COLEBROOKE'S OPINIONS.

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his translation of the Mitâxarâ, with the very qualified terms previously used by him in his Introduction to the Digest. On the earlier occasion he had merely said that the author of the Mitâxarâ had composed 'a treatise which may supply the place of a regular Digest: it is so used in the province of Benares, where it is preferred to other law tracts; but some of his opinions have been successfully controverted by late writers.' It would be interesting to learn what occurred to make Colebrooke change his mind in so great a degree between the dates of these two Introductions, and particularly what new sources of information were opened out to him before he discovered that a certain law-tract was universally respected in twenty distant countries which he had never visited, and with the languages of which he was wholly unacquainted. It was sufficiently venturesome in him to pretend to know exactly what was the state of things in the ill-organised, make-shift courts of the country round Benares; and I imagine that very unpleasant questions might have been asked of him as to who used the Mitâxard as a Digest in the Benares Province, and by whose order, and for what purposes, and particularly as to whether the whole of the commentary was so used, or only parts of it, e.g., the Chapter on Inheritance.' It is quite possible that, as I heard some years ago was the case in a Brahman-haunted portion of the Madras Province, the Mitâxarâ was habitually consulted in Benares as an authority not on law but on certain minor ceremonies. But if it was venturesome in Colebrooke to

F

state as facts what he had picked up from gossiping natives as to authorities on law in vogue in his own. part of India, what should not be said of his temerity in gravely publishing to the world in 1810 that the Mitâxarâ is received in all the schools of Hindoo law, from Benares to the southern extremity of the peninsula of India, as the chief groundwork of the doctrines which they follow, and as an authority from which they rarely dissent'? No man, however learned, should have risked his reputation by making such a statement, which at the best could only turn out to be a lucky guess;1 and which, I verily believe, will be found hereafter to be absolutely untrue, and to have been based upon no real authority whatever. I purpose to discuss this matter by and by at some length; in the meantime I will merely observe that the celebrated Abbé Dubois, a contemporary of Colebrooke, who for some twenty years or more lived in daily converse with the Brahmans of Mysore, appears never to have heard of the Mitâxarâ; and in describing the laws of the Hindûs, states that he has been guided by the 'Directory or Ritual of the Purohitas and gives specimens of laws quite different from those of the Mitâxarâ; and winds up by declaring that in India 'there is no public system of law; and custom, as various as the tribes, regulates everything.' The

1 In a letter dated March 14, 1812 (quoted at II. Strange, 132), Colebrooke, after referring to Manu, Jagannâtha, and the Mitâxarâ, goes on to observe: 'In books which I understand to be of most authority at Madras (for instance, the Smriti Chandrika), the prohibitions, &c.' Apparently, therefore, in 1812 he did not suppose that he knew much about the Madras school.'

THE WHITE YAJUR-VEDA.

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venerable Dubois is entitled to a great amount of credit when he merely tells us what he himself has observed. But his testimony on these points is corroborated by ample evidence.

It is possible that some unexplored portion of the enormous existing Sanskrit literature may yet throw light upon the now obscure question, what was the nature of the religious movement that led to the schism of the Vâjasaneyins from the Charakas, the ancient school of the Adhvaryus, and the proclamation by the sage Yajnavalkya of the new Yajur- Veda, to be known as the 'white' or ' bright.' But at pre

sent we do not even know where the schism took place and its approximate date has hardly been guessed at. Only two solitary facts bearing upon it seem to have been ascertained, and one of those appears to be of a somewhat questionable character. I allude to the Saiva sect regarding as their own principal book the 16th Book of the Sanhita of the Vâjasaneyins, and to Yâjñavalkya (the sage, not the versifier) being described in the Mahâ Bhârata as a Buddhist teacher.

I have already said, in Chapter II., all that needs to be said about these two things. But in connection with them may be suggested here the necessity of Orientalists making at an early date a thorough exploration of the great mass of Saiva literature known as the Agamas. Those comprehensive works are believed to deal with religion, ethics, and philosophy, and with science as known to the ancients, in all their numerous branches; and it would be strange indeed

if they were silent about the matter of the Dharmaśâstras, or even if they did not contain some novelties in law, of which the very existence has hitherto been unsuspected. It is said,1 for example, that the Lingayets, whose sect was founded by Vrishabha (or Basava) utterly reject the Vedas and the authority of Vyâsa, and practically deny the purity of any caste but their own. They bury their dead, and perform no obsequies after doing so. And, as was declared as touching the Jains in a decision of the Bombay High Court (10 Rep., 241), the Lingayets 'regard the birth of a son as having no effect on the future state of his progenitor, and, consequently, adoption is a merely temporal arrangement and has no spiritual object.' In short, the Lingayets more nearly resemble Jains than Hindûs, and it would be only just and reasonable to administer their own laws to them. Certainly it is not just and reasonable to attempt to oblige them by laws derived from the Vedas and other authorities which they openly reject and even deride.

1 In the Indian Jurist for June 1879, in a letter written by a very intelligent Brahman.

2 Almost the same words 392), cited by Mayne in § 116.

were used in a Jain case (6 N. W. P., And see below.

In Steele's Hindoo Castes it is stated that, upon inquiries being made at Poona, the 'Lingayet' (or 'Jangama') gave in a list of seventeen Sanskrit works held of authority' in his caste. Even the Tamil Pariahs have their own priests, called Valluvans, who refer to books of their own (Buchanan's Journey, I.). And the Madigas (Chucklers) of Mysore have their religious class called Jambus, and a Maṭam at Cuddapah (Ib. 251-2). The Curubas have a book peculiar to their caste (Ib. ii. 26), The Panchala have their own Gurus, who read the Vishwa Purána (Ib. ii. 269).

CHAPTER IV.

The Manavas a subdivision of the Maîtráyanîyas-Are extinct-The case of' Menu's Code'—Medhâtithi—Varadarajiyam alone based on Manu -Manu and Nárada—Vijñâneśvara's biography by Colebrooke-Nothing really known about the author of the Mitáxará— Was Dhâreśvara DaraShukoh?—The Madhaviyam—Difference between it and the Mitâxará -Which should be preferred?—Ellis's ultimate choice-The SmritiChandrika-The Sarasvativilása-The Varadarajiyam-Authority of the Mitáxará-Importance of determining it-No Madras School of Law-The proper use of the modern treatises—The task.

OUR next question is-(4) Who were the Mânavas, whose Dharmaśâstra is known as the Code of Menu'? Where did they live? When did they become extinct? What sect, if any, now represents them? Were they very numerous, or powerful, or notable; or was there anything special about them that induced other sects to govern themselves by their teaching? And, in particular, did their influence reach down to the south of India?

6

We learn from Max Müller and Bühler that the Mânavas, as appears from the Charaṇavyûha, formed one of the six subdivisions of the Maitrâyanîyas; who studied a redaction of the old black Yajur Veda.' They derived their name from a Manu, a mortal, not the 'self-existent,' and their school was known as the Mânavacharana. Professing Mânavas are not now to be found anywhere; but some Maitrâyanîyas may