scholarly journals Decoding the Elements of Human Rights from the Verses of Ancient Védic Literature and Dharmaśāstras

Literature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-40
Author(s):  
Shailendra Kumar ◽  
Sanghamitra Choudhury

This manuscript aims to provide a nuanced study of the idea of rights and duties prevalent in ancient Védic society through Védic literature and Dharmaśāstras. This manuscript delves into the exegesis of the Védas and Dharmaśāstras to accomplish this. The archaic Védic literature and Dharmaśāstra texts are the origin and backbone of Sanskrit literature. They have a plethora of ideas that, if accepted, could be quite useful for the protection of any person’s human rights. In the Védas and Dharmaśāstras, rights and duties complement each other, and rights are integrated with duties. According to these texts, rights and duties are correlated and the relationship between rights and duties leads to the core concept of dhárma (constitutional laws). Dhárma is a systematic Sanskrit concept that includes traditions, obligations, morals, laws, order, and justice. It was a unique concept of dhárma that kept checks and balances on sovereign officials and prevented them from becoming autocratic and anarchist. It also provided the common man with a protective shield against the dictatorship of sovereign officials. Ordinary citizens had more privileges and fewer responsibilities relative to the state’s highest officials. The greater the authority, the less his privileges were, and the more extensive his responsibilities became. This research is an exegetical analysis of ancient Indian Védic and later Védic literature and is primarily aimed at deciphering some of the essential ideas about rights found in these texts, which are akin to contemporary human rights. It endeavours to discern and explain the tenets of human rights obnubilated in the pristine mantras of the ancient Védic and Smṛti texts of India. The essay further attempts to add a much-needed non-western perspective to the historiography of human rights.

Author(s):  
Shailendra Kumar ◽  
Sanghamitra Choudhury

This manuscript aims to provide a nuanced study of the idea of rights and duties prevalent in ancient Vedic society through Vedic literature and Dharmaśāstras . This manuscript delves into the exegesis of the Védas and Dharmaśāstras to accomplish this. The archaic Vedic literature and Dharmaśāstra texts are the origin and backbone of Sanskrit literature. They have a plethora of ideas that, if accepted, could be quite useful for the protection of any person's human rights. In Védas and Dharmaśāstras, rights and duties complement each other, and rights are integrated by duties. According to these texts, rights and duties are correlated and the relationship between rights and duties leads to the core concept of dharma (constitutional laws). Dharma is a systematic Sanskrit concept that includes traditions, obligation, morals, laws, order, and justice. It was a unique concept of dharma that kept checks and balances on sovereign officials and prevented them from becoming autocratic and anarchist. It also provided the common man with a protective shield against the dictatorship of sovereign officials. Ordinary citizens had more privileges and fewer responsibilities relative to the state's highest officials. The greater the authority, the less his privileges were, and the more extensive his responsibilities became. This research is an exegetical analysis of ancient Indian Vedic and later Vedic literature and is primarily aimed at deciphering some of the essential ideas of the rights found in these texts, which are akin to contemporary human rights. It endeavours to discern and explain the tenets of human rights obnubilated in the pristine mantras of Antediluvian Vedic and Smṛti texts of India. The essay further attempts to add a much needed non-western perspective to the historiography of human rights.


Author(s):  
Shailendra Kumar ◽  
Sanghamitra Choudhury

This manuscript aims to provide a nuanced study of the idea of rights and duties prevalent in ancient Vedic society through Vedic literature and Dharmaśāstras . This manuscript delves into the exegesis of the Védas and Dharmaśāstras to accomplish this. The archaic Vedic literature and Dharmaśāstra texts are the origin and backbone of Sanskrit literature. They have a plethora of ideas that, if accepted, could be quite useful for the protection of any person's human rights. In Védas and Dharmaśāstras, rights and duties complement each other, and rights are integrated by duties. According to these texts, rights and duties are correlated and the relationship between rights and duties leads to the core concept of dharma (constitutional laws). Dharma is a systematic Sanskrit concept that includes traditions, obligation, morals, laws, order, and justice. It was a unique concept of dharma that kept checks and balances on sovereign officials and prevented them from becoming autocratic and anarchist. It also provided the common man with a protective shield against the dictatorship of sovereign officials. Ordinary citizens had more privileges and fewer responsibilities relative to the state's highest officials. The greater the authority, the less his privileges were, and the more extensive his responsibilities became. This research is an exegetical analysis of ancient Indian Vedic and later Vedic literature and is primarily aimed at deciphering some of the essential ideas of the rights found in these texts, which are akin to contemporary human rights. It endeavours to discern and explain the tenets of human rights obnubilated in the pristine mantras of Antediluvian Vedic and Smṛti texts of India. The essay further attempts to add a much needed non-western perspective to the historiography of human rights.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
JE Penner

