unknown. As a result, administering the “law” of the dharmas ́a ̄stras to Hindus
led to interesting developments in the understanding and interpretation of the
ancient, revealed Sanskrit texts. This essay cannot go into detail on the early
experiments that were resorted to to obviate the problem: attaching to the courts
of law one or more pandits, who were able to consult the Sanskrit texts and
advise the judges; trying to gain access to the Sanskrit texts in English via the
intermediary of translations into Persian (e.g., the Code of Gentoo Laws men-
tioned earlier), etc. These experiments may have made legal proceedings cum-
bersome and not always reliable, but they had little impact on the dharmas ́a ̄stras
themselves. It must be mentioned, though, that it was the need to understand
the legal sections of the dharmas ́a ̄stras in the original, that became the first
and primary incentive for British judges in India to embark on the study of the
Sanskrit language. Some of the letters by Sir William Jones, a judge in the
Calcutta Supreme Court, make it abundantly clear that his Institutes of Hindu
Law; or the Ordinances of Menu... Comprising the Indian System of Duties Religious
and Civil (Calcutta, 1794), was a natural and pragmatic reaction to his distrust
in court pandits and second-hand translations.
Other developments did have an impact on the understanding and practical
application of the ancient dharmas ́a ̄stras. First, “law” and “religion,” which were
inextricably linked in the smr.titexts, were artificially separated. Thus, in the
smr.titexts one of the requirements for an adoption to be valid is a ritual called
dattahoma. With the “religious” aspect of adoption, as with any other aspect of
the Hindu religion, the Courts explicitly refused to interfere: if the dattahomawas
performed as a part of an adoption, the parties were free to do so. But, the task
of the Courts was to administer “law,” and they declared adoptions valid without
the performance ofdattahomas. Or, the dharmas ́a ̄stras prohibit the adoption of an
only son, because such an act was bound to deprive the son’s natural father of
the ideal person to perform the required s ́ra ̄ddha rituals after his death. The
Anglo-Indian courts of law overlooked this “religious” aspect of adoption, and
declared the adoption of an only son valid. Second, as mentioned earlier, one of
the characteristic traits of the commentaries and nibandhaswas that they inter-
preted the apparently contradictory statements in the ancient texts so as to inte-
grate them into coherent systems. These coherent systems of the commentaries
andnibandhaswere more appealing to the courts than the often unclear and con-
tradictory texts of the su ̄tras ands ́a ̄stras. As a result, the courts decided it was
not their duty to investigate the correct meaning of the ancient texts themselves,
but to apply them only as they had been interpreted by the commentators. In
other words, the meaning of the ancient, revealed texts was made subordinate
to the interpretations they received at the hands of human commentators. Thus,
the distinction between those who did not recognize birth as a means to acquire
a right of ownership in the joint family property and those who did (see above),
led to the creation of the two major “Schools of Hindu law,” the Da ̄yabha ̄ga
school for Bengal and the Mita ̄ks.ara ̄school for the rest of India. And the Courts
went one step further. While still claiming to base their judgments on the
Sanskrit texts, be it the human commentaries rather than the revealed s ́a ̄stras,
the dharmas ́a ̄stras 113