The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c13.s1.2

c13.s1.2

1. The *Dharmaśāstras*, with their commentaries and digests.
2. The *Nītiśāstras*.
3. The *Vārttāśāstras*.
4. The *Śilpaśāstras*.
5. The *Purāṇas* with their *Upapurāṇas*. Since Gupta times these encyclopædic treatises have gone on expanding in all the three dimensions, so to say. From the seventh to the end of the thirteenth century each one of the *Purāṇas* that has been mentioned in the previous epoch maintained its position as a library of world-culture in the intellectual *milieu* of India.