Legal Consciousness in Medieval Indian Narratives

Abstract

In this essay, we make a case for reading narratives from the great story collections of medieval India as evidence of legal consciousness. We attempt to redirect the largely empirical approach of legal consciousness studies toward the literary and historical analysis of Sanskrit texts. In so doing, we move beyond a legal history of India that focuses too narrowly on the texts of Sanskrit jurisprudence. We conclude that such analysis provides insight into both the literarily constructed image of law as the hegemonic domain of elite Brahmins and kings and the assumptions and awareness of law and legal procedure among ordinary people in this historical context.

After Hegemony: The Varieties of Legal Consciousness Research

“…Gallagher, 2006;Gallagher and Yang, 2011), Egypt (Kulk and de Hart, 2013), Malaysia (Moustafa, 2013), Norway (Kurkchiyan, 2011), Poland (Hertogh and Kurkchiyan, 2016;Kurkchiyan, 2011), Thailand (Engel and Engel, 2010), Uganda (Sandvick, 2009) and the Ukraine (Kubal, 2015). It has also looked beyond the contemporary to include historical enquiry, examining legal consciousness in medieval India (Davis and Nemec, 2016) and mid-20th century Romania (Serban, 2014).…”

Tiesiskā apziņa un tiesiskais nihilisms

“…Šo faktoru ietekme saglabājās gan viduslaikos, gan arī vēlāk. Piemēram, Indijā viens no tiesiskās apziņas apliecinājumiem ir viduslaiku raksti, kuri sniedz ieskatu gan literāri konstruētajā likuma tēlā (valdnieka hegemoniskajā sfērā), gan vienkāršo cilvēku pieņēmumos un izpratnē par likumu un tiesisko kārtību šajā vēsturiskajā kontekstā [8]. Ķīnā kopš Konfūcija laikiem tiek uzskatīts, ka nevar būt īstas izpratnes par likumiem, ja nav aptverts to morālais saturs.…”