It has been contended that 'the province of law is the establishment of human conduct amidst the diversity of inclinations and desires, so as to reconcile and harmonise the wishes of the individual with the interest of the community in which ultimately the interest of the individual is also involved. It curtails the fictitious freedom of unregulated desires by subordinating the particular nature of individual men to the discipline of the community acting upon universal rational principles and there- by gradually tends to bring about the higher freedom which consists in the dependence of the individual on the dictates of reason, which while governing the community, is also his.

The legislators of ancient India, fortunately for us, have bequested a very good number of Sastras, which deal with different aspects of law, for which they may claim distinctness, as rightly pointed out by Mayne, according to whom, "Hindu law has the oldest pedigree of any known system of jurisprudence, and even now it shows no signs of decrepitude. At this day it governs races of men, extending from Cashmere to Cape Comorin, who agree in nothing else except their submission to it." The Sastras which discuss this aspect of study have the application of Dharmaśastra-the science of righteousness, which is believed to recognise that righteousness is an independent science of greater importance than mere day-to-day administration and 'that the teacher's duty is to exhort, to set standards of conduct, based overtly upon transcendental considerations, recognising that decisions will be reached by judges, arbitrators or others, upon principles of ethics, customs or policy, but hoping that they would, if properly educated in rightsousness, tend or endeavour to give a just decision.... The Indian teacher of the techniques of dispute-settlement would indeed be a specialist in the branch of the Sastra; but unless he projected his study as a facet of the attainment of truth and enhancement of a supernational order (not the more quietening of complaints or enforcement of a royal policy) he would not be a 'dharmasastri. Prof. Derrett very appropriately describes Dharmasastra as 'the queen of the sciences'.

Being a combination of the two words-dharma and sastra, the term Dharmasastra has elicited controversies and scholastic philosophical discussions and in respect of the interpretation of the word dharma, the first constituent of the compounded form, major contributions have come from the Mimamsakas, who have principally worked on the aphorism of Jaimini: Cod analaksano 'rtho dharmah'. Mimamsa-darsana, 1.1.2.5. In the Sabara-bhasya the nature of that Codana has been explained clearly.