A History of Sanskrit Literature c27.s1.2

c27.s1.2

Yet another early development within the Vedic period was the building up of schools of Law in the wide sense of that term which includes religious and civil and criminal law. This must have been done together with the development of society and the necessity for having some standards to guide the Brahmins who acted as advisers and judges to the ruling class. The Smṛti of Manu presupposes a considerable period of development during which there arose professional schools, to one of which is due the production of a work such as that Smṛti which claims not to guide the life of any single community, but to be a general guide for all the classes of the state. Only slowly and imperfectly within these schools was there developed a separation, never complete, of religious and secular law.