Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

B adopts D, C will succeed to B's estate, and D will

get nothing.

[ocr errors]

The last rule of inheritance for me to notice here is one of great importance in principle: On failure of the son, the daughter inherits; for she equally continues the lineage. A son and a daughter both continue the race of their father.' In Manu (according to the commentators Medhātithi and Kullūka) the son of an appointed daughter only is declared to be equal to a son's son in causing salvation. But the point is at least doubtful, seeing that Manu declares positively (IX. 130) that: 'even as the (man's) self, so is the son; the daughter is equal to the son; how can any one, other than the daughter abiding in himself, receive his property?' And in a note to p. 131 of my Prospectus I have shown that the seventh section of the Dattakamimāmsā demonstrates by argument the equality of daughters with sons in causing salvation, the term apatya (the instrument of deliverance from hell) being of either gender.

The Head of Dispute about gambling is interesting, inasmuch as Narada unmistakably approves the practice, subject to State supervision, whereas Manu will have none of it upon any terms. And it is noticeable that the book recognises the authority of a sort of official 'master of the gambling-house,' whose duty is to preside over the game, enforce payment of dues and losses, and decide disputes with the assistance of other gamblers. In the Mricchakatikā one of the characters is a master of a gambling-house, and another is a gambler, and their dispute with a

third character admirably illustrates this part of Nārada.

The last Head of Dispute, on miscellaneous disputes, promises largely, like the first Lecture of Manu, but fails equally conspicuously. It begins by declaring that under this head are treated judicial matters connected with the sovereign,' comprising, inter alia, 'rules regarding towns,' the body of laws for heretics, traders, companies of merchants, and assemblages of kinsmen,' quarrels between father and son, &c. In short, whatever has not been treated in the former Heads of Dispute shall be treated under the head of Miscellaneous Disputes. As a fact, no attempt is made to treat any one of these heads, and the chapter merely gives some miscellaneous' information on the duties of kings in the way of punishing evildoers, their enormous power, and the like.

The explanation of this (apparent) omission would seem to be not hard to find. Evidently, it seems to me, the author of Nārada, like the Smṛti writers generally, was writing in reality only for a very limited aggregate, and upon but a fractional part of general law. It did not form part of his plan to write for the instruction and benefit of ordinary Vaiçyas and Çudras, or to discourse upon the details of everyday disputes between man and man about purely temporal matters; and therefore he wholly abstained from giving information likely to be of use to the great body of the population in settling their civil altercations. Moreover, in all probability he was in no degree qualified to give

such information. Being a learned Brahman, what should he be supposed to know of the vulgar doings of hinds, and oilmongers, and pedlars, and the like? But, since he was writing what purported to be in effect a general abstract of an immense, comprehensive, and systematic work for the benefit of all human beings,' it seemed to him to be advisable (for appearance' sake) to notice in passing the existence of even such uninteresting and unimportant matters as the laws of heretics, and quarrels between father and son. And I infer from the book, as a whole, that the author in doing so assumed (as of course) that his readers would understand that all such matters would be decided, in the first instance, like disputes between gamblers, and altercations arising amongst men of a guild or other association, by members of the family, tribe, guild, or association to which the disputants belonged; or, in the event of an official inquiry being instituted, by the King or his officer in accordance with the evidence of such members, given in regard to their usages. It is not to be supposed that the author of Narada ever dreamt of a dispute, (say) between two fishermen about the ownership of a net, being decided in accordance with the supposed meaning of an isolated text of the Mitakṣarā, or a book of the kind.

CHAPTER VI.

HALHED'S CODE OF GENTOO LAWS.

It will be interesting, and, I imagine, very profitable, from a strictly practical point of view, to compare with Manu and the 'law-book' called Nārada, the Code of Gentoo Laws, or ordinations of the Pundits, from a Persian translation made from the original written in the Shanscrit language,' printed in the year 1776, or exactly one hundred years ago. It appears from a letter of Warren Hastings to the Court of Directors, of March 27, 1775, that the great Governor-General considered that the accompanying copy of the translation had been executed by Mr. Halhed, 'with great ability, diligence, and fidelity,' from a Persian version of the original, 'which was undertaken under the immediate inspection of the Pundits or compilers of the work.' Warren Hastings had been shocked by the coarseness of some passages in the work, and had tried to get them made 'more fit for the public eye'; but the Pandits had flatly refused to make any alterations, on the ground that the passages objected to 'had the sanction of their Shaster,' and 'were therefore incapable of amendment.' He consoled himself with the reflection that possibly these may be con

sidered as essential parts of the work, since they mark the principles on which many of the laws were formed, and bear the stamp of a very remote antiquity.'

The translator's preface tells us that :- The professors of the ordinances here collected still speak the original language in which they were composed, and which is entirely unknown to the bulk of the people, who have settled upon those professors several great endowments and benefactions in all parts of Hindostan, and pay them besides a degree of personal respect little short of idolatry in return for the advantages supposed to be derived from their studies. A set of the most experienced of these lawyers was selected from every part of Bengal for the purpose of compiling the present work, which they picked out sentence by sentence from various originals in the Shanscrit language, neither adding to nor diminishing any part of the ancient text. The articles thus collected were next translated literally into Persian, under the inspection of one of their own body; and from that translation were rendered into English with an equal attention to the closeness and fidelity of the version.'

From this description of the eleven Brahman Pandits who compiled these 'ordinations,' we may infer with certainty that they none of them knew a word of English, or had any the slightest tincture of Western learning or method. And the 'preliminary discourse' of the Pandits shows that they accomplished their task, that of boiling down and extract

« ÎnapoiContinuă »