What is the Equivilant of Hindu Smritis

 What is Anagolous to the Smritis?

This will be a very brief blog. 

A lot of traditional Hindus believe that the Smritis (Dharmasashtras and Prayogasashtras) are as if they are the word of God, or as serious as the Vedas. Remember that the literal definition of a Smritis are actaully recollections of traditions and social customs passed down from time immemorial. text called Manusmriti is simply a recollection the tradition of laws and teachings that trace back to somwone Manu.

And critics of Hinduism place them on par with the Bible and the Sharia laws. And this brings us to an important matter to discuss. When we try to judge other religions by their scriptures, you have to take into account that those scriptures don't function the same way as the scriptures of your religion do. While the Smritis so have a theological component to them and are on a higher pedastal than say the Sharia law, it is wrong to assume that they are a practical end all be all. 

In actuality, the Dharmasashtras are essentially jursprudence texts, which deal with the contextualization of Vedic ideas of Dharma to the humanly realm. They would actually correspond to the Fiqh literature of Islam, and not the Sharia itself. 

In my previous blogs, I actually talk about how auhtoratative the Smritis actually are. Here are the links:

https://bharatasamskriti.blogspot.com/2024/04/reforms-and-dharmashastras-in-previous.html  

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

But what about for Christianity? If we say that the Vedas, being the core Hindu texts, the end all be all, are the ultiamate authority, the way the Bible is for Chrisitans, though the comparrison is superficial, then what is the Christian equivilant of the Smriti literature? The answer is straightforeward. It is the church cannon, the opinions of church officials, the rulings and teachings of Church as established in the kingdoms of Europe, the opinions of apostiles and saints, etc. Anything but the Bible. 

Objection! But Medhatithi and other commentators say that the Smritis are infallible because the people are enlightended beings who understood the Vedas and tis teachings better than anyone else, through and through.  

So, we are in no way obliged to follow their interpratations, and I will actually talk about this later. Also, this seems to be tied to omniscience, which by the way Purva Mimamsa thinkers have explained to be untenable (in their debates against Buddhists who claim that Buddha is an authority due to his omniscience on account of his enlightenment, the Mimamsa thinkers criticised the concept of Omniscience). For us theistic Hindus, the only person that is omniscient is God himself!  All else are fallible in some way or form. Also, if you refer to my previous blog posts, things like vyavahara or worldy matters like court procedures, marraige laws, property laws don't derive from the Vedic texts but mainly on the judgment of the Manu or Yajnavalkya or other Smriti personalities. 

Now in Christian traditions, we do find such concept of infalliability. In the Catholic traditions, the Pope is scene as an infalliable authority on Christian theology. This is called Papal Infalliability. According to their traditions, and correct me if I am wrong, the Catholic Church is believed to be a disciplinic succession that goes back to Saint Peter who in turn was a direct disciple of Jesus [2]. 

Now the Pope in and of himself is not exempt from sin and falliability, but he is not allowed to speak in contrary to the Biblical teachings, and so long as he is in accordance with Church tradition, he is infalliable. And it believed that the Holy Spirit is said to prevent the Pope from making heretical teachings [2]. 

To ellaborate, Papal teachings is of three types [2]. 

1) Divine Revelation: i.e. what is said in the Bible

2) What is held Definitely: made on the authority of the Pope and the Church tradition

3) Ordinary teachings: of local bishops and preists, and is non infalliable

Now, let me explain more on the Infalliability of the Pope. He is only infalliable if he is speaking on the authority of Saint Peter as he is apart of the disciplinic succession from Saint Peter, and he is infalliable regarding morals and ethics, and not on worldy opinions like who is the best soccer team. When he speaks on the authority of St. Peter it is called speaking from es cathedra, meaning "from the chair", that is the chair of authority of St. Peter. 

Returning to the Smritis. The so called "infalliablity" of the Hindu Smritis would most correspond to the Papal Infalliability of Catholic traditions. And in reagard to the afformention three, Smriti liteterature would fall under the cetagory of 3 and 3, and the "infalliability" aspect would be comparable to number 2. Just like the Pope cannot making teachings contrary to the Bible, Hindu Smriti injunctions are to be rejected if they contradict the Vedas. The Smritis are truely infalliable if they bring the force of the Vedas or dealing on matters related to Vedic rituals. For example, if the Manu cited a Vedic passage for making a Smriti injucntion, than it is deemed infallibale. Now if Vedic paassage isn't found in the surviving texts, it is assumed that Manu is quoting from a vedic text now lost. Similarly, if Manu is talking about performing a certain Yajna, since the knowledge of Yajnas are ultimatetly revealed through the Vedas, we assume that Manu is speaking from the authoruty of some Vedic passage even if that Vedic passage is lost to time. The only exception is Manu said one thing but a present Vedic passage something else in contrast to what he said, then we take the latter as authorative. 

