of the laws quoted from Manu are found in his translation of the Mánava-dharma-śástra, and other texts had been already translated by him when perusing the original digest formerly compiled by order of Mr. Hastings. It has become my part to complete a translation of the new Digest of Indian Law. Selected for this duty by Sir John Shore, whose attention extended to promote the happiness of the native inhabitants of the provinces which he governs, and to encourage the labours of the literary society over which he presides, is no less conspicuous than his successful administration of the British interests in India, I have cheerfully devoted my utmost endeavours to deserve the choice by which I was honoured; nothing, which diligence could effect, has been omitted to render the translation scrupulously faithful; and to this it has been frequently necessary to sacrifice perspicuous diction. The reader, while he censures this and other defects of a work executed in the midst of official avocations, will candidly consider the obvious difficulties of the undertaking. Should it appear to him that much of the commentary might have been omitted without injury to the context, or that a better arrangement would have rendered the whole more perspicuous, he will remember that the translator could use no freedom with the text, but undertook a verbal translation of it: what has been inserted to make this intelligible is distinguished by italics, as was practised by Sir William Jones in his version of Manu and of the Sirájiyyah; in very few instances has any greater liberty been taken, except grammatical explanations and etymologies, which are sometimes, though rarely, omitted, or abridged, where a literal version would have been wholly unintelligible to the English reader. In the orthography of Sanskrit words, the system adopted by Sir W. Jones has been followed. To obviate the necessity of referring to the first volume of the Asiatic Researches, where that system was proposed, an explanatory note is subjoined. 1 [This has been of course altered in the present reprint.]

This, with an index, and a few scattered annotations, which have been added, may prove sufficient to assist the occasional perusal of a work intended to disseminate a knowledge of Indian law, and, serving as a standard for the administration of justice among the Hindu subjects of Great Britain, to advance the happiness of a numerous people.

MIRZAPOOR,

17th December, 1796.

476

XIII.

PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF TWO TREATISES ON THE HINDU LAW OF INHERITANCE.

Published at Calcutta, 1810.

No branch of jurisprudence is more important than the law of successions or inheritance; as it constitutes that part of any national system of laws, which is the most peculiar and distinct, and which is of most frequent use and extensive application.

In the law of contracts, the rules of decision, observed in the jurisprudence of different countries, are in general dictated by reason and good sense; and rise naturally, though not always obviously, from the plain maxims of equity and right.

As to the criminal law, mankind are in general agreed in regard to the nature of crimes; and, although some diversity necessarily result from the exigencies of different states of society, leading to considerable variation in the catalogue of offences, and in the scale of relative guilt and consequent punishment, yet the fundamental principles are unaltered, and may perhaps be equally traced in every known scheme of exemplary and retributive justice.

But the rules of succession to property, being in their nature arbitrary, are in all systems of law merely conventional. Admitting even that the succession of the offspring to the parent is so obvious as almost to present a natural and

universal law, yet this very first rule is so variously modified by the usages of different nations, that its application at least must be acknowledged to be founded on consent rather than on reasoning. In the laws of one people the rights of primogeniture are established; in those of another the equal succession of all the male offspring prevails; while the rest allow the participation of the female with the male issue, some in equal, others in unequal proportions. Succession by right of representation, and the claim of descendants to inherit in the order of proximity, have been respectively established in various nations, according to the degree of favour with which they have viewed those opposite pretensions. Proceeding from linear to collateral succession, the diversity of laws prevailing among different nations is yet greater, and still more forcibly argues the arbitrariness of the rules. Nor is it indeed. practicable to reduce the rules of succession, as actually established in any existing body of law, to a general or leading principle, unless by the assumption of some maxim not necessarily nor naturally connected with the canons of inheritance.

In proportion, then, as the law of successions is arbitrary and irreducible to fixed and general principles, it is complex and intricate in its provisions; and requires, on the part of those entrusted with the administration of justice, a previous preparation by study; for its rules and maxims cannot be rightly understood, when only hastily consulted as occasions arise. Those occasions are of daily and of hourly occurrence; and, on this account, that branch of law should be carefully and diligently studied.

In the Hindu jurisprudence in particular, it is the branch of law, which specially and almost exclusively merits the attention of those who are qualifying themselves for the line of service in which it will become their duty to administer justice to our Hindu subjects, according to their own laws.

A very ample compilation on this subject is included in the Digest of Hindu Law prepared by Jagannátha, under the

directions of Sir William Jones. But copious as that work is, it does not supersede the necessity of further aid to the study of the Hindu law of inheritance. In the preface to the translation of the Digest, I hinted an opinion unfavourable to the arrangement of it, as it has been executed by the native compiler. I have been confirmed in that opinion of the compilation since its publication; and indeed the author's method of discussing together the discordant opinions maintained by the lawyers of the several schools, without distinguishing in an intelligible manner which of them is the received doctrine of each school, but on the contrary leaving it uncertain whether any of the opinions stated by him do actually prevail, or which doctrine must now be considered to be in force, and which obsolete, renders his work of little utility to persons conversant with the law, and of still less service to those who are not versed in Indian jurisprudence; especially to the English reader, for whose use, through the medium of translation, the work was particularly intended.

Entertaining this opinion of it, I long ago undertook a new compilation of the law of successions with other collections of Hindu law, under the sanction of the Government of Bengal, for preparing for publication a supplementary Digest of such parts of the law as I might consider to be most useful. Its final completion and publication have been hitherto delayed by important avocations; and it has been judged mean time advisable to offer to the public in a detached form a complete translation of two works materially connected with that compilation.

They are the standard authorities of the Hindu law of inheritance in the schools of Benares and Bengal respectively; and considerable advantage must be derived to the study of this branch of law, from access to those authentic works, in which the entire doctrine of each school, with the reasons and arguments by which it is supported, may be seen at one view and in a connected shape.