Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c4.3

c4.3

Important additions to our knowledge of Dharmaśāstra literature has been supplied by the publication in India of such valuable texts as the Bālakrīḍā of Viśvarūpa, the earliest gloss on Yājñavalkya, Aparārka's commentary of the same work and Bālambhaṭṭa's (not Lakṣmīdevī's) commentary of the Mitākṣarā. The merits of Viśvarūpa and of some other early commentators have been well brought out by P. V. Kane in the recent paper on the predecessors of Vijñāneśvara. The same scholar has examined the Vedic basis of Hindu Law and is engaged on a history of Dharmaśāstra. The labours of Dr. Jha are chiefly directed towards the elucidation of the Code of Manu and its commentaries, Medhātithi's especially. The merit of having edited the Vyavahāramātṛkā of Jīmūtavāhana, the renowned author of the Dāyabhāga, belongs to Sir Ashutosh Mukherji. The Tagore Law lectures, Sacred Books of the Hindus, Madras Law Journal, Ānandāśrama texts and other periodical publications abound in valuable information regarding Sanskrit Law. Several new collections of Smrtis have been printed. The Smṛticandrikā and other old Nibandhas have been edited in the original Sanskrit or in translations. The collections of Smṛti fragments from quotations has been continued by Herberich for Vṛddha-Manu, by Scriba for Pitāmaha, by Kane for Śaṃkha-Likhita and by Bandyopadhyaya for Kātyāyana. Manuals such as Ghose's Principles of Hindu Law go deep into historical questions. Prof. G. Mazzarella of Catania in Italy has written a vast Italian work, six volumes of which have hitherto been published, on Indian Law (1906 foll.). In Germany quite recently Prof. Meyer has proposed a new chronology for the principal Smṛtis and Dr. Losch has tried to trace the Yājñavalkyasmṛti to its original form in the Purāṇas.