Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.180

c7.180

Nār.’s posteriority to M. is evident, for instance, from the 132 sub-divisions of the 18 titles of law, 15 kinds of slavery, 21 ways of earning livelihood, 11 kinds of witnesses, 5 kinds of divine judgment, 3 kinds of principal crime (Sāhasa) and further ramifications¹ which have far fewer categories in M. or on the whole are present only in embryo. Even the fact that Nārada makes law proper the subject of a separate work is a sign of great advancement. In purport too he differs from M. not seldom, but these differences in most cases may be explained if it is held that in Nār.’s days a great advance was made in legal constitution; for example, Nār. declares gambling, which is entirely forbidden by M., to be permissible so long as it takes place publicly under state control (17,1-8); he curtails the right of primogeniture in the law of inheritance (13, 4 f.) and on the other hand, grants the mother and the unmarried sisters equal shares with the sons at the partition of the property after the death of the father (13, 12 f.); in the law of debt he considerably extends the liability to the wife for the debts of her husband (1,17-25); in law-suits he gives great prominence to proceedings in writing and documentary evidence.