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Law and the Social Order in India Before the Muhammadan Conquests

Law and the Social Order in India Before the Muhammadan Conquests LAW AND THE SOCIAL ORDER IN INDIA BEFORE THE MUHAMMADAN CONQUESTS BY J. DUNCAN M. DERRETT The Social Scene The centuries which are best documented are not those about which most has been written from the jurisprudential point of view. Far more has been written about the law and society of the sfitras and the early smrtis than about the era of the great commentaries and primary treatises, and the well-known works of N. C. Sen-Gupta and S. C. Banerji illustrate the general position. * Yet the meaning, historically, of the sfitra-material is far from certain, and if the smrtis meant what they literally appear to mean, why do the mediaeval commentators so constantly interpret them in other senses? Those early periods remain substantially for the historian, and in particular for the compa- rative legal historian to unfold; we meanwhile can make better use of the secondary materials, so far as legal texts are concerned, and compare them with the practice of the people, so far as this is depicted in in- scriptions and other authentic sources. For the historian of Indian society the period between about 800 and 1 00 of our era is particularly rich in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Brill

Law and the Social Order in India Before the Muhammadan Conquests

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1964 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0022-4995
eISSN
1568-5209
DOI
10.1163/156852064X00049
Publisher site
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Abstract

LAW AND THE SOCIAL ORDER IN INDIA BEFORE THE MUHAMMADAN CONQUESTS BY J. DUNCAN M. DERRETT The Social Scene The centuries which are best documented are not those about which most has been written from the jurisprudential point of view. Far more has been written about the law and society of the sfitras and the early smrtis than about the era of the great commentaries and primary treatises, and the well-known works of N. C. Sen-Gupta and S. C. Banerji illustrate the general position. * Yet the meaning, historically, of the sfitra-material is far from certain, and if the smrtis meant what they literally appear to mean, why do the mediaeval commentators so constantly interpret them in other senses? Those early periods remain substantially for the historian, and in particular for the compa- rative legal historian to unfold; we meanwhile can make better use of the secondary materials, so far as legal texts are concerned, and compare them with the practice of the people, so far as this is depicted in in- scriptions and other authentic sources. For the historian of Indian society the period between about 800 and 1 00 of our era is particularly rich in

Journal

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1964

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