The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s3.t1.8

c10.s3.t1.8

But, curiously enough, with the exception of certain sections in the *Artha-śâstra*² bearing on revenues and on crimes and punishments students of Hindu polity can hardly point to any collections of *śâsanas*, (ordinances and statutes) or statistical documents in ancient Indian archives. Semi-historical writings like Kalhaṇa’s *Râja-tarangiṇî* (Kashmir) Sandhyâkara’s *Râma-charita*³ (Bengal) and Bilhana’s *Vikramânka-charita* (Deccan),⁴ all of the twelfth century, which may be likened to a certain extent to the *Shu* books of China are, moreover, few and far between. Further, in the Sanskrit literature on legal institutions no treatise has yet been discovered which can be compared to the three volumes compiled during the reign of Justinian (526—565), viz., the *Digest* containing fragments of the work of lawyers like Gaius and Ulpian of the second and third centuries, the *Institutes* drawn up by his own lawyers, and the *Code* embodying the imperial “constitutions” from Hadrian (117—138) to his own times.⁵