Hindu Law and Society

Abstract

Hindu Law is the first comprehensive study of the Sanskrit-language literatures on dharma since the publication of P. V. Kane’s five-volume History of Dharmaśāstra. The present essay offers a detailed review of this significant new work’s contents and its contributions to the study of the Dharmaśāstras. Particular attention is paid to the various places where Hindu Law revises the historical record or furnishes new insight into religious and other practices, symbols, and social institutions defined by dharmaśāstric works. This essay concludes with a suggestion for future research, which is made possible in no small part by the contributions of the volume here under review.