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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c10.s14: The Chronology of Dharma Literature according to Meyer

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c10.s14

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English

The Chronology of Dharma Literature according to Meyer

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The *Smṛiti* literature does not offer, according to Meyer in *Ueber das Wesen der altindischen Rechtsschriften* (Leipzig 1927, pp. vi., 86-88), anything like the development of secular law but rather the progressive incorporation into Brāhmaṇical *Dharma* works of this law which originated and was developed in other milieux (*anderwarts entstandenen und ausgebildeten Rechts*). This attitude in regard to the origin of *des weltlichen Rechtes* is perhaps unorthodox from the standpoint of Hindu socio-religious tradition and certainly from that of traditional modern scholarship in indology.

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But no student of legal institutions bearing on ancient or modern regions or of primitive and well-developed races can oppose the idea that a code in so far as it is a compilation, say, the *Digest* of Justinian, the *Sachsenspiegel* of medieval Germany, or the *Code Napoleon*, is bound to be a hotchpotch of materials coming from the most diverse sources. In the evolution of "Hindu" mores, customs and usages the most ancient Vedic or even pre-Vedic culture-complex can hardly be understood except as the result of fusion between Aryan and non-Aryan, Brāhmaṇic and non-Brāhmaṇic, nay, very often Indian and non-Indian elements. Even the oldest "Hindu" laws relating to the arts and crafts, the farming, cattle-breeding and commercial profession and so forth are the expressions of life lived by the *viṣ*, the folk, the *Dāsas*, the *Dasyus*, the *Vr\=atyas*, the *Niṣādas*, the "wild tribes"²² and what not of the times. Sociologically speaking, this is an important thesis such as may be accepted by every student of positivism.

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²² B. A. Saletore: *The Wild Tribes in Indian History* (Lahore 1935) may be consulted for a brief bird's eye view, although the work does not deal with the topic dealt with here.

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Another proposition of Meyer's runs to the effect that *diese sind ihrem ursprünglichen und irhem eigentlichen Wesen nach Zauberliteratur* (the Smriti works constitute by their origin and essential nature the literature of magic). Unfortunately, the category "magic" carries with it in orthodox Hindu judgment as well as in nineteenth century philosophy something derogatory. But should we once get used to it as just a technical term of modern social science which tries to interpret some of the phenomena of human life bearing on the unseens, the imperceptibles, and their bearings on man's prosperity and conduct even the Hindu will find very little to fight shy of it. Recent anthropology is making it more and more clear that the "elementary forms" of life, the origins of morals, the beginnings of gods, the first manifestations of propriety, decency, good conduct etc. are intimately associated with that vague and elastic word "magic"—and this both in the East and the West. "No magic, no ritual"—can be regarded as the *Sūtra* of modern sociology for the ancient Greeks and Romans as for the ancient Teutons, or the Iroquois and the Hopis of America as for the "Hindus" of all denominations and races in India. "Magic" is just an "X" which like "totem" is improvised to explain almost anything and everything from animism and ancestor worship to the *swastika* and the crucifixion, Hindu *śrāddha* and Roman Catholic "mass." The place of magic in the beginnings of culture is the theme of Coulange's *La Cité Antique*, Frazer's *Psyche's Task* (Discourse concerning the Influence of Superstition on the Growth of Institutions) and Hauer's *Das religiöse Erlebnis auf den unterem Stufen*. As regards even the Chinese people which is conventionally known to be the least magic-ridden and religious, Legge's *Religions of China*, Hirth's *Ancient History of China* and Groot's *Religion in China* are some of the publications in which a sociologist of Durkheim's school will find plentiful references to the presence of magic, superstitions, "initiation," ritualistic hocus pocus and what not, such as may be said to promote the society-forming forces.²³

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²³ E. Durkheim: *Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse* (Paris 1912); L. Lévy-Bruhl: "Remarques sur l'initiation des medicine-men" in *Die Kulturelle Bedeutung der Komplexen Psychologie* (Berlin 1935).

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But Meyer's position is eminently questionable when he objects to the usual description of the *Smriti* works as *Gesetzbücher oder Rechtswerke* i.e. law books (p. 1). He thinks that law has absolutely nothing to do with the essential or only object of these *Sūtras* and *Śāstras* on *dharma*. Their chief object rather is, says he, the teaching of *āchāra*. And, "what is *āchāra*?" he askes. "It is the conduct that brings health and welfare (*heilbringende Verhalten*) from the religious and moral standpoint," he answers. Even supposing that the treatises on *dharma* deal with nothing but *āchāra* and *sadāchāra*, good conduct, conduct of the good or conduct of the good regions etc. such as can be learnt by a pupil from his *āchārya*, a preceptor, as Meyer explains (pp. 2-3), there is no need for depriving these treatises of their character as books on law. After all, one must admit as a matter of course that not all law is "positive," such as can be enforced by the sanction of the state, or secular and worldly. But as cementing bonds of community no rules or regulations are more appropriately to be termed laws than those of Confucian "propriety" or the Hindu *āchāra* and Buddhist *sila*. And since Meyer has no difficulty in believing that *die Urliteratur aller Völker die Zauberliteratur ist* (the original or primitive literature of all peoples is the literature of charms and magic) he has only to go another step and encounter the fundamental reality that primitive law (whether private, i.e., relating to family and property, or public, i.e., relating to the king or the state) is also intimately mixed up with magic, incantations, charms and allied phenomena. In other words, in so far as *dharma* literature is the literature of magic it can at the same time and because of this fact be the literature of law.

