Hindu Law - Sources of Dharma

Sources of Dharma

There are usually three principal sources of dharma in the Dharmaśāstra texts:

  1. śruti, literally translates as "what is heard," but refers to the Vedas or Vedic literature which are the liturgical and praise hymns of the earliest Hindu tradition
  2. smŗti, literally "what is remembered," but refers to the Dharmaśāstra texts as well as other Sanskrit texts such as the Purāņas and the Epics (Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaņa)
  3. ācāra, literally "practice," but refers to the norms and standards established by educated people who know and live by the first two sources of dharma

In two important texts, namely the Laws of Manu (2.6) and the Laws of Yājñavalkya (1.7) another source of dharma, ātmastuṣṭi, literally "what is pleasing to oneself," is also given, but later texts and commentaries severely restrict this source of dharma.

Effectively, the three ideal sources of dharma reduce to two - texts and the practiced norms of people who know the texts. It is the latter category that gave Hindu law a tremendous flexibility to adapt to different temporal and geographic contexts.

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