The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s3.t2.1

c10.s3.t2.1

The only literature available for the present is twofold. First are the *dharma-śâstras*⁶ associated with the names of Manu, Yâjnavalkya, Bṛihaspati and others. Next come the *nîti-śâstras*⁷ like the *Kâmandakî-nîti*, *Śukra-nîti* and Bhoja’s *Yukti-Kalpa-taru*. For our present purpose the important question is to find out how much of the laws and manners mentioned in these books constitute "law" in the Austinian sense. From this point of view it is doubtful if these so-called legal codes of India have barely even as much legitimacy or validity as the twelfth and thirteenth century compendiums of feudal customs¹ in Europe which were expressly modelled on Justinian's achievements. Neither the *Manu Samhitâ* nor the treatise of Sukra can legitimately be likened to the *Spiegel* ("Mirrors") of the Saxons and Swabians, the *Summa de legibus* of the Normans, and the *Consuetudines Feudorum* of the Lombards, or the "*Bracton-nîti*" (*De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae*) of England and the contemporary *Beaumanoir-nîti* (*Coutumes de Beauvoises*) of France. The simple reason is that there is a lack of undisputed archeological proofs concerning the actual life in ancient India. Consequently it is not easy to analyze these Indian *sâstras* (*Wissenschaften*) and point out precisely which passages describe the conscious and positive "will" of the state (*râjnâm âjnâ*) or actual laws enforced by "sanction", which indicate merely the immemorial customs or "unwritten laws" of the land, and which others, finally, are nothing but the "pious wishes" of the Hindu Ciceros and Senecas, Alcuins and Jonases, Augustines and Isidores, those champions of *dharma* (i. e. justice and truth).