The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s4.t4.5

c9.s4.t4.5

Of equal importance was the legislative or law-making power of *śreṇîs*. The gilds “made” or “declared” their own laws and had their own usages binding upon them.¹ As a rule, the state could not institute any regulations over-riding these gild customs. We learn from Manu, Brihaspati and other codifiers of laws or customs that "rules of their own profession" were recognized by the state for cultivators or peasants and farmers, artisans such as carpenters or others, artists, money-lenders, companies of tradesmen, dancers, persons wearing the token of a religious order such as the Pâśupatas, and even robbers.² Gautama also, the earliest of the writers, observes that peasants, traders, herdsmen, moneylenders, and artisans have authority to lay down rules for their respective classes. And in the suits brought before the state judiciary in appeal from gild tribunals, the royal judges were expected to learn the facts and rules "from those who in each class had authority to speak". The king's officers were to give legal decisions "in accordance with what were declared to be the rules in the *śreṇî*".³