The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c10.s15.1

c10.s15.1

The topics of *Dharma sūtras* (*śāstras*) as discussed above enable us to realize that these books are in the main treatises of "private" law (i.e. the law relating to family or marriage, property, contract and so forth). In contrast with them the *Arthaśāstras* may be regarded as treatises on "public law" (*droit public*), the law of the constitution, the polity, the *saptāṁga* or seven-limbed organism, the state.