By,

Jogeshwar Mishra,
10IP60015.
 Scriptures depict the lifestyle, customs, laws
and ideals of ancient India.

 Srutis (revelation) and Smrtis were held in the

highest esteem. Srutis were the Vedas and
Smrtis were the Dharmasastras or law codes.
Eg. Manvadisastram Smrti

 All dharmas (laws) have emanated from these

two and rules of the dharma governed all
aspects of life.
VEDAS
 They are 4 in number. Rg, Yajur, Sam, Atharva .
 They consist of 4 parts, Mantra, Brahmana,

Aranyaka, Upanishad.
 Mantra – hymn portion. Also known as Samhita.
 Brahmana – rules and reguations governing

rituals.
 Aranyaka – symbolic and spiritual aspects of

rituals.
 Upanishads – deal with philosophical problems,

search for truth and ultimate reality.

Asato ma sadgamaya,
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya,
mrityor mamritagamaya
 Vedas are considered to be supernatural in
origin, having been breathed out by the
great being (Mahto bhutasya).

 Because of this divine origin, Vedas are

assigned a position superior to
Dharmasastras. In the case of a conflict, the
Vedas will always prevail over the
dharmasastras.
DHARMASASTRAS
 They contain the law which governed all

aspects of life in ancient India.

 Their authority was based on the fact that

they were based on the Vedas, compiled by
sages who were repositories of revelation
(Srutis).
RTA
 It is a Vedic conception and is the precursor of
the concept of justice.

DEPICTION OF RTA IN THE RG VEDA

 Rta has been interpreted in many many ways in
the Rg Veda and it is difficult to point out to
one correct rendering as it has been assigned
different meanings in different contexts.

 Some important texts would be

Visnu is described as the embryo of Rta.
Mitra and Varuna have obtained their
mighty powers through the Rta.
The universe has its being in Rta.
INTERPRETATION OF RTA
 Thinkers around the world have studied Rta

with equal enthusiasm.

 Bloomfield relates the concept of Rta to the

Confucian idea of order, harmony and
absence of disturbance and adorns it as the
best concept ever elaborated by the Aryans.
 A sense of order and harmony which

generated peace and served as a basis of

moral law, bringing perfection to life – Rta.
 Keith compares Ahura Mazda (Zoroastrianism)
and Varuna, both of whom are described as
lords of holy order, and Rta and Avestam Asa,
the concept of moral order.

 He says that Rta was not an Indian creation,

but just an inheritance from the Indo Iranian
period, and had no further history in India. He
compares the terms Asa (Avesta) and Urta
(Vedas) and finds that they are similar in sense,
based on the physical order of the universe,
due order of the sacrifice and moral law in the
world. The expression “Spring of Rta”, is
verbally identical in the Avesta and the Rg
Veda.
 Rta was also used in the Pauranika period
and a conversation between Sri Krsna and
Uddhava, where Sri Krsna answers that Rta
is the undistorted description of truth,
makes it clear that Rta was accepted in
ancient India as the ultimate truth, and
hence, Keith’s argument was difficult to
agree with.
 St. Augustine’s philosophy of Pax, which is that
thing which brings peace and sacred order,
runs parallel to Rta.
 Berolzheimer compares Pax, and other Greek
and Roman (Ratum) philosophies with Rta, the
central philosophic conception of organised
nature. He says, “Order is the universal bond
that holds the world together and assigns a
place to all created things.”
 Law of nature, presented by Zeno of Citium, of
the Stoic school, put nature in the central
place. Nature is described as the intrinsic
principle that pervades the universe, very much
so like Rta. Stoicicism sees the reflection of
cosmic reason in man’s rational nature.
 U C Sarkar assigned a divine origin to the
concept of Rta, which was the order, uniformity
and regularity existing in nature and Varuna
was its presiding deity.
 Radhabinod Pal concludes the essential
characteristics of law, certainty and
immutability, in Rta.
 Kane puts forth three aspects of Rta
Rta means “the course of nature” or
the “regular and general order of the cosmos”
With reference to sacrifice, it means
the “correct and ordered way of the cult of the
Gods”
The moral conduct of man.
 Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the great philosopher,
interprets Rta as the “course of things”. Rta
stands for law in general and the immanence of
justice. It also denotes the order of the world.
“Everything that is ordered in the universe has
Rta for principle...The world of experience is a
shadow or reflection of the Rta, the permanent
reality which remains unchanged in the welter
of mutation”
 Rta lies at the root of everything and is the
sustaining principle of the universe. In its
eternal order sense it provides the idea of
imperativeness to law and provides law with
enough ethical content through its divine
aspect, to bring in the ideal elements, truth
and justice.
 The fact that Rta meant absolute reality,
immutable and unchangeable, makes it
important for jurisprudential study as it sets
an ideal for law, which is justice.
INFLUENCE AND RELEVANCE OF RTA ON JUSTICE
 Rta has played the decisive role in perfecting

the theory of justice with the principles of

‘Supremacy of law” and “ideal element in law”.
Every Hindu law code is evident of this fact.

 Rta and Varuna, the trustee of Rta, signify the

presence of a law in the world, which must
work out itself, giving hope to the denied.

 Rta, having universal essence, gives rise to the

principles of harmony, equality, order, liberty
and justice.
 Since Rta was conceived to study social
phenomenon & social relations, justice can be
realised in its context since justice always comes to
picture in a society of human beings.

 So, like a crescent moon grows into the full moon,

Rta gives rise to the idea of justice or right
conduct.

 Law in a social order always aims at attaining

something which is pictured by the legal order.
Evolution follows an order which always culminates
in the realisation of Rta, for which consistent
ordered conduct is essential.

 Varuna is therefore called Dhrtavrata, of

unalterable ways.
 Rta, as the ultimate reality, has shaped the
Indian legal philosophy.

 Reality is the basis of everything and

everything tries to attain it.

 In the sense of moral order uniformity, Rta

directly influences law and justice. Rules of
law are as social as the rules of morality
with the difference being that of obligatory
and voluntary.
 Basically the concept of Rta and Varuna
correspond to secular law and the state in
the modern context.

 Rta proves that ancient India indeed had a

legal philosophy on which their legal system
was based .

 Rta gradually gave way to the concept of

Dharma and itself receded into the
background.