History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s71.3

v1.c6.s71.3

Ghose in his Hindu Law (3rd ed. Intro. p. XV) says that, like Medhātithi, Haradatta denies the heritable rights of widows and must have come before Vijñāneśvara and not after. But Ghose appears to be wrong. Haradatta first says that according to the *ācārya* (i. e. Āpastamba) the *sapiṇḍas* of the deceased who took the property were obliged to maintain the widow of the deceased, while the view of Gautama was that the widow took, on failure of male issue, an equal share along with the *sapiṇḍas*, and then Haradatta says that he himself liked the latter view.⁸²⁰ He often gives interesting information. On Gautama XVII. 33 he tells us that *asafoetida* is eaten by all, even though it is a matter for consideration whether being the exudation of a tree, it is to be regarded as due to cutting (and so forbidden).⁸²¹ On Āp. Dh. S. II. 2. 5. 14 he cites as an example of reviling (*ā-krośa*) the following : 'the Taittirīya is a Śakhā that is *ucchiṣṭa* (the leavings of food eaten), the Yājñavalkya and other Brāhmaṇa works are modern'.⁸²² On Gautama IV. 5. he says that what distinguishes the Prājāpatya form of marriage from the Brāhma and others is that there is in the former a stipulation that the husband is not to enter into another order of life (*āśrama*) nor is he to marry another woman.⁸²³ On Āp. Dh. S. I. 4. 12. 15 he says that whereas in the case of marriage with a paternal aunt's or maternal uncle's daughter, the act springs from the fact that one is pleased thereby, there is no necessity to infer a *śāstra* (a Vedic passage) once existing but now lost (in support of such usage).⁸²⁴