History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c11.1

v2.c11.1

It is a little over ten years since the first volume of my History of Dharmaśāstra was published. In the preface to that volume I expressed the hope that time and health permitting I might issue in a few years the second volume dealing with the development of the various subjects comprised in Dharmaśāstra. For several years thereafter whatever leisure I could secure from professional work was devoted to the collection and orderly assortment of the vast Literature on Dharmaśāstra. After my return from a few months' visit to Europe in 1937 I commenced the work of writing the second volume. It soon became apparent to me that to compress within the limits of a single volume the development of the thousand and one topics that fall within the purview of Dharmaśāstra would present only a scrappy and faint outline of the whole field. To add to the difficulties of my task my old painful complaint (duodenal ulcer) recurred with far greater virulence than before, so much so that, partly on medical advice and partly out of despair, in October 1938 I gave up the work altogether. When relief did not come even after six months' total abstinence from literary labours I resumed, in spite of my extremely painful complaint, the work of writing, for fear that otherwise the extensive materials that I had been collecting for nearly two decades might be entirely lost to the world of Sanskrit scholars and that my labours might be altogether wasted. Being afraid that my strength and resolution may not last till the completion of the rather ambitious undertaking, I decided upon bringing out in two volumes the development of the various subjects comprised in Dharmaśāstra. The present volume contains the treatment of varṇa and āśrama, the saṁskāras, āhnika and ācāra, dāna, pratiṣṭhā and utsarga, and śrauta (vedic) sacrifices. The next volume (the last) will deal with the following topics: vyavahāra (Law and procedure), āśauca (impurity on birth and death), śrāddha, prāyaścitta, tīrtha, vrata, kāla, śānti, the influence of the Pūrva-mīmāṁsā and other śāstras on Dharmaśāstra, customs and usages modifying Dharmaśāstra, the philosophical background of Dharmaśāstra, and future developments in Dharmaśāstra. Looking to my past performance I am unwilling to make any promise about the time when the next volume may be expected to be published. I may state, however, that in view of the fact that at present I am in much better health than I have been for several years I shall try to publish it in three years more.