Legal Systems
Hindu Law
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Framed comparatively rather than doctrinally, Hindu law denotes the body of legal rules, drawn chiefly from the Dharmasastra textual tradition, that British colonial administrators from 1772 onward applied as personal law to Hindus in India rather than imposing English common law uniformly. The foundational text used for this purpose was the Manusmriti, which colonial officials treated as a code although it originated as a religious-ethical treatise. Two major regional schools developed, Mitakshara across most of India and Dayabhaga in Bengal and Assam, identified as such in an 1869 Privy Council case. Religious doctrine on dharma itself is treated in the atlas's sibling coverage of Hinduism; this entry describes the comparative-law category as colonial administrators and legal scholars constructed and applied it.
Facts
Origin Year1772 marks British colonial administrators choosing to apply separate religion-based personal law rather than uniform English common law. The operative text, the Manusmriti, is separately dated by mainstream scholarship to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, and the underlying Dharmasastra tradition is older still. Example JurisdictionsBritish India; Hindu-law-influenced practice historically extended into Cambodia, Java, Bali, Malaysia, Thailand and Burma 1 Primary Source of LawThe Dharmasastra or Smriti textual tradition, led by the Manusmriti, as reinterpreted and applied as positive law by British colonial courts 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Divinity Atlas: Hinduism, originated there.
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