Page 345 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

Sacred Law
Sailing Ships
Saladin
Salt
Sasanian Empire
Science—Overview
Scientific Instruments
Scientific Revolution
Secondary-Products Revolution
Secularism
Senghor, Leopold
Sex and Sexuality
Shaka Zulu
Shamanism
Shinto
Siddhartha Gautama
Sikhism
Silk Roads Sacred Law
Sima Qian
Slave Trades
Smith, Adam he term “sacred law” generally denotes a body of
Social Darwinism Tlaws that are understood by a group of believers to
Social History have been divinely revealed.Whereas divine law usually
Social Sciences
Social Welfare refers to a divinely created natural law or to the unwrit-
Sociology ten and universal rules of morality, sacred law is intended
Socrates to govern the actions of humans in the temporal sphere
Sokoto Caliphate
Songhai in accordance with the sacred, and often takes the form
Spanish Empire of positive written laws and oral or customary laws.
Spice Trade Sacred law, therefore, leaves room for human interpreta-
Sports tion and adjudication of conduct and transgressions of
Srivijaya
Stalin, Joseph sacred law, usually by a priestly class. Although most, if
State Societies, Emergence of not all, religions have legal aspects, this article will focus
State, The on the sacred laws of the major religions: Hinduism (and
Steppe Confederations by extension Buddhism), Judaism, Islam, and Christianity
Sugar
Sui Wendi —religions in which the law is believed to be divinely
Sui Yangdi inspired or revealed, organized in a discernable collection
Süleyman of written or oral codes, and binding over human activi-
Sumerian Society
Sun Yat-sen ties in the temporal sphere.

Hindu and Buddhist Law
Hinduism, the oldest of the major world religions, traces
the origins of its sacred law to the earliest written texts,
the Vedas, a collection of oral traditions written down in
the period around 2000 BCE. Although the Vedas con-
centrated primarily on rituals devoted to a pantheon of
gods, and not on law, the concept of dharmas, moral
principles which guide human action in conjunction
with karma (the force generated by a person’s actions to
bring about transmigration and to determine the nature