2.2 Historical Research Approach

The approach: law as an historical artefact — tracing institutions, doctrines and statutes through time: the origins, the influences, the evolution's causes. The method: the sources' archaeology — the Lichchhavi inscriptions and the Shah-era avilekh; the Muluki Ain 1854 and the codification's contexts; the statute's amendment ladder (the contract law's Ain-era → Contract Act 2056 → Civil Code 2074 line); the doctrine's migration (the reception of common-law ideas). The tools: documentary criticism (the internal-and-external evidence of sources), chronology, comparison across eras. Strengths: the explanation nothing else gives (why the law is the shape it is) and the reform's perspective (the path-dependence map). Limits: the sources' survival bias (the archive gaps), the antiquarian temptation (the past for its own sake), the present's under- analysis. Nepali exam-anchors: the 1854 Code's history; the judiciary's evolution; the land- tenure transformations (the LAW 403 companion).