History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.156

v4.c63.t2.156

*Parents (pitarau).* Great divergence prevails among medieval digests on the position of the father and the mother as heirs to their son. Yāj. gives no clue as to which among the parents is to be preferred if both are alive when their son dies. The text of the Viṣṇu Dh.¹³⁸⁵ S. as read by most digests places the father before the mother. Manu IX. 217 states that when the son dies issueless the mother takes his wealth, while Manu IX. 185 provides that the father takes the wealth of a sonless man and the brothers also. So Manu is not definite about the preference among parents. Kāt. (927) observes,¹³⁸⁶ 'of a sonless man (the heirs) are declared to be the wife of good family, the daughters, the father on failure of them, the mother, the brother and (the brother's) sons'. Bṛ. (S. B. E. 33 p. 379 v. 63) says,¹³⁸⁷ 'when a son dies without leaving his own wife or male issue, his mother is to be considered as her son's heir or a brother may succeed with the consent of the mother'. In this conflict it may be stated that the Mit., the Madanapārijāta, S. V. (p. 416), the V. C., the V. P. prefer the mother to the father; while the Dāyabhāga, the Sm. C., the Madanaratna, the V. Mayūkha prefer the father to the mother. Śrīkara¹³⁸⁸ held that both parents, if alive, succeed together. But the Dāyabhāga, Sm. C.