Talk:Dharmasāstra:Freedom and Discipline

By Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swami

There are a hundred thousand aspects to be considered in a man's life. Rules cannot be laid down to determine each and every one of them. That would be tantamount to making a legal enactment. Laws are indeed necessary to keep a man bound to a system. Our śāstras do contain many do's and don'ts, many rules of conduct.

There is much talk today of freedom and democracy. In practice what do we see? Freedom has come to mean the licence to do what one likes, to indulge one's every whim. The strong and the rough are free to harass the weak and the virtuous. Thus we recognise the need to keep people bound to certain laws and rules. However, the restrictions must not be too many. There must be a restriction on restrictions, a limit set on how far individuals and the society can be kept under control. To choke a man with too many rules and regulations is to kill his spirit. He will break loose and run away from it all.

That is the reason why our śāstras have not committed everything to writing and enacted laws to embrace all activities. In many matters they let people follow in the footsteps of their elders or great men. Treating me as a great man and respecting me for that reason, don’t you, on your own, do what I do—wear ashes, perform pūjās and observe fasts? In some matters, people are given the freedom to follow the tradition or go by the personal example of others or by local or family custom. Only thus will they have faith and willingness to respect the rules prescribed with regard to other matters.

Setting an example through one’s life is the best way of making others do their duty or practice their dharma. The next best is to make them do the same on their own persuasion. The third course is compulsion in the form of written rules. Nowadays there are written laws for anything and everything. Anyone who has pen and paper writes whatever comes to his mind and has it printed.

Hindu Dharmasāstra has come under attack for ordering a man’s life with countless rules and regulating and not allowing him freedom to act on his own. But, actually, the śāstras respect his freedom and allow him to act on his own in many spheres. Were he given unbridled freedom, he would ruin himself and bring ruin upon the world also. The purpose of the code of conduct formulated by our śāstras is to keep him within certain bounds. But this code does not cover all activities since the makers of our śāstras thought that people should not be too tightly shackled by the dhārmic regulations.

You may feel that with regard to some aspects of life there is an element of compulsion in the śāstras, but you may not feel the same when you follow the tradition, the local or family custom, or the example of great men. Indeed, you will take pride in doing so. This fact is accepted, in the large-heartedness of its author, by the Vaidyanātha-dīkṣitīyam. Previous works on Dharmasāstra shared the same view. The Āpastamba-sūtra is an authority widely followed. In its concluding part, the great sage Āpastamba observes: “I have not dealt with all duties. There are so many dharmas still to be learned. Know them from the fourth varṇa.” From this it is clear that the usual criticism that men kept women suppressed or that brāhmaṇas kept non-brāhmaṇas suppressed is not true. In a renowned and widely accepted Dharmasāstra such as that of Āpastamba, women and śūdras are authoritatively recognised to be knowledgeable in some aspects of dharma.

Āśvalāyana and some other “original” authors of sūtras say that the word of women is to be respected in the matter of the ārati in weddings and application of paccai. The posts supporting the marriage paṇḍāl are installed to the chanting of mantras. Even so, if the servant or worker erecting the paṇḍāl has a story to tell about it or some tradition connected with it, you must not ignore it. In this way, everyone is respected in the śāstras and given what is called “democratic” freedom.

The Dharmasāstras include the saṁskāras and other rituals to be performed by the fourth varṇa. That caste has not been ignored and its duties and rituals are dealt with in the chapters on varṇāśrama, āhnika and śrāddha in the Dīkṣitīyam.

The Dharmasāstras usually have chapters on ācāra and vyavahāra. The first denotes matters of custom and tradition that serve as general discipline. The second means translating them in terms of outward rites or works.