By Chuppala Nagesh Bhushan A judge wants law schools to teach the Vedas alongside the constitution. That is a bigger ask than it sounds INDIA'S SUPREME COURT likes anniversaries. For its 75th, in April 2025, it unveiled a new statue of Lady Justice: sari instead of toga, a book instead of a sword, eyes uncovered rather than blindfolded. At the same event, at a legal conclave hosted by the National Law Institute University in Bhopal, Justice Pankaj Mithal, a sitting judge of the court, went further. Law schools, he argued, should formally teach the Vedas, the Smritis, the Arthashastra, the Manusmriti, the Buddhist Dhammas and the epics of the Ramayana and Mahabharata as sources of legal reasoning, under a course titled something like "Dharma and Indian Legal Thought." The constitution, he suggested, should not be the only book Lady Justice holds. The Gita, the Vedas and the Puranas ought to join it. Judges opining on curriculum design is unusual enough. What makes the ...