And just like the Pope is not infalliable to things like which sports team is the best [3], or such worldy things, Smritis are not ifaiable in those respects as well. Neither are the infalliable in things like whether the earth is round or flat, or whether eclipses are caused by a demon or by the moon. 

On that note, I would like to ammend the traditional Hindu view by stating that while the ancient sages were wise in their understanding of ethics, they were limited by the knowledge of that time. For example, they said that a man could supercede his wife if she produced only daughters unware that as per science it is the male gametes that determine the gender of the baby. Had the ancient sages known that they would surely ammend their views. 

We also have to worry about whether the teachings of the sages were altered or interpolated through time as they were passed down orally before writing became a thing. And unlike the Vedas, there was no zeal in preserving the recollections of ancient sages word for word. However, this is a tangent.   

Now all this is assuming that the Catholic tradition is to be taken as for all Chrisitians, but that is obviosuly a foolish thing to say. Papal Infalliability applies to Catholics only. Similarly, Smriti "infalliabilty" apply to those sects that view those scriptures that way and not to Hinduism as a whole. Yes, while tradtional Hindu sects view the Smritis that way, there can be Hindu sects that don't see the infalliability of the Smritis, the modern example being the Arya Samajis. On a simialr note, the Madhavacharya is said to have gone against the popular tradition of the time by placing the Puranas above the Dharmasashtras.   

Returning to Christianity, it should be remembered that the Protestant Reformation was rebellion against the Catholic Chruch and the pedastal that it was placed upon. And hence, Protestantism, which is a huge sect that rivals Catholicism, differs largely from the latter in its interpratation of scripture. For example, while Catholics believe that the Bible narratives can be read allegorically, the Protestants reject this belief and say that the narratives of the Old Testament has nothing to do with morality and are simply a historical narrative [1]. One Protestant scholar Mark Powell notes that Papal Infalliabilty not only lacks Biblical foundation, but "stems from a poor epistimology" [4]. Now one Protestant website criticised the Catholic church for this pratcie claiming that the Pope is replacing Christ with himself [5]. 

Another thing to note is that Papal Infalliability, while was recognised in some form before, was only officially declared in 1870 [1][5]. 

The tack away from the previous paragraph was not that we should use the same logic in Hinduism, as the conflicts between Protestantism and Catholicism, is not comparable to the issue discussed here for Hinduism. Instead, the point was that in Christian history, some people abandoned placing the Catholic Church on a high pesastal, and we too should abandon placing the Hindu Smritis (as they correspond loosely with Church cannons, Church authorities,etc) on a high pedastal. We can do that, and I explain why so in my previous blogs, see the 2 links at the top of this blog. That isn't to say we reject the Smritis out right, but rather we dial back on the the zeal we have for them. 

Look ,Conservatism in America had its problems like treating women as second class citizens, but it also had good things liek modesty. Liberalism on the other hand did give women the right to vote but gone unckecked it led to the immodest society of today. To achieve harmony, we need liberalism but balenced with some conservatism. This is why we still should read the Smriti literature. I am not saying we should dye are hairs blue, but neither should we be foolish red pill podcasters.  

What I am saying is also important because when critics of Hinduism try to justify British colonialism by saying that they wiped out Sati or untouchability. And when we say that Christians have done their own eveils like Inquisitions, they respond by saying that those aren;t sanctioned in the Bible, but the Hindu atrocities are sanctioned in Hindu Sciprutes which more often than not end up being Smritis. If we want Hinduism to survive, we have to deal with the Smriti literature differently from how they were delt with traditionally.  

Citations:

1) https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-literally-read-scripture-literally

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility 

3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDcgjxs6Zl0 

4)https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/papal-infallibility-a-protestant-evaluation-of-an-ecumenical-issue/ 

5) https://www.fpchurch.org.uk/about-us/what-we-contend-for/a-protestant-witness/papal-infallibility/