Digest of Hindu Law, on Contracts and Successions, Volume 1

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Page 24 - Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury : unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury ; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury...
Page xii - of kings, far more powerful and rigid than they : nothing " can be mightier than law, by whose aid, as by that of the " highest monarch, even the weak may prevail over the strong.
Page 443 - Three persons, a wife, a son, and a slave, are declared by law to have (in general) no wealth exclusively their own ; the wealth which they may earn is (regularly) acquired for the man to whom they belong.
Page vi - ... would have thought the most grievous oppression, should not be superseded by a new system, of which they could have no knowledge, and which they must have considered as imposed on them by a spirit of rigour and intolerance. So far the principle of decision between the native parties in a cause appears perfectly clear: but the difficulty lies (as in most other cases) in the application of the principle to practice; for the Hindu and Muselman laws are locked up for the most part in two very difficult...
Page v - Nothing indeed could be more obviously just, than to determine private contests according to those laws, which the parties themselves had ever considered as the rules of their conduct and engagements in civil life...
Page 93 - A decision must not be made solely by having recourse to the letter of written codes ; since, if no decision were made according to the reason of law, ('or according to immemorial usage ; for the word yucti admits both senses,') there might be a failure of justice.
Page vi - ... body of men ; but my experience justifies me in declaring, that I could not with an easy conscience concur in a decision, merely on the written opinion of native lawyers, in any cause in which they could have the remotest interest in misleading the court : nor, how vigilant soever we might be, would it be very difficult for them to mislead us; for a single obscure text, explained by themselves, might be quoted as express authority, though perhaps in the very book, from which it was selected,...
Page 296 - By conquest, the earth became the property of the holy PARASU RAMA ; by gift, the property of the Sage CASYAPA ; and, committed by him to Cshatriyas for the sake of protection, became their protective property successively held by powerful conquerors, and not by subjects cultivating the soiL...
Page vii - The court of appeals in civil suits. gratify the emperor by quickness of dispatch ; but, with all its imperfections, it is a most valuable mine of judicial knowledge; it gives law, at this hour, to the greatest part of Europe; and, though few English lawyers dare make such an acknowledgment, it is the true source of nearly all our English laws, that are not of a fendal origin.
Page 10 - Brahmana, unable to subsist by his duties, may live by the duty of a soldier ; if he cannot get a subsistence by either of these employments, he may apply to tillage, and attendance on cattle, or gain a competence by traffic, avoiding certain commodities. A Cshatriya, in distress, may subsist by all these means; but he must not have recourse to the highest functions.

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