History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.161

v4.c63.t2.161

and others criticise this view. The reasons why the Mit. prefers the mother before the father are three, out of which two are based on grammar. The word ‘pitarau’ in Yāj. is what is called an ‘*ekaśeṣa*’ *dvandva* compound and in dissolving it or in the full-fledged dvandva the mother comes first in order and hence she should be preferred. Another reason is:¹³⁸⁹ A father may have several wives and sons from them all, so that a mother is directly related to her own son only and not to the other sons of her husband. So (the Mit. says) the mother has greater nearness (prattyāsatti) to her son than the father has. The Sm. C. (II. p. 297) refers to Jai. V. 1. 14 where the Vedic sentence ‘sārasvatau bhavataḥ’ is interpreted and it is stated that the first oblation is offered to Sarasvatī because the Yājyā and Anuvākyā verses as first set out are meant for Sarasvatī (and not on the ground of the method in which the *ekaśeṣa* is dissolved); therefore as to *pitarau* also no reliance should be placed on the dissolution of the compound. Nīlakaṇṭha in the V. Mayūkha denies the assumptions based upon grammar, says that Pāṇ. does not direct that in dissolving the compound the word mātā must be employed first and there is no authority for doing so.¹³⁹⁰ But the V. P. says that though Pāṇini may contain no such direction, all grammatical works like the Kāśikā dissolve the compound as ‘mātā ca pitā ca’ and grammatical usage for centuries supports the argument that the word mātā comes first¹³⁹¹. The argument about the mother being nearer is quite specious. Looked at from the son (whose inheritance is in question), the mother and father are both equally proximate. The V. P. holds that according to the maxim that even a slight ground of difference leads one to determine (priority) the mother should be preferred to the father (since we dissolve the compound as *mātā ca pitā ca*). The V. P. (p. 525) further tries to get over the text of Viṣṇu (putting the father before the mother) by explaining that if the mother is most worthy as a *pativratā* and the father an ordinary man she should be preferred but if the father is more worthy than the mother he should be preferred. Hardly any one supports V. P. and the courts have not followed this. Owing to the difference of opinion among the digests on the question of the preference between parents as heirs, queer results follow. For example, in the province of Bombay itself the father is preferred as an heir to the mother in Gujerat, the island of Bombay and in Northern Konkan (because in these regions the V. Mayūkha has been held to be of paramount authority), while in the rest of the Bombay Presidency the mother is preferred to the father as an heir. The mother takes a limited interest as an heir which is the same as the interest taken by a widow as heir to her husband. The father would take an absolute interest. The word mother includes an adoptive mother; that is, if an adopted son dies leaving no son, widow, daughter or daughter's son, the adoptive mother would succeed¹³⁹² to him as an heir (and even in preference to the adoptive father in those provinces where the Mit. is the supreme authority). In the case of a dvyāmuṣyāyaṇa adoption, if the son adopted in that form dies leaving only his adoptive mother and natural mother, it has been held that both the mothers take his estate as co-heiresses.¹³⁹³ It has further been held that if, after succeeding as adoptive mother to a dvyāmuṣyāyaṇa son, the adoptive mother again adopts a son, the latter does not deprive the natural mother of the half share taken by her as heir of the deceased dvyāmuṣyāyaṇa son.