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The creative period of law codes was followed by the great age
of commentaries and digests in the field of law. The new authors confined themselves to
exploring and investigating the essence of Smrti and determining Smrti in theory and
practice. The authors, instead of attempting to frame new laws and codes, took their stand
on the injunctions of their pre- decessors and tried to determine the scope of their
application and fix their meaning according to the needs of their times.
These commentaries thus form the basis of the various schools of law of
modern times the Banaras, Mithila, Bengal, Dravida, and Maharashtra schools. The earliest
of these commentaries is the Asahaya Bhashya on the Nard Smrti, its date being later than
the 5th century A.D. Other commentaries of considerable importance are Medhatithi,
Mitakshara, Vivadachintamani, Viramitrodaya, Smrti-Chandrika, Madhaviya,
Sarasvativilasa, Vaijayanti, Balambhatta Nandapandita and the rest.
As Manu was considered the highest authority on law, a host of
commentaries on his laws, evidently as expositions of the inner meaning of his rules, came
to be written. Their main aim was to determine the scope of the application of the laws of
Mann. The earliest of these commentaries is that of Medhatithi. Medhatithi was a South
Indian, and he is quoted by such early South Indian authors as
Vijnanesvara, who flourished
in the 12th century, and Devannabhatta, an author of the 13th century and Hemadri, who
belongs either the 12th or 13th century.1
The earliest authors the Bengal school, as Jimutavahana and
Raghunandana, do not refer to the writings of Medhatithi, though they allude to and quote
from the other commentators of Manu. King Madanapala, a ruler of North
India, preserved the writings of Medhatithi. The influence of Medhatithi on jurisprudence must
have been
Considerable; for the more recent works, beginning with the Mitakshara, refer to the
opinions of Medhatithi and Asahaya Bhashya frequently. His date has been
determined by
scholars to be between the 8th and 9th centuries.
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