The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s2.4

c11.s2.4

One wonders as to why Breloer felt it necessary to fling a joke at the student of inscriptions. All inscriptions of course are not genuine or objective accounts of actual facts. But should one happen to hit upon an inscription that is not only authentic but also contains an unembellished statement of events and promulgations, say, like the Roman Twelve Tables there is hardly any doubt that every document of *Śāstra* literature (*Dharma*, *Artha* and *Nīti*) would have to be appraised by reference to this touchstone. Under those circumstances the *śāstras* must follow the inscriptions and not the inscriptions the *śāstras* as authority for positive history. In any case each evidence is to be judged on its own merits.