Dharmaśāstra
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![Copy of a royal land grant, recorded on copper plate, made by Chalukya King Tribhuvana Malla Deva in 1083](/Images/godic/202501/08/Copper_plate_Malla5758.jpg")
![A facsimile of an inscription in Oriya script on a copper plate recording a land grant made by Rāja Purushottam Deb, king of Odisha, in the fifth year of his reign (1483). Land grants made by royal decree were protected by law, with deeds often being recorded on metal plates](/Images/godic/202501/08/Oriya_land_grant5758.jpg")
Dharmaśāstra (Sanskrit:धर्मशास्त्र) is a genre of Sanskrit texts, and refers to the treatises (shastras) of Hinduism on Dharma. There are many Dharmashastras, variously estimated to be 18 to about 100, with different and conflicting points of view. Each of these texts exist in many different versions, and each is rooted in Dharmasutras texts dated to 1st millennium BCE that emerged from Kalpa (Vedanga) studies in the Vedic era.