The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.3

c5.3

This can be clearly seen in customary law and its procedures, such as the much-vaunted simplicity of village or panchayat justice. The point is not its rustic simplicity—in fact its procedures are often far from clear to the unwary observer—but its basis in the intuitive understanding that the participants in the face-to-face society have of the web of social relations and each other's place in it. This intuitive knowledge makes it possible to do without objective rules, precedent, and case construction and yet arrive at decisions (or stalemates) that are acceptable to the participants. But the results, from case to case, will often be far from lucid to the outsider, let alone easily