History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.1082.2

v4.c63.1082.2

Jolly that “it may be unhesitatingly set down as a fact that in the earliest period of Indian Law, partition of property was an entirely unknown proceeding” (Tagore Law Lectures p. 90) goes too far and is not fully warranted by Vedic texts. Just as the Tai. S. (III. 1. 9. 4)¹⁰⁵⁸ narrates that Manu distributed his wealth among his sons, it also speaks of the eldest son being established with ancestral wealth. The Āp. Dh. S. (II. 6. 14. 6 and 10–12) refers to both these passages of the Tai. S. but concludes that equal division among sons is the proper mode and that giving a major part of the estate to the eldest alone is forbidden by the śāstras¹⁰⁵⁹. These lead to the conclusion that equal distribution among all sons was believed to be the rule and giving the major portion to the eldest son was an exception (and a rare case) even in the Vedic age. The Ait. Br. (19.3) speaks of the right¹⁰⁶⁰ of Indra to primogeniture (jyaiṣṭhya) and pre-eminence (śraiṣṭhya). This right of the eldest son to special treatment at the time of partition persisted in the times of Manu (IX. 112 ff) and Yāj. (II. 114) also and even in modern times it is recognized to some extent in the case of impartible estates and even in ordinary families on the ground of custom or from the nature of the grants made by the former Governments or the British Government (such as Jaghirs and Saranjams). Both Kauṭ. and Kāt.