History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.386

v4.c63.t2.386

First, the important texts of the smṛtis on succession to strīdhana may be brought together. The oldest extant text is that of Gaut. 28. 22 which provides,¹⁵²⁸ 'strīdhana devolves (first) on daughters; (in a competition among daughters) it goes to those that are unmarried (*apratta*, lit. not given away in marriage) and (in a competition among married daughters) to those that are not well provided for (i. e. that are indigent).' Manu (IX. 192–193) provides: 'when the mother dies all the full brothers and full sisters should equally divide the mother's estate. Even to the daughters of those daughters some thing should be given (that is) as much as would be seemly out of the estate of their grandmother on the ground of affection'. In Manu IX. 195 it is said that the six kinds of strīdhana, as also anvādheya strīdhana and gifts made by the husband through affection, should go to her progeny if she dies in her husband's lifetime. The verses of Manu (IX. 192–3) are variously explained by the commentators, Sarvajña-Nārāyaṇa holding that mother's estate means estate other than technical strīdhana. Most of them rely on a text of Bṛ. and hold that full brothers and unmarried sisters succeed together and married sisters (i. e. daughters of the woman whose heirs are to be found) get some trifle (¼ of each brother acc. to Kullūka). Manu IX. 196-197 further provide that when a woman was married in one of the five forms of marriage viz. Brāhma, Daiva, Ārṣa, Prājāpatya and Gāndharva and died without issue her strīdhana goes to her husband and if she was married in the Āsura and the other two forms it went, if she died issueless, to her mother and father. Yāj. II. 117¹⁵²⁹ provides that daughters take the strīdhana estate of their mother and on failure of them the (male) issue. In II.¹⁵³⁰ 144 Yāj. again says that strīdhana goes to daughters, but that if the woman dies without issue then it goes to the husband if she was married in one of the four forms (brāhma, daiva, ārṣa, prājāpatya) but to her parents if she was married in the other four forms. Viṣṇu Dh. S. (17. 19-21) and Nār. (dāyabhāga, 9) contain the same rules as Yāj. II. 144-145, while Nār. (dāyabhāga 2) states that the mother's wealth should be divided among the daughters and in the absence of daughters the latter's issue takes it. Śaṅkha-Likhita¹⁵³¹ declare that the mother's estate is taken in equal shares by the full brothers (sons of the deceased mother) and their unmarried sisters. Bṛ.¹⁵³² (S. B. E.