History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.1038

v4.c63.1038

¹⁰²⁵ When a man dies his wealth is the dāya which several persons may inherit. In their case, it becomes their joint property. So their ownership, being joint, is denoted by the word 'riktha'. The joint owners become exclusive owners of definite parts of the dāya by partition; thus partition is a source of ownership (in this case exclusive ownership of distinct parts by several). But if there is a single heir then there can be no saṁvibhāga (partition) and so the source of his ownership is riktha and not saṁvibhāga. When there are several heirs riktha is on this view a source of joint ownership only. It must be said that on the hypothesis of Jīmūtavāhana, *riktha* and *saṁvibhāga* rather coalesce with one another and cannot be distinguished so well as on the theory of the Mit.