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Whilst these anthropologico-sociological discussions of Meyer may not disturb as a rule the ordinary indologists he has, however, thrown a bomb-shell into their atmosphere of placid *status quo* by entering the domain of chronology (p. vi). In his analysis (1) Viṣṇu's treatise is not an old *Dharmasūtra*, dependent as it is greatly on Manu and Yājñavalkya, (2) Yājñavalkya is a very "unoriginal writer," who borrows from every nook and corner, especially form Nārada and Kauṭalya, (3) Gautama does not belong to the head but rather to the tail of the *Smriti* series, (4) Kauṭalya does not utilize Manu, Yājñavalkya, Viṣṇu etc. and not even Baudhāyana, (5) commencing with Manu, at any rate, the works are not those of schools but individuals, compilers who make collections from books, and (6) Nārada is older than Manu.

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In order to establish the relative chronology of the *Dharma* treatises Meyer has adopted the following method (p. 41). First, he examines the intellectual contents and character of the works. Secondly, he discusses the linguistic and metristic features of each treatise. Thirdly, he pursues the traces of indebtedness of the one to the others. And finally, he analyses those items of law and society about which the dates are known from other sources.

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The methodology of Meyer is, on the whole, the same as that by which the relative and absolute chronology of the "law books" has been settled by Bühler and Jolly in the *Sacred Books of the East Series* as well as by the latter in *Recht und Sitte*. That there is nothing unacceptable in this methodology is perfectly clear. But that its application is unsatisfying is apparent to many students of indology who are asked by Bühler and Jolly at every step to accept this hypothesis or that in regard to what is alleged to be plausible and what is not. Meyer's bombshell is therefore to be welcome as an item calculated to re-open the question which was for all practical purposes supposed to be closed on account of sheer inertia or perhaps because indologists wanted to have some sort of a working hypothesis in regard to the chronological scaffolding.

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In the application of the methodology Meyer like his predecessors wants us to make certain assumptions. And these are almost of the same character as those of his predecessors. They deserve therefore the same recognition as the former. But the fundamental question remains yet to be solved. Let us go back to the Vedic question. The material contained in the *Ṛik Saṁhitā* may have belonged to the same age and society as that in the *Yajur* and the *Atharva*. Then, again, the material of the *Brāhmaṇas* and that in the *Saṁhitā* are likely to have been coeval, sociologically considered. If we go into the problem from the standpoint of substance or social experience and ritualistic facts there are hardly any arguments on the strength of which the alleged oldest Gautama is older than the alleged youngest Nārada. As long as it is a fact that the *Chhāndogya-mantras* compiled by Guṇaviṣṇu in the twelfth century are ruling Hindu life in Bengal and parts of Bihar even today, in other words, the latest compilation of modern times is in point of social data identical with what is to be found in `the oldest *Ritualliteratur* such as forms the subject matter of Hillebrandt's study, any dogmatism about relative chronology is eminently out of place. That Gautama and Nārada may, therefore, have come out of the same anvil there is nothing to dispute logically. That the *Manu Samhitā*, as we have it, is an encyclopaedic hotchpotch like the *Śukranīti* is also apparent to every student of these treatises. One can, therefore, find arguments in favour of Meyer's attempt to reopen the question of the chronology of the *Dharmaśāstras*. We should, at any rate, attach some distinct value to Meyer's standpoint that one treatise does not necessarily imply a later period or stage of development simply because the data furnished by it happen to look like being relatively more developed. The difference between treatise and treatise may just be the one between author and author. One may be a specialist, the other a dilettante and so on (pp. 86-88).

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This is an eminently acceptable attitude of Meyer's. The most questionable practice in regard to the Vedic chronology as to the *Dharmaśāstra* chronology as well as the *Dharma-Artha-Kāma-śāstra* complex consists, as it has appeared to me always, in attaching a time-value to every instance of difference or discrepancy between author and author or rather text and text. Simply because certain social, legal or economic incidents are not mentioned by one authority but they happen to be dealt with by another it has become the convention among indologists to believe that there must be an interval of time lying between the two. Humanly speaking, it should be reasonable to believe also that both might have arisen in the same epoch but that not every authority as book-maker, writer or compiler cared to or was capable of giving everything that was prevalent in his days. The diversity of regions or homes and surroundings of the authors also may explain the discrepancy between text and text although composed at the same time and dealing with the same topic.

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While calling attention to the need for a reshuffling of the *Dharma* box in regard to dates and appreciating in the main the general lines of attack as formulated by Meyer it is not possible in the present work to deal with the entire *corpus* in a specialised manner. The conventional chronology, relative and absolute, as established by Bühler and Jolly, is therefore being provisionally left undisturbed, so far as the series from Gautama to Nārada and Brihaspati is concerned. In regard to the subsequent treatises, wherever there is a conflict between Winternitz's *Geschichte der Indischen Literatur* Vol. III (1921) and Kane's *History of the Dharmaśastras* Vol. I. (1930), a *via media* is being decided upon. On the chronology of every text Kane has bestowed considerable attention.

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