History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.59.3

v4.c63.t2.59.3

It is difficult to understand why the riktha which is spoken of in the same manner as gotra in the verse should not cease by the entire cessation of connection with the natural family. The gotra and riktha are inextricably joined together in a dvandva compound and it would follow logically as well as grammatically that the adopted son must lose both together and cannot lose the former and keep the latter. ' In this passage the premiss that there is entire cessation of connection with the natural family is entirely wrong as has already been shown and will be shown a little later on. The adoptee's connection with the gotra of the natural family does not cease for all purposes at all. Therefore the reasoning of the passage quoted above is entirely misconceived and is further opposed to two well known rules of the Mīmāṁsā evolved for the construction of texts. On the interpretation given to Manu IX. 142 by the Bombay decisions that verse lays down two rules (*vidhis*), viz. (1) a person adopted into another family will not take the wealth of his natural father or any one in that family *after adoption*; (2) that a person adopted into another family loses or forfeits on adoption wealth that he may have already taken absolutely in the natural family as a member of that family *before adoption*.