Sources of Dharma
There are usually three principal sources of dharma in the Dharmaśāstra texts:
- śruti, literally translates as "what is heard," but refers to the Vedas or Vedic literature which are the liturgical and praise hymns of the earliest Hindu tradition
- smŗti, literally "what is remembered," but refers to the Dharmaśāstra texts as well as other Sanskrit texts such as the Purāņas and the Epics (Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaņa)
- ācāra, literally "practice," but refers to the norms and standards established by educated people who know and live by the first two sources of dharma
In two important texts, namely the Laws of Manu (2.6) and the Laws of Yājñavalkya (1.7) another source of dharma, ātmastuṣṭi, literally "what is pleasing to oneself," is also given, but later texts and commentaries severely restrict this source of dharma.
Effectively, the three ideal sources of dharma reduce to two - texts and the practiced norms of people who know the texts. It is the latter category that gave Hindu law a tremendous flexibility to adapt to different temporal and geographic contexts.
Read more about this topic: Hindu Law
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“My profession brought me in contact with various minds. Earnest, serious discussion on the condition of woman enlivened my business room; failures of banks, no dividends from railroads, defalcations of all kinds, public and private, widows and orphans and unmarried women beggared by the dishonesty, or the mismanagement of men, were fruitful sources of conversation; confidence in man as a protector was evidently losing ground, and women were beginning to see that they must protect themselves.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)