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Vyavahārakānda
had a most systematic growth and forms the Smrtis. The coronation of a king the basis of most of the modern codes of and the adoption of a son are even law in Europe. Law in ancient India today held to be of a sacramental charac. had also evolved on independent lines, ter. The Smstis also mention religious but the intervention of the Mahomedan rites in connection with excommuniand British rules has tampered with cation and the emancipation of slaves. its natural growth during the last seven Dharmasutras like those of Apasta mba or eight hundred years. There was no mention expiatory rites as penalties for doubt a voluminous commentary litera- theft and adultery. Indeed, as long as ture, but its free growth was at an end. the family priest of the king was his In the days that preceded the Mahomedan chief minister and the king the reliinvasion of India, it appears that Hindu | gious head, it was inevitable that law legal literature had attained the fullest should be a part of religion. growth and the Vyavahārakānda of (ii) The period of the growth of poliDharmakos'a gives all the available tical institutions, when a distinction material for a study of this legal litera- was made between rules conducive to ture in its entirety.
benefit in the other world, and rules which The history of Hindu law can be regulated the secular conduct of man, of, roughly divided into four main periods : other words, religion was now dis• (i): The period of religious domination, tinguished from law and politics. The when religious usage, law and expia - Manusmrti assigns separate places to tion of sin were all regarded as equally political administration and legal ad governed by religion. Let us take the ministration. The king's priest was no instance of adultery as it figures in the longer his chief minister and only attended Veda. It was the custom in ancient to religious matters as distinct from law times to make the wife confess her adult- and politics, which later on claimed an ery. The wife was asked to name her importance on the same footing as reliparamour and if she named him or if gion. The Mahabharata, the Manusmrti, she did not name him, a prayer was the Arthas'āstra of Kautilya, the S'ukra. made to Varupa to punish him. Marriage niti and the Kámasatra enumerate poliand divorce had been regarded until re- tics amongst the main disciplines. Relicently as matters falling under the pur- I gious ideas however dominate the legal view of religion, but are now regarded ideas during this period. The insistas mere legal matters that are out- ence on the judge being a Brahman in the side the scope of religion. Similarly all Smrtis shows the priestly influence in laws in ancient times regarding wrongs legal matters. to property, or, to human life, or trans- (iii) The period of complete deliverance gressions in sexual matters were of the of law and politics from religious ideas nature of religious regulations; and all and religious domination, with the result contracts were solemnised before the that they had an unfettered growth. The isacred fire; the alliance, for instance, historical evidence for it, is offered by between Rama and Sugriva and that the Arthas'astra of Kautilya, the S'ukrabetween Rävaņa and Välin were so nītisāra and the Náradasmçti. In the solemnised according tu the Rämäyana. first we have an indepenent place given The inclusion of solemn oath and ordeals to law in the chapter on legal administrain the legal administration would point tion; the Naradasmrti deals with the out the continuance of religious domi- law alone. Vis'varupa's Commentary nation in legal matters in the days of on the Vyavahāra chapter from the Y.Ş.
