Reforms and the Dharmashastras

Reforms and the Dharmashastras

In a previous post, I talked about the Sources of Dharma, and touched upon to what extant the Smriti texts are authorative. 

https://bharatasamskriti.blogspot.com/2024/04/on-sources-of-dharma-when-people.html

Now we are going to talk about whether we can overturn some of the statemnts in the Dharmasashtras. Notice how I said Dharmasashtras and not Vedas, for the holy Vedas are authorless and form the foundation of Hinduism. If we reject them or reform them, then there is no point in having a religion.  Fortunately for us Hindus,  alot of the social issues that are attributed to Hinduism are taceable to the Smriti liturature; therefore, we can reform them. 

Let us start with the criticism of the Dharmasashtras: 

Criticism of the Dharmashastras and Overturning Rules

Objection! If you are implying that Dharmashastras can be rejected at will or criticised, know that Manu 2.10 says that both the Vedas and the Dharmashastras shouldn't be criticised

Let us examine Manu 2.10:

“śrutistu vedo vijñeyo dharmaśāstraṃ tu vai smṛtiḥ |

te sarvārtheṣvamīmāṃsye tābhyāṃ dharmo hi nirbabhau”

“But the Shruti (revealed word) is knowable as the Veda and the Dharmasashtra as the Smriti (Recollected word), these two in all matters are not doubtable/ponderable, from those two Dharma indeed shone forth”

The word that is translated as as “not deserving criticism” is “amīmāṃsya”. It is from the verb

mImamsate (मीमांसते) meaning “to think upon” or “reflected upon”, but also “doubt”. 

Thus, from that we get mīmāṃsya, which means “fit to be doubted” , so amīmāṃsya means “not fit to be doubted”. 

Now this isn’t to say that you have to accept the word by blind faith, Medhatihi says under that verse:

“What is prohibited here is that ‘criticism,’ in which we conceive of the form of an act to be quite the reverse of what is declared in the Veda, and proceeding to examine it by means of reasonings based upon false premisses, begin to insist on the conclusion thus arrived at. It is not meant to prohibit such enquiry and discussion as to whether the Prima Facie View or the Established Thesis is in due accord with the Veda. That such an inquiry is not meant to be prohibited is clear from what the author says later on—‘He alone, and none else, knows Dharma, who examines it by reasonings.’ (Manu, 12.106)”

But since the Dharma ultimately at large is derived from the Vedas and Dharmashastras,  “doubting” or “pondering” can’t be applied to them as that would be circular. 

Medhatithi gives the following example:

The Vedas declare it to be Dharmic to kill an animal in a sacrifice, but ordinary people are conditioned to think that “killing” (in the ordinary sense) is wrong and therefore say that the sacrifice of the animal sanctioned by the Vedas is a wrongdoing. However, the source of the idea that “killing is wrong” comes from the Vedic texts, the very texts that sanction the killing of an animal at a sacrifice (Vedas giveth, Vedas Taketh away). 

Hence decrying the Vedic sacrifice of an animal on your whims ends up being circular. 

But what about cases where the Dharmic action in question is not based on the force of the scriptures, but from actual logical reason? A man is sanctioned to supercede his wife if she produces daughters, though through modern medicine we know it is the father that determines the gender of the baby. 

This is an entirely different issue and has been discussed previously. But let us talk about it some more. From the Mimamsa principles which dictate how to interpret the Smriti and Shruti, we are taught that some Smriti injunctions can be not binding and subject to overturning, otherwise Jaimini wouldn’t have said so.

Besides, Medhatithi himself makes similar assertions. 

Refer to a paragraph of his commentary Manu 3.11:

“In the whole of this section on Marriage, wherever the prohibition is not based upon grounds that are not perceptible—e.g., ‘one should marry a maiden who is not his father’s sapiṇḍa,’ etc., (when the grounds of interdiction are trascendental, not perceptible, as in the case of the prohibition of marriage with a diseased girl, etc.),—if the prohibition is disobeyed, the ‘marriage’ itself remains unaccomplished. Hence, if one happens to marry a girl belonging to the same gotra as himself, the marriage, even though performed, would be as good as not performed; and this for the simple reason that the character of ‘marriage’ is determined by scriptural injunction,...”

