15 Facts About Hindu law

Substance of Hindu law implemented by the British was derived from a Dharmasastra named Manusmriti, one of the many treatises on Dharma.

The British mistook the Dharmasastra as codes of Hindu law and failed to recognise that these Sanskrit texts were not used as statements of positive Hindu law until the British colonial officials chose to do so.

In colonial history context, the construction and implementation of Hindu law and Islamic law was an attempt at "legal pluralism" during the British colonial era, where people in the same region were subjected to different civil and criminal laws based on the religion of the plaintiff and defendant.

John Mayne, in 1910, wrote that the classical Hindu law has the oldest pedigree of any known system of jurisprudence.

The term "Hindu law" is a colonial construction, and emerged when the colonial rule arrived in South Asia, and when in 1772 it was decided by British colonial officials in consultation with Mughal rulers, that European common law system would not be implemented in India, that Hindus of India would be ruled under their "Hindu law" and Muslims of India would be ruled under sharia.

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However, Hindu law was neither mentioned, nor in use, nor codified, during the 600 years of Islamic rule of India.

Bilimoria states the role of Shruti in Hindu law Dharma has been inspired by "the belief in a higher natural cosmic order that regulates the universe and provides the basis for its growth, flourishing and sustenance – be that of the gods, human beings, animals and eco-formations".

Levinson states that the role of Shruti and Smriti in Hindu law is as a source of guidance, and its tradition cultivates the principle that "the facts and circumstances of any particular case determine what is good or bad".

The later Hindu law texts include fourfold sources of Dharma, states Levinson, which include Atmanastushti, Sadachara, Smriti and Sruti.

In each of these regions, Hindu law fused with local norms and practices, giving rise to legal texts as well as legal records embodied in stone and copper-plate inscriptions.

Muslims of India, the code of Muslim Hindu law was readily available in al-Hidaya and Fatawa-i Alamgiri written under sponsorship of Aurangzeb.

In 1864, after the East India Company was dissolved and India became a formal part of the British Empire, Anglo-Hindu law entered into a second phase, one in which British colonial courts in India relied less on the Muslim Qadis and Hindu Pandits for determining the respective religious laws, and relied more on a written law.

However, the personal laws for Muslims remained sharia-based, while the Anglo-Hindu law was enacted independent of any text on matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and the Anglo-Hindu law covered all Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists in India.

Development of legal pluralism, that is separate Hindu law based on individual's religion, was controversial in India from the very start.

Acceptance to overseas travelling was a reformation within the Hindu law society implemented without enacting any legislature.