Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.450

c7.450

It is remarkable that in Ceylon, which has borrowed so much from India, traces of Indian law are far scantier than in the distant Java. Not a single Pāli law-book exists in Ceylon, although in that part of the Mahāvaṃsa which has not been edited by Turnour, a King has been praised because he gives judgments according to M.⁷ The Nīti-Nigaṇḍhuva, a collection of native customary laws composed about 1818 under British auspices by a commission of distinguished Sinhalese gentlemen of Kandy, which was translated into English by Lemesurier¹ contains only very little of Indian element, such as the doctrine of the four castes of “Brahmins, Kxetriyas, Waisyas and Goiwanse” and the classification of the slaves into four classes of which the *antojāto*, *dhanakkilo*, and *saaman dāsaviopagato* are reminiscent of the *gṛhe jāta*, *kṛta*, and *tavāham ityupagata* of Indian law (Nār. 5, 26 f.)². I must here refrain from a closer examination of this interesting work but I mention only this that it dicusses in details the group marriage of several brothers who enjoy the family property and a wife in common³. The customary laws of the Thesalaweme, a collection of the legal usages of the Tamil inhabitants of Jaffna in Ceylon, prepared at the instance of the Dutch Government in 1707 is exclusively Dravidian in character⁴.