Later on in the same section he writes:

“As regards the prohibition of marriage with girls belonging to families that may have dropped the sacred rites and so forth,—it is based upon perceptible grounds; and, hence, when such girls are married, the ‘marriage’ is duly accomplished, the girl actually becomes the man’s ‘wife,’ and she shall not be given up. It is in view of this fact that in verse 6, we have the laudatory epithet ‘even though they be great,’ which draws a line of distinction between the two sets of prohibitions. Such also is the custom among all cultured people: they do occasionally marry girls ‘with tawny hair,’ etc., but never one that belongs to the same gotra.”

This is in line with Jaimini’s statements regarding the non bindingness of injunctions based on a seeable cause or hetudarshana (हेतुदर्शन). 

Moreover, Medhatithi writes under Manu 3.8:

“Though it is true that in all cases Smṛti-texts form the source of authority, yet rules have to be laid down for meeting special cases; and it cannot be right to depend entirely on Smṛti-texts; specially because it cannot be said that the Smṛti-texts bearing upon legal proceedings are all based upon the Veda; because the winning or losing of cases deals with well-accomplished things (while the Veda bears upon things to be accomplished) and is amenable to Perception and other forms of cognition;—e.g., that ‘one who acts like this is defeated, while he who acts thus wins’ is a well-accomplished fact. Even the few indications of these that are found in the Veda are to be regarded as being on the same footing as the assertion—‘One desiring freedom from disease should eat the Harītakī (which only describes a perceptible fact). the exact significance of such Injunctive Vedic passages has been discussed by us in the section on the ‘Purification of things’ (under Discourse 6, Verse 110 et seq.); hence we are not going to do the same thing over and again.”

What about Manu 2.11, which says to disregard people who use dialectics to disregard the Veda or Dharmashastras. 

This is true, but what is meant is that using faulty reasoning, akin to what they believed that Atheists or heterodox sects would use, one shouldn’t deny the authority of the Vedas in the sense of “so what if the Vedas say this, I think otherwise; the Vedas are just books”.

If one is a part of a religion, they cannot cast off or rebuke the texts founding their religion on a whim. 

But one can within limits modify or ignore certain parts of the Dharmashastras if given logical reason to do so, but one should't simply chuck these texts out the window. That is what is meant by this. 

Overturning Dharmic Rules

In Mimamsa, Dharma are the acts that bring about Heaven, and here heaven is not a divine realm, though it could be, but rather a metaphor for happiness. Happiness here isn’t necessarily gratification, but more along the lines of welfare. For Vedantins, you could also consider it as that which is conducive to Moksha, but when it comes to Dharma as understood in Smriti injunctions the former interpretations are usually meant.

So if a Dharmic act doesn’t cause welfare, is it really Dharmic? 

For this Manu 4.176 curiously states:

parityajedarthakāmau yau syātāṃ dharmavarjitau |

dharmaṃ cāpyasukhodarkaṃ lokasaṅkruṣṭameva ca

“He should forsake Wealth and Desire which may be bereft of Dharma, and even (so called) Dharma which isn’t conducive to happiness and is decried in the realm”

In the Yajnavalkya Smriti 1.156:

“karmaṇā manasā vācā yatnāddharmaṃ samācaret asvargyaṃ lokaviddviṣṭam dhārmyamapyācarenna tu”

“From effort, he should practise Dharma with his actions, mind, and speech, but he should not perform even that which Dharmic which is not leading-to-heaven and is hated by the wise men of the realm”

So certain practices, although deemed Dharmic, should be forsaken if they are not leading to happiness, not leading to heaven (we define it as welfare), or if the (wise) people decry it.  

Now the commentary under the Yajnavalkya Smriti cites Madhuparka as an example of this. Madhuparka is a Vedic ritual that involves the killing of a Bull. People in this realm, even wise people, will say it is wrong as it involves killing, and therefore the person shouldn’t do it out of fear of censorship.

But rejecting a what is enjoined in the holy Vedas renders Hinduism as pointless. And even Medhatithi under Manu 4.176 is of the same opinion. He restrict the statement of Manu 4,176 to matters based on perceptible things and that too Dharmic acts enjoined only in the Smritis but not the Vedas:

“This prohibition is with a view to perceptible results, just like the prohibition of touching a snake. Ordinary men, being ignorant, would not know that the killing of the bull is permitted (under special conditions), and would therefore make it known that the sacrificer of the bull is an unrighteous person; and, as a large majority of men are illiterate, even cultured persons, not caring to investigate the source of the popular opinion, would avoid the person (as unrighteous). This is what has been said in the passage—‘the king being righteous,’ etc., etc..

