Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.461

c7.461

Causes of self-contradictions in the Smṛtis. The authors of the Smṛtis and the commentators too always strive to accommodate themselves with the spirit of the time, inasmuch as they declare obsolete rules to be no longer admissible in the present age of sins (*kalivarjya*), or, as the Smṛtic. says about several forms of ordeals, "obsolete at the present day" (*adyotsanna*). This does not prevent them however from laying down older customs immediately after those of a later period, for by that time they come to be regarded as belonging to the revelation (*śruti*). In this way a part of the contradictions of which the Smṛtis are full, may be explained away. A second source of these discrepancies lies in the differences of local usages and views of different schools which likewise had to be taken into consideration.