A book with this title was supposed to have been written by my teacher, Richard Lariviere, in the University of Georgia's “Spirit of the Laws” series. His higher calling into academic administration left a gap in the series that I always lamented. When I approached Richard and, through him and with his permission, Alan Watson, who edited the series, it became clear that there was no hope of placing one more volume in the old series. To my great delight, Cambridge agreed to publish the book, which is certainly very different from what Richard would have done, though still inspired by his ideas and still very much in line with the series' intention to provide basic surveys of law and religion in the major traditions of the world.

There are three audiences for the book: Indologists and scholars of Religious Studies and Legal Studies. Indologists will find a certain amount of technical investigation of key discussions from the Sanskrit texts, though not as much as some may like and much of it in the notes rather than in the main text. Where possible, I use standard translations of the Hindu legal texts and do not provide the Sanskrit original there. In most cases, I give my own translations, especially of the medieval commentaries, in which case I also provide the original text in a note. Some of the Indological discussions attempt an original contribution to the field, while others simply restate the results of older work.