Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.1

c7.1

§ 1. *The sources of law in general.* In India as in other oriental countries the law (*vyavahāra*) is an integral part of religion and ethics (*dharma*) and the law-books (*dharmaśāstras*) therefore offer us overwhelming data about religious purification and penance, prayer and sacrifice, pohibitions about food and drink, punishment in hell and rebirth, philosophy, eschatology, creation, funeral ceremonies and sacrifices to the dead, the study of the Veda and asceticism, the manner of living and customs of Brahmans and Kings and other things which we do not generally expect in a law-book. Many Dharmaśāstras give nothing at all about law proper and only a few later compilations such as the Nāradasmṛti may be called purely juridical works. According to the law-books the Vedas should be regarded as the first and foremost source of the *dharma* which are therefore frequently quoted, specially in the Dharmasūtras which generally follow the Vedas very closely and may, on the whole, be regarded as the oldest source of law. The Vedas in a narrow sense contain many data about sacrifices, penances, prayers and other features of the *dharma*, which are important for the history of customs, but they contain only occasional notices about legal affairs. What the Dharmasūtras quote from the Vedas on this subject, is based partly upon mere juridical construction of utterances originally absolutely irrelevant; for example, Āp. 2, 14, 11 quotes a Vedic passage—the purport of it is that Manu divided his property among his sons—to demonstrate that unequal division of property is forbidden. Actual references to legal institutions such as e. g. compensation for murder (§ 44), are of course of great value for the earliest history