'America Was Just Born 300 Years Ago': SG Tushar Mehta Urges India To Value Its Ancient Wisdom, Outlines 700 AD Legal Legacy

New Delhi: Solicitor-General of India Tushar Mehta, while delivering a lecture on ‘Ancient Wisdom and Legal Intelligence’, questioned the tendency of some Indians to blindly follow American frameworks when the latter came into existence just 300 years ago.

He highlighted that while America is a nation born just few hundreds years ago, India possesses an advanced legal legacy stretching back thousands of years.

"America is just born 300 years before and we are reverentially, most of us, not all of us, but many of us, reverentially follow what America does, what America says, and what America believes," Mehta said, adding, “700 AD back, there were learned scholars in law and religion both who started writing what is called Smriti.”

The Solicitor-General stated that India is one of the few countries where law developed systematically.

He then went on to explain why we must be proud of our rich cultural heritage.

“Why are we proud of India? We repeatedly say that, ‘We are proud of India. We are proud of our cultural heritage. We are proud of our past.’ Many a times we do it out of habit because we have heard it long enough. But we do not really know that we must mean what we say. And when we say we are proud of our history, culture, etc., we must know what that was," Mehta stated.

Noting one of the reasons to be proud of India, the Solicitor General said, “The first written word in this world came in the form of Vedas. There is no dispute on that. Even those who are not believers also believe that Vedas are the oldest written scriptures.”

He also busted a myth that that Vedas constituted laws: “Vedas had nothing to do with laws. Vedas had nothing to do with religion. Vedas had everything to do with the way in which we live our lives as good human beings, as responsible citizens, coexisting with nature…”

He added that Vedas was later transformed into legal texts- the Smritis.

He emphasised that Hindu law is derived from the Smritis, which include works like the Yajnavalkya Smriti, Manu Smriti, Narad Smriti, and Parasara Smriti. He claimed that these were commentaries produced by ancient legal professors.

He called Smritis “commentaries depicting the wisdom of the writers”, who were “geniuses of their own time”. “Even in the present scenario, present circumstances, present fact situation, they are equally as relevant as they were so many hundreds of years back,” he added.

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