Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.423

c7.423

After Sangermano, who lived as missionary at Ava and Rangoon from 1783 to 1807, for the first time presented in his description of the Burmese Kingdom, which was published only after his death, an "extract out of the Burmese law-book called Damasat",¹ Dr. Richardson in 1847 (second edition, Rangoon 1874) edited the "Damathat or the laws of Menoo" in Burmese and English and in 1850 R. Rost wrote about the Manusāra composed in Pāli and about its relation with M.² These studies eventually became of great importance when by the act of 1875 the Buddhist law was officially prescribed for the Buddhists in Burma. Colonel H. Browne, Commissioner of Pegu had extracts from four Dhammasats edited by Moung Tetto in 1875-77 and instituted searches in Ceylon for the sources thereof which he thought, would be there, but the searches were fruitless. A. Führer in 1881 copied six palmleaf manuscripts of the Manusāra and in 1882 published in the J B B R A S in two articles a summary of the contents of this work consisting of 1134 Śl. along with parallel passages from M. and later Indian law-books. These works about the Burmese law however received the most lasting impulse when J. Jardine was appointed Judicial Commissioner of Burma and not only discussed a series of legal questions of this country important for the practice of law in his eight "Notes on Buddist Law" in 1882 f. and edited the writings about the sources which had been handed over to him in Rangoon by Dr. Forchhammer, who had died before, but induced this excellent Pāli scholar to write a greater work about the history of Burmese law distinguished for thoroughness and deep knowledge by announcing a "Jardine Prize."³