Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.439

c7.439

The influence of Indian law spread much farther beyond Burma towards the east and the south. Thus in Siam there is found the tradition of a law-book of M.³, and the extracts which Low published in the first volume of the Journal of the Indian Archipelago (1847) from a Siamese law-book of 1614 A.D., contain much that is Indian, though Low has spoken about the "Hindu Origin" of this work with some reservation of doubt. Thus the Pāli formulas and usages at the conclusion of a marriage ceremony, the rule that the interest in case of a debt should never exceed the amount of the capital, that the King inherits a property for which there is no legal heir, that the boys should be brought up in Buddhist monasteries, the long list of inadmissible witnesses, etc. are clearly of Indian origin.