colonial British India. Kane estimated that Apastamba Dharmasutra dates from approximately 600-300 BCE, and later more narrowly to between 450 and 350 BCE. Lingat states that the internal evidence within the text hints of great antiquity, because unlike later Dharma texts, it makes no mention of Buddhism. 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. 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. 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. Organization and content The text is in sutra format, and part of thirty prashnas (प्रश्न, portions, issue, questions) of Apastamba Kalpasutra. The Apastamba Dharmasutra is the 28th and 29th prashna of this compilation, while the first 24 prashnas are about Shrautasutras (vedic rituals), 25th is an ancillary mantra section, 26th and 27th are Grihyasutras (householder rites of passage), and the last or the 30th prashna is a Shulbasutra (mathematics for altar building). The text is systematically arranged, cross references to other sections of the Kalpasutra compilation so extensively and accurately, as if it is the work of a single author. Of the two books of this Dharmasūtra, the first is devoted to the student tradition and the second book is devoted to the householder tradition. Significance The Āpastamba Dharmasutra is notable for placing the importance of the Veda scriptures second and that of samayacarika or mutually agreed and accepted customs of practice first. Āpastamba proposes that scriptures alone cannot be source of Law (dharma), and dharma has an empirical nature. Āpastamba asserts that it is difficult to find absolute sources of law, in ancient books or current people, according to Patrick Olivelle, with "The Righteous (dharma) and the Unrighteous (adharma) do not go around saying, 'here we are!'; Nor do gods, Gandharvas or ancestors declare, 'This is righteous and that is unrighteous'." Most laws are based on agreement between the Aryas, states Āpastamba, on what is right