The Dharmasūtras can be called the guidebooks of dharma containing rules of conduct and rites as practiced in Vedic schools.
These guidebooks discuss the duties of people at different stages of life as in the student, householder, retirement and renunciation. These stages are also called āśramas.
Also discussed are rites and duties of kings, judicial matters and personal practices like regulations in diet, offences and expiations, daily oblations, and funerary practices.
The fundamental meaning of Dharma is the right behaviour within ritual, moral or social spheres.
Dharma provides the guidelines for proper and productive living in society.
The Dharmasūtras are the first four texts of the Dharmasastra tradition and they focus on the idea of dharma, the principal guide by which Hindus strive to live their lives. The most important of these texts are the sutras of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana, and Vasiṣṭha.
Dharmasūtras are written in concise prose, leaving much up to the educated reader to interpret.
The source of dharma is in the Vedas. It is believed that like the Vedas, dharma is not of human origin and therefore its existence is intangible. At the same time, dharma operates in practical ways beyond mere meaning.
Some dharmas are based in the customs of different social groups for example deśadharma, dharma of different regions, jātidharma, dharma of different social groups, and kuladharma, dharma of different families.
The sources of these dharmas are not found in the Vedic texts.
This leads to incongruity between theology and the nature of dharma and the reality of rules as mentioned in the Dharmasutras.
