The Rashtrakutas and their Times c20.62.3

c20.62.3

The last mentioned officer was to be a member of the ministry according to the S'ukranīti, a work which very probably belongs to our period with the exception of some interpolations, and it was he who was to review the realm of social and religious practices, to find out which of them, though prescribed in the S'āstras, were against the spirit of the age, which were absolutely obsolete, being countenanced neither by the S'āstra nor by custom, and to issue such orders regarding the points at dispute as may secure both this world and the next.⁴⁶ The Smritis of our and of earlier period⁴⁷ assign this function to a parishad or conference, composed of distinguished learned men of known character and piety. There is no real contradiction between S'ukra and these Smriti writers; for the royal officers, when and where they existed, may have presided over and been guided by the decisions of these experts. The case was similar to that of the judicial Panchayats; the judgments signed by Rama Shastri Prabhune of the Peshva period used to embody the decisions of the Panchayats to whom the cases were referred, though the signatures of the Panchas did not appear on the judgments. It is therefore not likely that the ministers of the Hindu states and the Parishads of our period would have looked with favour upon the proposal to surrender their rights in social and religious matters to the order founded by S'ankarāchārya.