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Introduction
quotes often the sutras of Brhaspati, which appear to deal only with law and political administration. That law and political administsation, developed independently of religion, would appear to be further evidenced by the numerous references to older Arthas'astrawriters in the Mbh. and the Kauțiliya Arthas'astra and to the references in the Yajnavalkya-Smṛti and the Narada.Smrti to a possible opposition between the Dharmasastra and the Arthas'astra.
(iv) The period of restrictions imposed on the unfettered growth of law and political administration in the days of the Yajnavalkya-smrti. The Yajnavalkyasmrti boasts of having established the authority of the legal texts in the Dharmasastra and deprived the Arthas'astra of any independent authority in legal matters; (a
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taking into account their specific regulas tions as explained by experts. (ii) The Mbh. gives expression to a view that The law, i. e. Danda, proceeds both from the sovereign and the Veda. The Smrtis regard government conducive to public welfare as an important principle of legislation. The Vedic literature which is extant, to-day, contains a few indications of the legal institutions then in existence. The term Danda in the Mahabharata was probably intended to include the positive and negative injunctions in the Veda. The authors of the Smrtis have admitted the towfold authority of kings, namely to decide upon legal proceedings and to amend the laws, and the Danda was understood to proceed from kings in both these senses. It has been presupposed, however, that the king's authority to enact new laws was limited in scope and could be exercised
was
araffa fufa:). As a consequence the only in exceptional cases. (iii) The third growth of the legal institutions arrested and jurists had only one work left for them, namely, to write commentaries on the old texts and to prepare digests. The result was a tremendous accumulation of ccmmentaries and digests.
The ancient Indian literature discloses several views on the genesis of the legal institutes: (i) The king and the law, according to one, are both of them created by the people. The Mbh. and the Kauţiliya-Arthas'astra state that popular usage is one of the sources of Dharma, i. e. law, and the king also is made by the people. The same view has been expounded by Medhātithi in his Bhasy a on Manusmrti and by Vijñanes'vara in his Mitakṣara. The Mbh. maintains that the Dharma as enjoined in the Veda and the Smrti is of popular origin and the Smrti also repeatedly enjoin that the liti. gation amongst people of special localities and tribes and amongst members of families, guilds and corporations and amongst agriculturists, shepherds and artisans should be decided only after
view is, that of the divine origin of laws. The Mahabharata, the Kamasutra and other works mention God as the author of a group of texts which were calculated to regulate the fourfold ends of human existence, law and politics being included among them. (iv) The fourth view attributes the origin of the law to the sages. This concentration of wisdom', says the Mahabharata 'is the honey gathered by the sages'. The Vedas, the Smrtis and the Puranas and other such works having been promulgated by the sages, this theory of the sages being the promulgators of law, can be regarded as only reasonable. The authors of the S'astras have based these four views about the origin of laws, from the people, from the sages, from the Vedas, and from the kings, on observed facts. Their religious ideas are responsible for the view of the Divine origin of laws.
We have here placed before our readers the law as it was promulgated by the sages and expounded by the learned. We contemplate to give to our readers; be
