The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s3.t3: 3. Epigraphic Data on Hindu Dharma (Law)
The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s3.t3
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3. Epigraphic Data on Hindu Dharma (Law)
c10.s3.t3.1
It is not surprising, therefore, that Henry Maine whose indology was confined mostly to the *sâstras* and the so-called "village communities" of a politically defunct India should have started the notion, since then held in reverence by Eur-American sociologists, that Hindu states were not *dharma*-enacting i. e. legislating *samûhas* but mere tax-exacting bodies or rather tribute-collecting corporations.² But the student of Indian epigraphy today is master of enough historical material to be able to demonstrate that for the period of over fifteen hundred years from Kautilya, the Richelieu or Bismarck of the Mauryas, to Kulottûnga, the Châlukya-Chola, the statesmen of India consciously instituted laws and modified and revised them at will. The "making" of laws in addition to the simple "declaration" of traditional usages must therefore be reckoned among the institutional achievements of the Hindus.
c10.s3.t3.2
² *Early His. of Inst.*, Lect. XIII, pp. 380—383. See *infra* (analysis of *dharma*, *danda* etc.).
c10.s3.t3.3
The inscriptions, although mainly donative in character, leave no doubt as to the legislative functions of the states. The fiat of official proclamations is known to have often abolished old customs and introduced new usages. The new regulations were held binding within jurisdictions for which they were intended. And the state exercised its "sanction" (*danda*) or penal authority, the essence of Austinian sovereignty, in order to punish the violation of its orders and announcements.