A History of Sanskrit Literature c20.s1.1.3

c20.s1.1.3

It early attained to the position of a standard work, not only in the Dekhan, but even in Benares and a great part of Northern India. In the present century it acquired the greatest importance in the practice of the Anglo-Indian law-courts through Colebrooke’s translation of the section which it contains on the law of inheritance. From about 1000 A.D. onwards, an innumerable multitude of legal compendia, called *Dharma-nibandhas*, was produced in India. The most imposing of them is the voluminous work in five parts entitled *Chaturvarga-chintāmaṇi*, composed by Hemādri about 1300 A.D. It hardly treats of law at all, but is a perfect mine of interesting quotations from the Smṛitis and the Purāṇas; it has been edited in the *Bibl. Ind.* The *Dharmaratna* of Jīmūtavāhana (probably fifteenth century) may here be mentioned, because part of it is the famous treatise on the law of inheritance entitled *Dāyabhāga*, which is the chief work of the Bengal School on the subject, and was translated by Colebrooke. It should be noted that the Indian Smṛitis are not on the same footing as the lawbooks of other nations, but are works of private individuals; they were also written by Brahmans for Brahmans, whose caste pretensions they consequently exaggerate. It is therefore important to check their statements by outside evidence.