Sources Of Law In The Ancient Vedic Period

Prateek Shandilya, Amity University Patna

In ancient India not only was there tremendous development of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, grammar, philosophy, literature, etc. but there was also tremendous development of law. This is evident from the large number of legal treatises written in ancient India (all in Sanskrit). Only a very small fraction of this total legal literature survived the ravages of time, but even what has survived is very large. It is said that all Hindu Law originated from the Vedas (also called Shruti). However, in fact this a fiction, and in fact the Hindu law really emanated from books called the Smritis e.g. Manusmriti, Yajnavalkya Smiriti and the Smritis of Vishnu, Narad, Parashar, Apastamba, Vashisht, Gautam, etc. These Smirits were not laws made by parliament or some legislature. They were books written by certain Sanskrit Scholars in ancient times who had specialized in law. Later, commentaries (called Nibandhas or Tikas) were written on these Smritis, e.g. the commentary of Vijnaneshwar (who wrote a commentary called Mitakshara on the Yajnavalkya Smiriti), the commentary of Jimutvahan who wrote a book called the Dayabhaga (which is not a commentary on any particular Smriti but is a digest of several Smritis), Nanda Pandit (whose commentary Dattak Mimansa deals specifically with the Law of Adoption), etc. Commentaries were then written on these commentaries, e.g. Viramitrodaya, which is a commentary on the Mitakshara (which founded the Banaras School of Mitakshara). It is not necessary to go into further details about this as that would not be necessary for this discussion. All law was originally customary law, and there was no statutory law in ancient India, for the simple reason that there was no parliament or legislature in those times.