History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.750.3

v4.c63.750.3

(642) provides⁸²² that a man who having voluntarily promised a gift to a brāhmaṇa does not deliver it should be made to render it as a debt and should be awarded the lowest amercement and further (verse 566) that if a man promises a gift for a religious purpose whether in good health or in disease, his son (or other heir) should be made to pay it if the promisor died without actually delivering it. These verses show that in two cases gifts though not completed by delivery of possession were enforced by ancient Indian courts viz. when the gift was promised to a brāhmaṇa or when the gift was declared to be made for a religious and charitable purpose. The last verse contains the beginnings of the idea of a will, since the mere declaration of the intention of a man to give for a religious purpose is made enforceable after his death against his son or heir. But this germ could not evolve into a full-fledged law of testamentary succession on account of the practice of adoption, the requirement that a gift must be accompanied by present possession and the incidents of the joint family on account of which no single member could alienate family property except for legal necessity and which involved the doctrine that on the death of a member his rights ended and passed by survivorship to other members. Bṛ. expressly states this.⁸²³ But a gift though promised need not be paid or carried out if the promisee turns out to be an irreligious man (Gaut. V. 21). Nār. VII. 12 and Bṛ.