Law

Law is not usually associated with Hinduism. When it is, one typically

hears either of the supposedly inviolable law of action and consequence,

karma, or of law as a part of duty, dharma. It is unfortunate that the idea or category of law has not been as widely used in Hindu Studies as it has in

the study of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, because the same sort of balance

brought by law to the study of these religions is helpful in understanding

Hinduism as well. By balance, I mean moving beyond a view of South Asian

religion rooted in colonialism and Orientalism and that focuses exclusively

on ultimate spirituality or mystical experience, to a view that also recognizes

the day-to-day importance of religious rituals, institutions, and goals in the

structuring of everyday human life. In this chapter, I concentrate on three

ways in which law advances our understanding of Hinduism: (1) by thinking

of the central textual category of śāstra as a legalistic tool of discipline that creates a moral self in Hindu thought; (2) by interpreting law as a metaphor

for a signifi cant part of the Hindu religious imagination that places the idea

of rule or command at the heart of theology; and (3) by using law as a

category that reminds us of the this-worldly side of Hinduism, a religious

or theological discourse of ordinary things. I also consider (4) the Hindu

law tradition and its nature as a legal system more strictly defi ned. In each

area, I use a quotation from the well-known Hindu text, the Laws of Manu (see Olivelle 2005, all quotes are taken from this translation) as a point of

When a Brahmin who keeps to his vows studies this treatise, he is never

sullied by faults arising from mental, verbal, or physical activities; he

purifi es those alongside whom he eats, as also seven generations of his

lineage before him and seven after him.…This treatise is the best good-

luck incantation; it expands the intellect; it procures everlasting fame;

and it is the ultimate bliss.