History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c44.63.3

v3.c44.63.3

But gradually the zeal and devotion of the disciples and followers of the great teachers endowed the maṭhas with considerable moveable and immoveable properties. The origin of maṭhas (spoken of as maṭṭams in South India) has been lucidly set forth as follows in *Sammantha Pandara v. Sellappa Chetti* 2 Mad. 175 at p. 179 'a preceptor of religious doctrine gathers around him a number of disciples whom he initiates into the particular mysteries of the order and instructs in its religious tenets. Such of these disciples as intend to become religious teachers renounce their connection with their family and all claims to the family wealth and as it were affiliate themselves to the spiritual teacher whose school they have entered. Pious persons endow the schools with property which is vested in the preceptor for the time being and a home for the school is created and a maṭṭam constituted. The property of the maṭṭam does not descend to the disciples or elders in common; the preceptor, the head of the institution, selects from among the affiliated disciples him whom he deems the most competent and in his own life-time instals the disciple so settled as his successor, not uncommonly with some ceremonies. After the death of the preceptor the disciple so chosen is installed in the *gaddi* and takes by succession the property which has been held by his predecessor. The property is in fact attached to the office and passes by inheritance to no one who does not fill that office.