Overview

The foundation of Hindu law is the voluminous textual tradition called Dharmasastra, the expert tradition on dharma. This book seeks to delineate the historical development of Dharmasastra, even though the tradition presented dharma as timeless and ahistorical. The volume establishes the importance of law for the history and study of Hinduism by providing interpretive descriptions of all the major topics of Hindu dharma according to this tradition. First, two broad introductions to the historical development of the textual sources of Hindu law suggest new ways to understand both the original texts (sm?ti) and the later commentaries and digests. Next, groundbreaking research into the origin of the householder (g?hastha), who is at the center of the Dharmasastric enterprise, provides new insights into both the origin of this genre and many of its topics, such as the asrama system and married household life. The book devotes its central chapters to each of the major topics of Dharmasastra: epistemology of dharma, caste and social class, orders of life, rites of passage, Vedic student and graduate, marriage, children, inheritance, women, daily duties, food, gifting, funeral and ancestral offerings, impurity and purification, ascetic modes of life, dharma during emergencies, king, punishment, legal procedure, titles of law, penances, vows, pilgrimage, images, and temples. The final chapters then explore both the reception of Dharmasastra in other religious traditions, both Hindu and Buddhist, and the relevance of Dharmasastra to studies of critical concepts in religious studiesthe body, emotions, material culture, subjectivity, animal studies, and vernacular culture.--