There are some rules like sathyam vada, dharmam chara ( speak truth, do dharma ) which are universal and exist for all times and all ages. All other rules do change. Hindus do not prescribe any rules for all the ages. All rules are for a particular age and place and they are bound to change. Only the philosophical Ideas said in Vedas alone is unchangeable and rest are to be modified according to the prevailing customs of the society. Of course, few strict rules were imposed as basic and fundamental, they are helpful when the strong and those in high position interpret rules for their own benefit and crush the weak. These kind of fundamental rules are given by the authentic texts with a broad outline.

Dharmic rules are certainly not broad minded like the philosophical ideas in the Vedas. None can rule out this fact. The Dharma Sutras in some occasions are found prejudiced against women, people belong to socially lower class and the uneducated masses. There were some practices like untouchability (the custom of keeping a lower cast person away from public places and not touch him under any circumstances) which were practiced in the name of dharma, but people understood their mistake and corrected these practices in due course. We can proudly say that the Hindus never practiced slavery and that our rules were better, rational and cultured when compared to the rules set by similar texts in other parts of the world.

The major Hindu texts were written during the Vedic age where lofty ideas prevailed in the society. But this was not the case during the medieval Period. But before criticizing our fundamental Texts we should take into consideration that, many addition to the original text by unscrupulous people partially distorted these text during the medieval period. As a result the social discrimination was very high during this period and that divided the society. The Islamic invaders and Europeon traders were able to politically surrender our country because of the effect of division in the society, wrongly interpreting the text. So while going through the Dharmic texts we should concentrate on the virtue of the text and see them in positive way, for they may contain many rules which the modern world cannot accept as fair and just. We need not justify all the rules said in Smriti Literature, as they itself says that all rules are bound to change and the learned may edit their contents in every consecutive age. But unlike Smriti the fundamental philosophical ideas in Vedas are eternal, unchangeable and are to be followed without any compromise.