Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.363

c7.363

Raghunandana, the learned son of Bengal, deserves to be mentioned at the head of the authors of the 16. century. His chief work, the Smṛtitattva¹, has already been published many times. Of the 28 Tattvas into which this great digest is divided, the law proper is dealt with in the Divya, Dāya and Vyavahāratattvas on ordeals, inheritance and judicial proceedings respectively; the last two have also been separately published and the Dāyatattva has even been translated. Several Tattvas had been commented upon at quite an early period. As Raghunandana in his Jyotiṣatattva speaks of the year 1498 he must have lived about that time, as is apparent also from his contemporaniety with the famous reformer Caitanya (1486-1527). King Pratāparudrasena of Orissa (1503-1524), who was a contemporary of Caitanya and was converted to his religion by him, composed the Sarasvatīvilāsa, an extensive work on law, perhaps before his conversion about the year 1515; the Vyavahārakāṇḍa of this work dealing with the law of inheritance, has been edited and translated by Foulkes (Lond. 1881). This work, which has received great esteem in South India, specially in the native country of the author, does not follow the Bengal school but the Mit. and the Smṛtic.²