The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c16.s1.t3.28

c16.s1.t3.28

According to Yâjnavalkya's Code⁷ according to which law is *sadâchâra* or the “practice or conduct of good men”, what “seems pleasant or good to oneself”, and the “desire that springs from mature consideration.” So also in the *Vyavahâra Darpana*, where law is described as “impersonal and self-existent, the king of kings”, far “more powerful than they, we have once more the Oriental counterpart of the Stoic, Roman and Patristic conceptions of law In Hindu analysis *dharma* came to be defined as positive law also. The conception of law as *râjnâm âjnâ* in Kautilya's language i. e. as, command enforced by sanction finds clear expression in the writings of Nârada, Śukra, Jaimini and his commentator Śabara Svâmi. In Nârada's *Smriti*¹ we are informed that the performance of duty having fallen into disuse, positive law (*vyavahâra*) has been introduced, and that the king as superintending the law is known as *danda-dhara* or wielder of *danda* (the power to punish). The sanction is definitely mentioned in the *Śukra-nîti*,² according to which the sovereign should categorically state in his commands that he would "surely destroy by severe punishment those offenders who after having heard these his decrees would act contrary to them."