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter traces the historical roots of the trust. The law of trusts is the offspring of a certain English legal creature known as ‘equity’. Equity arose out of the administrative power of the medieval Chancellor, who was at the time the King’s most powerful minister. The nature of equity’s jurisdiction and its ability to provide remedies unavailable at common law, the relationship between equity and the common law and the ‘fusion’ of law and equity, and equity’s creation of the use, and then the trust, are discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-808
Author(s):  
Heru Santosa Hadiyanto

Strategic management’s perspective focus about how an organization creates competitive advantage to achieved performance excellence. As the core concept of strategic management, strategy defined as a way of adjusting the relationship between an organization and its environment, and that structures in turn must fit the strategy. In other statement, when this strategy linked with the perspective of organization theory, strategy can implement optimally if the organization structure designed to support the strategy and inefficiency in business process will be happen if the strategy and structure doesn’t connected. Based on this perspective, this paper focused to make proposition about the right alignment of business strategy concept and organizational archetype concept to create organization business excellence.


2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Carol Brennan

WHO HAS FIRST CLAIM ON “THE LOYALTY OF THE LAW”?Smith v Chief Constable of the Sussex Police (hereafter Smith) was heard by the House of Lords at the same time as Chief Constable of the Hertfordshire Police v Van Colle and another because they had two uniting factors. First, they both concerned the recurring question of the ambit of police liability in the situation described by Lord Bingham thus: “…if the police are alerted to a threat that D may kill or inflict violence on V, and the police take no action to prevent that occurrence, and D does kill or inflict violence on V, may V or his relatives obtain civil redress against the police, and if so, how and in what circumstances?”2  Secondly, considering the cases together highlighted the wider issue of the relationship between decisions under the Human Rights Act 1998 (hereafter the HRA) and the development of the common law. The Law Lords embarked on a more extensive examination of these issues in Smith and thus that case will be the exclusive focus of this note.  In addition, the study of Smith raises questions regarding proposals for law reform as well as about judicial perceptions of policy priorities. 


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Puteri Nemie Jahn Kassim ◽  
Nazri Ramli

The duty of medical confidentiality has been one of the core duties of medical practice as information created, disclosed, acquired directly or indirectly during the doctor-patient relationship is considered confidential and requires legitimate protection. Further, preserving confidentiality on the premise that the relationship between doctor and patient has been built on trust and confidence renders the duty to be seen as sacrosanct. The source for this duty can be found not only in the Hippocratic Oath, codes of ethics, religious tenets but also in the common law, principles of equity and statutory provisions. Nevertheless, technological advancements and the growth of social networks have contributed to the difficulties in preserving confidentiality as the information gathered tends to become vulnerable in unsecure environments. However, the duty of medical confidentiality is by no means absolute as it can be breached in situations in which there are stronger conflicting duties. This article discusses the rules governing the duty of medical confidentiality and the exceptions in which infringements to this duty become justified. It also gives an overview of the duty of confidentiality under Islamic law. It concludes that the inviolability of this duty may be without doubt but circumstances warranting its disclosure are crucial to serve the interests of justice.


Author(s):  
Kevin Gray ◽  
Susan Francis Gray

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter introduces a number of concepts that are fundamental to an understanding of the contemporary law of land in England and Wales. It discusses: definition of ‘land’ as physical reality; the notion of abstract ‘estates’ in land as the medium of ownership; the relationship between law and equity; the meaning of ‘property’ in land; the impact of human rights on property concepts; the ambivalence of common law perspectives on ‘land’; the statutory organisation of proprietary rights in land; and the underlying policy motivations that drive the contemporary law of land.


2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Meagher

The Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth) (‘the Act’) has established a new model of pre-legislative rights scrutiny of proposed Commonwealth laws. This is undertaken by the political arms of government and involves: (1) the requirement that a statement of (human rights) compatibility must accompany proposed laws and certain legislative instruments when introduced into Parliament; and (2) the establishment of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (‘PJCHR’) which regularly reports to the Parliament on the compatibility of its proposed laws with human rights. This article looks at the relationship between the Act – and these two new mechanisms – and the interpretive role of the courts. It does so by first considering the (possible) direct use of statements of compatibility and PJCHR reports by Australian courts in the interpretation of Commonwealth laws that engage human rights. It then assesses whether the Act may exert an indirect influence on the content and scope of the common law interpretive presumptions that protect human rights.


Author(s):  
Rainer Forst

In the first part of the comments, Andrea Sangiovanni’s “broad view” of human rights is analysed and criticized for being too broad. It does not provide a sufficient normative ground for the core concept of human rights, and its account of constructing more concrete conceptions of human rights is too indeterminate with respect to both substance and procedure. In the second part, an alternative, discourse-theoretical view is outlined.


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