The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c14.s1.9

c14.s1.9

But it is not solely among *belles lettres* and books comprehended in the *trivium* or *quadrivium* of mediaeval European universities that the student of Hindu politics has to rummage. Law, public finance, constitution, town-planning, national defense, sovereignty, these and allied problems constituted in themselves the basis of two special literary categories. The first category is that of the *smriti-śâstras*, *dharma-śâstras* and *dharma-sûtras*,³ and the second is that of the *artha-śâstras* and *nîti-śâstras*. These two groups of *śâstras* (*Wissenschaften*) exhaust within them the entire range of Hindu social science. It is therefore to these treatises on *dharma* (law) and *smriti* (tradition) as well as *artha* (desired-for objects, i. e. human interests) and *nîti* (*mores*, or social duties) that we have to turn for the topics of a Montesquieu's *Esprit des Lois* or for what Aristotle would call "politics", i. e. the science of *samgha* or *samûha* (group) life. There is a difference, however, between these two classes of sociological literature. The *smriti* sciences are more social and religious, while the *artha* sciences are more, or rather exclusively, political and economic.