unpermitted
suicides
  As in the Apastamba sutra, which it echoes, suicide can  In many of their other passages, however, the Laws of
also be an act of expiation for unlawful behavior, restoring Manu emphasize the value of leaving the body and
one to purity after death. becoming free of its pains and torment, as well as achieving
full liberation from worldliness and desire.
The Laws of Manu
 Books VI and XI address the means by which the
 Perhaps the most famous part of the Dharmashastra, Brahmana or renouncer should separate himself from his
composed in the later part of the Epic Period and often body.
given separate recognition because of their unique metrical
style  Based on the teaching of the four stages of life, developed
in the text in detail, the Laws of Manu hold that, after one
 The Laws of Manu articulate extensive regulations for has become old and passed through the three previous
many aspects of Hindu life, including rules governing stages of life—celibate religious discipleship, married
religious offerings, purifications, rites, and many other householder status, and, after one’s grandchildren are
religious and social practices born, retirement to the forest—one should simply walk
in a northeasterly direction—in this version, without
 This code, like Hindu thought generally, distinguishes food or water—until one dies.
between unpermitted and permitted suicides
 It is in this stage that one becomes a sanyasin, achieving
 In Book V, suicides are grouped with heretics, those who the highest level of spirituality. This journey that ends in
fail to perform the appropriate religious rites, and those of death is often called “the Great Departure.”
mixed caste: libations may not be offered to them.

 In Book VI, the code compares the person who is alive to a

servant awaiting payment from his master (an analogy also
employed by Plato, though yielding a differing conclusion),
explaining that one should neither “desire to die“ nor
“desire to live.”
 • They differ in format and structure from the Dharmasutra
and are written in the verse form

The legal theories within the Yajnavalkya Smriti are presented in

three books, namely achara-kanda (customs), vyavahara-kanda
(judicial process) and prayascitta-kanda (crime and punishment,
penance).[3]

The text is the "best composed" and systematic specimen of this

Some of the most prominent Dharmashastra texts are genre, with large sections on judicial process theories, one which
had greater influence in medieval India's judiciary practice than
• Manusmriti (200BC-200CE) Manusmriti. It later became influential in the studies of legal
process in ancient and medieval India, during the colonial British
• Yajnavalkya Smriti (200-500CE)
India, with the first translation published in German in 1849. The
• Naradasmriti (100BC- 400CE) text is notable for its differences in legal theories from
Manusmriti, for being more liberal and humane, and for extensive
• Visnusmriti (700- 1000CE) discussions on evidence and judiciousness of legal documents

• Brhaspatismriti (200-400CE) and The text is named after the revered Vedic sage Yajnavalkya who
appears in many major Upanishads of Hinduism as well as other
• Katyayanasmriti (300-600CE) influential texts such as the Yoga Yajnavalkya. However, the text
was composed more than a millennium after his life, It was
• These -texts were often used for legal judgments and attributed to him because the text is a SMRITI. A smriti is a form
opinion of knowledge that is passed from one generation to other orally.
Rishi Yajnavalkya had formed all these ideas and had then passed
• It is not clear if single or multiple authors wrote these texts
it down the line. That is why the text has been attributed to him.[11]
The text was likely composed in the Mithila region of historic Asia, likely as an aid of carrying out their dharma of justly ruling
India (in and around modern Bihar the country.

The text is in classical Sanskrit, and is organized in three books. The structure of the Nāradasmṛti is based on the eighteen titles of
These are achara-kanda (368 verses), vyavahara-kanda (307 law, which are also mentioned in the Manusmṛti but with some
verses) and prayascitta-kanda (335 verses). The Yājñavalkya Smṛti variation in names.[13] The text begins with a brief introduction into
consists of a cumulative total of 1,010 ślokas (verses), and its law and the courts before delving into these 18 titles, devoting a
presentation is methodical, clear and concise instead of the poetic chapter to each. The way in which this text is written makes it
"literary beauty" found in Manusmriti according to Robert Lingat. clear that the author(s) was appealing to a community of
practitioners, interested in directly applying the law to every day
Ludo Rocher states that this treatise, like others in Dharmasastras cases
genre, is a scholarly tradition on Dharma rather than a Law book,
as understood in the western languages. In contrast, Robert Lingat Commentaries and Digests
states that the text is closer to presenting legal philosophy and a
transition from being Dharma speculations found in earlier • Commentaries were written by commentators to interpret
Dharma-related texts. and provide meaning to the Dharmasutra texts and Smriti,
and each commentary devoted itself to one particular text
Nāradasmṛti is a part of the Dharmaśāstras, an Indian literary
tradition that serves as a collection of legal maxims relating to the • For example, there are commentaries exclusively on
topic of dharma. This text is purely juridical in character in that it 'Manusmriti' and on 'Yajnavalkya Smriti‘…
focuses solely on procedural and substantive law. Known as the
"juridical text par excellence," the Nāradasmṛti is the only • The digests were not restricted to one text, but were
Dharmaśāstra text to not cover areas such as righteous conduct and arranged by topic or theme or subject matter and drew upon
penance.[2] Its focused nature has made the text highly valued by many different Dharmashastra texts or Smriti to explain the
rulers and their governments, in Indian subcontinent and southeast topic
• For example, there are digests on the topics of the role of
king, inheritance of property, religious rites and rituals,
adoption, litigation and judicial procedures