Dharmaśāstra — The Remembered Law
Mīmāṃsā establishes that dharma is what the Veda enjoins. Dharmaśāstra works out what that means for a person with a name, a family, a station, and a span of years.
The four springs of dharma
Where do we look when the text is silent? The tradition names four sources: the Veda (śruti), the remembered law (smṛti), the conduct of the good (sadācāra), and what satisfies one’s own disciplined judgment (ātmatuṣṭi). A living law, not a code.
The frame it serves
Dharmaśāstra organizes life by varṇa and āśrama — the station and the stage — toward the four puruṣārthas: dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa. The point is not hierarchy for its own sake but fit: each person, at each stage, has a different right action.
The chapter is easy to misread from outside. Read from inside, it is the attempt to make what must be done answerable to who one is, right now.