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56 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
dealt with social customs and conventions that were approved of and recommended by the learned leaders of society. As Prof. Altekar observes :
“In the beginning, Smritis were identical in nature and contents with Sadacara and were based upon it. When Smritis came into existence, the scope of Sadacara became naturally reduced, as much of it was codified by Smritis. It began to denote those old practices which happened not to be codified in Smritis, or those new ones, which had acquired social approval at a period subsequent to the codification of the early Dharmasastras or Smritis.”
The second point to note is that the Smritis were treated as quite different from the Vedas or the Srutis. So far as their sanction and their authority were concerned they stood on absolutely different footing. The sanction behind the Sruti was divine. The sanction behind the Smriti was social. In the matter of their authority the Purva Mimamsa lays down two rules. The first rule is that if there is a conflict between two texts of Sruti then both are authoritative and the presumption will be that the Vedas have given an option to follow one or the other. The second rule is that the text of a Smriti should be summarily rejected if it was opposed to the text of the Sruti. These rules were rigorously applied with the result that the Smritis could not acquire either the status or the authority of the Vedas.
Surprising as it may appear a time came when Brahmins took a summersault and gave the Smritis a status superior to that of the Vedas. As Prof. Altekar points out :
“The Smritis have actually overruled some of the specific dicta of Srutis that were not in consonance with the spirit of the age, or were coming into direct conflict with it. The Vedic practice was to perform daiva karma in the morning and the pitr karma in the afternoon. In later times the modern pitr tarpana came into vogue and it began to be offered in the morning, as the morning bath became the order of the day. Now this procedure is in direct conflict with the Vedic practice prescribed in the above-mentioned rule. Devamabhatta, the author of the Smrticandrika, however says that there is nothing wrong in this : the Sruti rule must be presumed to be referring to pitr karman other than tarpana. The Sruti literature shows that Visvamitra adopted Sunassepa, though he had a hundred sons living ; this would thus permit a person to adopt a son even when he had a number of his own sons living. But Mitramisra says that such a deduction would be wrong ; we shall have to assume that the Smriti practice is also based upon a Sruti text, which is not now available but the existence of which will have to be assumed.”