CLASSICAL LAW AND HINDUISM IN INDIA

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The purpose of this study has been to analyze the classical law texts (dharmasastra) of India with an aim of clarifying the historical formation of the ideas of social order and cultural norms in ancient Indian civilization. While conducting our joint study whose members consisted of various fields of Indology, we focused special attention on the text of Yajnavalkya-Smrti (ca.4-5th century. A.D.) which had exerted great influence upon the cultural evohition of Hinduism. During our first stage of the study, however, we came to share the common understanding that there had not been enough philological textual studies in the field of clasiical law literature which would offer the sound basis for the historical formation of the law texts of classical India. Therefore, the main focus of our joint study shifted to the more fundamental philological aspects, i.e., to make through analyzes of the basic law texts and prepare sound basis for further study.The report of our study "Materials for th … More e Critical Text of the Yajnavalkya-Smrti" is the part result of our philological study and it codifies the readings of all texts of the Yajnavalkya-Smrti so far edited during last 150 years, and also includes all the parallel readings found in the important texts concemed. We believe that the report will certainly be indispensable source for the further studies of the classical law texts. Further, as a bye-product of our joint study, we have compiled electric Sanskrit text files of the important clasiical Sanskrit law texts for computer use. The file which has been called "Electric Text of Dharma File" has been open to the international researchers of Indology through internet media and has been paid much tribute for giving a big contribution to the study of Indology.As an another result of this study, we have been preparting a publicationof joint papers "Studies on the Yajnavalkya-Smrti" (ca. 300 pages, in European languages) which will be published withina couple of years. As of now, I have been preparting an another joint study on the subject of power and authority around ancient kingship, enlarging one of the subjects taken up in this study. Less