Dr. Nitin, Professor, Maharaja Agrasen School of Law, Maharaja Agrasen University, Atal Shiksha Kunj, Kalujhanda, Baddi, District Solan, Himachal Pradesh – 174103
Introduction
Law as understood by the Hindu is a branch of Dharma. Its ancient framework is the law of the smrities. The smrities are institutes, which enounce rules of Dharma. In Sanskrit there is no term strictissimi juris for positive or municipal law, dissociated from the ethical and religious sense. In a system of law necessarily influenced by the theological tenets of the Vedic Aryans, and the philosophical theories which the genus of the race produced and founded on the social and sociological concept of a pastoral people, the admixture of religion and ethics with legal percepts was naturally congruent.1 It was not possible, indeed, always to draw any hard line of logical demarcation between secular and religious matter, because certain questions, for instance, such as marriage and adoption, had the aspects of both. Any attempt, therefore, to isolate completely, any secular matter from its religious adjuncts, would fail to give a comprehensive idea or proper perspective of the true juridical concept of Hindu law. The components of smirities, therefore, comprehends not merely the concept of law, but also the synthesis of law, religion, justice, equity and good conscience as well.