What we have said above, is in accordance with the explanation provided by older writers. As a matter of fact, however, it can never be right to reject, on the strength of Smṛti, what has been enjoined by the Veda.”

But Medhatithi does give us an example of what Manu 4.176 is saying:

“The right example of the act aimed at by the Text is as follows: The custom of ‘niyoga’ (‘begetting of a child on the widowed sister-in-law’) is sanctioned by Smṛtis; but it is not performed, because it is ‘deprecated by the people;’ or, again, when one is supporting an unprotected young woman, entirely through pity,—if people show their disapproval by giving out that ‘she appeals to hiś generosity because she is a woman,’—then the said righteous act of supporting would be one that is ‘deprecated by the people.”

Niyoga is not enjoined in the Vedas, just the Smriti, but since the people decry the practice, it must be given up. 

However, it is also wrong to go by the majority opinion on what is right and what is wrong. That isn’t to say that societal opinions aren’t reliable, it is just that their reliability is more like a rule of thumb. In the past, people, even scholarly people, believed in segregation and decried integration. That doesn’t make this social practice of segregation right nor does it make the practice of integration wrong. 

But what about Dharmic acts which objectively lead to bad. People of the realm abhor such acts on account of it objectively leading to bad. 

For this, we refer to the word “asukhodarkaṃ” in Manu 1.476 meaning “not conducive to happiness”. 

Again, happiness is not gratification, but welfare. If you recall, as per Mimamsa, Dharma is that which is conducive to Heaven, a metaphor for welfare. Hence this can be taken with the word “asvargyaṃ” in the Yajnavalkya Smriti. “asvargyaṃ” means “not leading to heaven” (i.e happiness, welfare). 

The conclusion is that Dharmic injunctions, not enjoined in the vedic texts, based on perceptible reason (I would like to add deducible reason as well) can be rejected if it objectively is harmful and not conducive to welfare. Alot of ancient Smriti customs can be overturned like this, though I would call for a congregation of Pandits, Sociologists, Scientists, and such to do a formal overturning of any such Smriti sanctioned practices.

Another note is that from a Mimamsa prespective, Smritis are not just Manusmriti, Yajnavalkya Smriti, and alike. It is any text that is not the Vedas, It was Kumarila Batta who limited the Smritis to the Dharmasashtras. As per the origianl Mimamsa prespective, even the modern Indian consitution is a Smriti. Its validity however is to be compared against only the Shruti, i.e. the Vedas. So long as it doesn't contradict the Vedas, the Indian constitution is a valid Smriti. Funnily enough, if certain section of the Indian constitution isn't having sanction in the Vedas (nor prohibition), then the Mimamsa prespective would dictate that there had existed a Vedic text, now lost, that sanctioned that section. However, off course, the modern constitution was not a result of schoalrs studying the Vedas, so this can't apply. However, on that note, the Indian consitution is valid so long as it doesn't go against the Vedas. 

Now some might object that Manusmriti overides all other Smritis, but no wher ein Mimamsa is this accepted. This rule seems to originate from the line in Yajur Veda that says that whaterever Manu says is medicine. Now Purva Mimamskas say that Manu here is not a Proper Name but just a generic word, but let us look at it from an Uttara Mimamsa view. Manusmriti refers to the Vedas, therefor chronologically speaking Manu came after the eternal Vedas and therefore the Vedic verse can't possibly refer to the author of the Smriti. If it is to be posited that the Vedas refer to a Manu of another Kalpa or another creation, there is no proof to say that the Manu of that previous era said the same thing as outlined in the Manusmriti. Besides, how can the eternal infalliable Vedas tell humans to rely uncitically on an embodied being, whose knowledge itself is based on the rememberance Vedas (meaning it is falliable)?

Thus to conclude, Hinduism does allow reform. I propose a meeting of Pandits, Scientists, Sociologists, Philosphers to debate and discuss and formally reform Hinduism.