Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.706

c7.706

Levirate condemned by various law-givers. These conditions which can hardly be fulfilled at once betray the tendency to render this niyoga difficult in every way or to prohibit it altogether as it is quite irreconcilable with the other principles of Brahmanism. It is often openly expressed. Thus Nār., who in 12, 81 lays down very difficult conditions, brands the niyuktā with the hated designation punarbhū if on failure of a brother-in-law she is given away to a distant relative (12, 48). Hār. 4, 17 allows only the eighteenth (according to the reading of the Ms., the nineteenth) part of the inheritance to a son born of such connections. Āp. 2, 27, 2 ff. declares the levirate no longer admissible on account of the degeneration of the people of the present day and in 2, 13, 6 ff. he points out that the son belongs to the begetter and that the sins which men of antiquity could commit with impunity on account of the greatness of their lustre (*tejoviśeṣeṇa*) are strictly forbidden among the mortal men of to-day; Āp. therefore leaves the secondary sons unmentioned. Already Aupajandhani, an old teacher of the White Yajurveda (Baudh. 2, 3, 33 ff.) had expressed his disapproval of the levirate and the secondary sons. M. 9, 64—70 condemns Niyoga, immediately after recommending it, as a beastly custom (*paśudharma*) which was in vogue only in the reign of King Veṇa and allows it only in the particular case of a betrothed bride whose fiancé died before the marriage. Bṛh. 24, 12 point out this contradiction in M. and explains it by saying that in the present age the sin of Niyoga is no longer permissible.