Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.808

c7.808

According to Gaut. 28, 43, Baudh. 2, 3, 37 ff. etc., those who are incapable of work or trade on account of physical, spiritual or moral defects are excluded from the inheritance such as, for example, those who are blind, dumb, deaf, lame, impotent, castrated, half-witted or deranged in mind or those who are suffering from an incurable disease, lepers, and those who quarrel with their father or have cheated their brothers or in general have committed a heinous crime which is punished with excommunication out of the caste, etc. Such family-members who are refused inheritance can claim only maintenance for themselves and this claim too is refused in the case of the excommunicated person (patita) ; however, the Patita may regain his position in the caste by performing the prescribed penances and thus the ample grounds for excommunication probably, on the whole, served only to bring profit to the Brahmans by means of the penances prescribed by them.¹