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A History of Sanskrit Literature c30.s4: 4. The Digests of Law

A History of Sanskrit Literature c30.s4

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English

4. The Digests of Law

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It was a natural result of the number of these Smṛtis that the need was felt for compilations, and we find from the twelfth century onwards many of these digests, Dharmanibandha, prepared at the order of kings. One of the earliest is the *Smṛtikalpataru* of Lakṣmīdhara, foreign minister of Govindacandra of Kanauj (1105–43), who includes religious as well as civil and criminal law and the law of procedure. Halāyudha’s *Brāhmaṇasarvasva*,² written for Lakṣmaṇasena of Bengal, deals with the whole duty of a Brahmin, and is only in minor degree a law-book. The same remark applies to Devaṇṇa Bhaṭṭa’s *Smṛticandrikā* (*c.* 1200), the work of a southern author, and to Hemādri’s *Caturvargacintāmaṇi*,³ in which, written between 1260 and 1309 for Yādava princes, he sets out in enormous detail rules of vows, offerings, pilgrimages, the attainment of release, and offerings to the dead. This text is exceptionally rich in Smṛti citations *in extenso*, as is also the *Madanapārijāta*⁴ of Viçveçvara who wrote for Madanapāla (1360–70), mainly on religious duties, but also on the law of succession. Much more important for law are the *Smṛtiratnākara*⁵ of Caṇḍeçvara, minister of Harasiṁhadeva (*c.* 1325), and the *Cintāmaṇis*⁶ of Vācaspati, who wrote for Harinārāyaṇa of Mithilā (*c.* 1510). Before the fifteenth century, in all probability, Jīmūtavāhana produced his legal work, *Dharma-ratna*, containing the famous *Dāyabhāga*¹ which dominates the views of Bengal on inheritance. In the following century Raghunandana wrote his twenty-eight treatises, *Tattvas*, which won special acceptance as regards ordeals, procedure, and inheritance. The seventeenth century saw the *Nirṇayasindhu* of Kamalākara, which is still a religious authority in the Marāṭha country, the *Bhagavantabhāskara* of Nīlakaṇṭha, and the encyclopaedic *Vīramitrodaya*² of Mitra Miçra who also commented on the *Mitākṣarā*, and whose work touches on astrology and medicine as well as the doctrine of emancipation.

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² Ed. Calcutta, 1893.

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³ Ed. BI. 1873–95.

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⁴ Ed. BI. 1893.

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⁵ *Vivādaratnākara*, ed. BI. 1887.

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⁶ *Vivādacintāmaṇi*, ed. Calcutta, 1837.

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¹ Ed. Calcutta, 1863–6; for date, see Keith, *Bodl. Cat.*, i, App., p. 89; for Vācaspati, p. 81

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² Ed. ChSS. 1906 ff.

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The works of these authors, meritorious in their own way, never exhibit the highest qualities of legal interpretation. They were bound to follow authority, and they fail to evolve any independence of attitude to that authority, or to do more than exhibit very considerable ability in reconciling the irreconcilable, and establishing the legitimacy of a custom of their district by torturing ancient texts which obviously meant something else. How far their citations were from really old authorities it is impossible to say; that verses were freely forged when it was impossible to check the process may be guessed, especially as the epic ranked as a high authority and no one then, or now, could assert definitely what was or was not contained therein.

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