History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s96.3

v1.c6.s96.3

Of the Bālambhaṭṭī ascribed to Lakṣmīdevī, West and Bühler say 'she generally advocates latitudinarian views and gives the widest interpretation possible to every term of Yājñavalkya. Her opinions are held in comparatively small esteem and are hardly ever brought forward by the *śāstris*, if unsupported by other authorities'.¹¹⁴² For example, in the Bālambhaṭṭī the word 'bhrātaraḥ', occurring in Yājñavalkya's verses laying down the order of succession to a man dying without male issue, is interpreted as including sisters and the author says that sisters succeed immediately after brothers.¹¹⁴³ This dictum of Bālambhaṭṭa taken along with the words of the Vyavahāramayūkha seems to have influenced their Lordships of the Privy Council in *Vinayak v. Lakshmibai* on the question of the rights of the sister as an heir.¹¹⁴⁴ In *Sakharam v. Sitabai*¹¹⁴⁵ Sir Michael Westropp C. J. went so far as to say on the construction of the term ‘brethren’ in the Mitākṣarā as including sisters, which construction was adopted in that case (*in Vinayak v. Lakshmibai*) both by the Supreme Court and the Privy Council, “we must treat the Mitākṣarā also as preferring sisters to half brothers, whom it brings in after brothers.” But this was a mere *obiter dictum*, since the case in which these observations were made was governed by the law of the Vyavahāramayūkha which expressly prefers full sisters to half brothers. It has been laid down in several cases in Bombay¹¹⁴⁶ that Bālambhaṭṭa’s doctrine that the word ‘brothers’ includes ‘sisters’ has not been accepted in that Presidency and that Sir Michael Westropp was under a misapprehension as to the exact drift of the Bālambhaṭṭī which nowhere says that the term ‘brothers’ excludes half brothers and which does not bring in the full sister before the half brother, but expressly says that the full brother inherits first, then the half brother and then comes the sister. The Bālambhaṭṭī not only brings in the sisters after full and half brothers, but places the sons and daughters of sisters after the sons and daughters of brother’s, full or half. This is in direct conflict with the order of succession expressly mentioned by the Mitākṣarā and the Bombay High Court has refused to give the sister’s son the place which the Bālambhaṭṭī assigns to him and treats him as a mere *bandhu*.¹¹⁴⁷ The Bālambhaṭṭī is regarded as of little authority in the interpretation of the Mitākṣarā in the Bombay Presidency and its interpretations cannot be accepted without due caution and examination.¹¹⁴⁸ Even in the Benares¹¹⁴⁹ School where the Bālambhaṭṭī has been accepted as one of the leading authorities, the authority of Bālambhaṭṭa has been held to be inferior to that of Nandapaṇḍita in matters of adoption, it being held that a widow cannot adopt in the Benares School without express authority from her husband (while Bālambhaṭṭa holds that she can adopt without such authority). Similarly it has been held that the Bālambhaṭṭī cannot prevail over the views of the Vīramitrodaya and that a daughter-in-law is not in the line of heirs at all though the Bālambhaṭṭī says that she is so.¹¹⁵⁰