Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.830

c7.830

According to the Smṛtis the property of a Brahman should not on the whole be subjected to this law of reversion but should go to the spiritual teacher or pupil or to the fellow-student of the deceased or to the community of Brahmans, particularly to the learned Brahmans, cf. § 25. The verse (Baudh. 1, 11, 16; Vas. 17, 86) quoted as proof of this, according to which the property of Brahmans is worse than poison, is frequently found also in the inscriptions. The privilege here allowed to the Brahmans reminds one of the special favour shown to the Brahmans when a treasure is discovered which otherwise reverts to the king (M. 8, 30 ff. etc.). Perhaps the uncertainty of the Smṛti rules about the right of inheritance of distant relations is to be attributed to this law of reversion to the king, and in part certainly also to the fact that partitions were rare in ancient times, for, in undivided families, if male descendants were lacking, the relations living with the owner on the joint property were to inherit and as the result of the catholicity of Indian law with regard to the law of sonship, such cases were not all too frequent in which no son of one kind or another could be found.