The degree to which the early dharma literature was an extrapolation from the earlier ritual codes can be seen from a number of shared features of form and content. One of these that has not received more than passing notice is the fact that the Dharmaśāstric principle of regarding customary norms as a valid basis of dharma, both in general and in limited spheres, has its origins in ritual rules in the śrautasūtras and gṛhyasūtras. Passages from the Baudhāyanaśrautasūtra and numerous (...) gṛhyasūtras show that already in these rulebooks established practices of particular social groups were accepted as a valid authority in certain contexts where explicit textual warrant was lacking, and that a further distinction was there made between the general norms of experts and the valid particular norms of locality or social group. (shrink)

Explaining what made ancient Greek law unusual, Michael Gagarin observes that most premodern legal cultures “wrote extensive sets of laws for academic purposes or propaganda but these were not intended to be accessible to most members of the community and had relatively little effect on the actual operation of the legal system.” This article addresses the implications of writing for customary or regional law in South and Southeast Asia. The textual tradition of Dharmaśāstra, which canonizes a particular model of Brahmin (...) customary norms, can certainly be called a “scholarly” exercise, and it was also intended as propaganda for the Brahmanical cosmopolitan world order. But it also formulated a procedural principle to recognize the general validity of other, even divergent, customary norms, though for the most part such rules remained lex non scripta. On the other hand, inscriptions provide evidence that writing was used for diverse legal purposes and offers glimpses of actual legal practice. In these records, customary laws are sometimes laid down as statutes by decree of a ruler or community body, or are simply invoked as long-established customary rules. But even when Dharmaśāstra texts are not directly cited, their influence over the longue durée is discernable in the persistence of śāstric legal categories and terms of art. This influence is even more evident in Java, where legal codes on the Dharmaśāstra model were composed in Javanese, and where the inscriptions came to exhibit a closer connection with śāstric discourse than is found in India. (shrink)

In his edicts, the emperor Aśoka Maurya extols brāhmaṇas, usually alongside ascetics (śramaṇas), as deserving honor and generosity, though he never alludes to their connection with ritual, the central theme of early Brahmanical literature. On the other hand, in Rock Edicts I and IX, he disparages sacrifices, and ceremonies performed by women, advocating instead the practice of ethical virtues. Close attention to the wording of Rock Edict IX shows that Aśoka and the Brahmanical Gṛhyasūtras talk about domestic rites in very (...) similar terms, even describing them with the same adjective (uccāvaca). Both of them note the special role of women as a source of knowledge of such ceremonies, and differ only in how they evalute the value of such ceremonial: Aśoka disparages women’s rites, while some Gṛhyasūtras explicitly validate women as authorities in such matters. A comparison of these sources highlights the distinctive role of the term dhamma in Aśoka’s usage (in contrast to maṅgala (auspicious folk rites), and may provide some guidance for dating the Gṛhyasūtras. The fact that Aśoka does not explicitly connect such rites with the brāhmaṇas suggests that in his experience at least (i.e., in Magadha) Brahmins’ religious authority had nothing to do with domestic ritual. We may conclude that the Vedic canonization of Gṛhya ritual norms was not yet recognized outside of priestly circles, if it had developed yet at all. (shrink)

Many Hindu deities as known from classical sources have a very slender profile in the Vedic texts, appearing in only a few passages and often represented in ways that seem peripheral to their full, classical personae. Ritualists and devotees steeped in that older literature took pains to connect those deities to Vedic mantras and rites, in order to validate them with the prestige of venerable orthodoxy as well as to provide a basis for Brahmin priestly roles in their worship. The (...) case of the goddess Durgā is particularly striking in this respect, since her Vedic “footprint” is so small. This study carefully examines the Durgā Sūkta and related materials to show how Taittirīya and Ṛgveda Brahmins went about supplying a Vedic liturgy for Durgā worship. This account complements the one recently proposed to show how Atharvan priests in the service of rulers drew on Atharvavedic traditions to present Durgā as a patron goddess of arms and military strength. (shrink)