Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.427

c7.427

Forchhammer has proved that the Burmese law-books which mostly bear the title Manudhammasattham, i. e. Manudharmaśāstram, have come to the Burmese through the Talaings who are superior to them in culture. The Dhammavilāsa, perhaps the oldest law-book of the Talaings, was composed in 1174 A. D., but now it is not preserved in its original form. The second oldest Dhammasattham ascribed to King Wagaru of Martaban (1281-1306) was edited and translated into English by Forchhammer following a Ms. dated in the year 1707, which contains the Pāli text besides an interlinear Burmese version. This important work betrays its Indian origin on every side,—by the mythical introduction about the first parent M., who of course is here transformed into a nobleman of King Mahāsammata, who mounted to heaven and saw the law written in characters of the size of a grown-up cow on the boundary wall of the universe including the 18 titles of law, the 12 sons, the periods of waiting for women regulated according to the cause of the absence of their husbands—for those whose husbands are travelling or have disappeared, reversion of the uninherited property to the king, the partition of the property among sons of different ranks born of the rightful marriage, the seven kinds of slaves, various kinds of inadmissible witnesses, the slight and serious bodily injury, reduplication of the punishment for this offence if two men assault a single person, etc¹.