The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s3.t8.11

c10.s3.t8.11

In any case it ought to be clear to students of *Staatswissenschaft* that Hindu law (public or private) cannot be summed up in single shibboleths, whether those of Kautilya, or, as it was the custom so long, the slogans of the hoary Manu. It has changed from epoch to epoch and region to region. Besides, for the study of the legal institutions and positive laws of India the attention of scholars must have to be diverted from the so-called lawbooks³ to the inscriptions and archeological documents. The fact that the rates of assessment on land which obtained in Maurya and Chola India⁴ are entirely different from the conventional 1/6th of the produce idealized in the *śâstras* is but one of many instances of discrepancy between custom and actual law which should warn the student of *Realpolitik* against depending too much on the Manu’s and the Śukraś in his institutional investigations.