Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.5

c7.5

The second stage of the legal literature is represented by the very numerous metrical works which have come down to the present time under the name of Dharmaśāstra or Smṛti. They differ from the Dharmasūtras composed partly or wholly in prose, first in form, inasmuch as they are throughout written in verse, mostly in simple ślokas, then however also in their character, of which in § 5. Yet these works, to which the Mānava-dharmaśāstra, the most esteemed and illustrious of all Indian law-books, belongs, appear partly to have originated out of older Dharmasūtras and are, therefore, at all events, connected with the Vedic literature, indirectly at least. The name Smṛti which is given to the Dharmasūtras and Dharmaśāstras and also to many other works, properly signifies "memory", in the sense that the memories of the holy Ṛṣis of antiquity are recorded in them in contradistinction to Śruti, "revelation", i. e. the Vedas, which is given the greater authority in points of dispute. The Mah. too may be reckoned among the Smṛtis without hesitation; it is treated on the same footing as a Dharmaśāstra and is quoted as authority, not only in the mediaeval and modern law-books, but it was regarded as the great Smṛti, based on the Veda and proclaimed by Vyāsa, even by the famous Kumārila of the eighth century A. C. The epic literature includes also the Purāṇas which are mentioned as a source of law already in Gaut. 11, 19 and which are actually frequently quoted in the later law-books (§ 10).