Витакка и вичара

Kane estimated that Apastamba Dharmasutra dates from approximately 600-300 BCE,[11] and later more narrowly to between 450 and 350 BCE.[12] Lingat states that the internal evidence within the text hints of great antiquity, because unlike later Dharma texts, it makes no mention of Buddhism.[11] Other scholars, such as Hopkins, assert that all this can be explained to be an artifact of its relatively remote geographical origins in Andhra region, where refined Sanskrit grammar and Buddhist ideas may have reached much later, and he places the text to the 2nd-century BCE.[11] Olivelle, and several other scholars, in contrast, state that the first version of Apastamba Dharmasutra may have been composed after others, but the extant version of the Apastamba text is the oldest Dharma text from ancient India.[13][14]

Regardless of the relative chronology, the ancient Apastamba Dharmasutra, states Olivelle, shows clear signs of a maturing legal procedure tradition and that there were Dharma texts in ancient India before it was composed.[15][4][5]