Hindu Administrative Institutions c5.21

c5.21

entrusted with the legislative or law-making functions. To begin with, law was synonymous with custom apparently. Even when it became necessary to enact law, the enactment usually took on the form of the standard treatises of famous law-givers. These were in the beginning customary laws, as understood in particular schools of teachers, incorporating in it custom that was considered valid and approved by the worthy. As time changed and law itself changed sufficiently, the change was brought about by a new redaction undertaken, it may be, by a very prominent representative teacher of the school, or by a school as a whole receiving the approval of the learned. In still later stages of development, when the so-called Sūtra text-books or Śāstra text-books got to be fixed, commentators took on the role of incorporating in the body of laws such changes as had come in, by their commentaries. In other words, as varying practices grew and approved themselves to the learned and worthy members of the society whom it affected, the changed state of things became the law thenceforward. Laws being therefore given by Ācāryas and approved of the learned, were beyond the sphere of the administration, whatever its character.