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Hindu law, as a historical term, refers to the code of laws applied to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in British India. [1] [2] [3] Hindu law, in modern scholarship, also refers to the legal theory, jurisprudence and philosophical reflections on the nature of law discovered in ancient and medieval era Indian texts. [4]
The Hindu code bills were several laws passed in the 1950s that aimed to codify and reform Hindu personal law in India, abolishing religious law in favor of a common law code. The Indian National Congress government led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru successfully implemented the reforms in 1950s.
Along with the Dāyabhāga, it was considered one of the main authorities on Hindu Law from the time the British began administering laws in India. The entire Mitākṣarā , along with the text of the Yājñavalkya-smṝti , is approximately 492 closely printed pages.
Thus, Hindu jurisprudence portrayed the household, not the state, as the primary institution of law. [3] Connectedly, the household is the institution to which Hindu law is most applied. For example, the texts are most explicit in reference to quotidian household acts such as eating, bathing, creating a family, etc.
Thus, the common source of classical Hindu law was the community and, therefore, laws on a whole were highly decentralized and diverse. [3] These laws were dictated by various corporate groups such as merchant leaders, heads of caste, and kings, and because of the diverse leadership, these laws were particular to a set place. [ 4 ]
Dharmaśāstra became influential in modern colonial India history, when they were formulated by early British colonial administrators to be the law of the land for all non-Muslims (Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs) in the Indian subcontinent, after Sharia set by Emperor Aurangzeb, was already accepted as the law for Muslims in colonial India.
Modern Hindu law is one of the personal law systems of India along with similar systems for Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, and Christians. This Hindu Personal Law or modern Hindu law is an extension of the Anglo-Hindu Law developed during the British colonial period in India, which is in turn related to the less well-defined tradition of Classical Hindu Law.