Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c8.54

c8.54

Nothing is clearer than that Kautalya wants the state to make an effort to promote morality, but the inherent difficulties of the task must have been difficult to surmount. It was easier to regulate another important side of social life—inheritance. It furnished room for some of the most complicated provisions known to Hindu Law. So far as property rights were concerned, children had no majority during the lifetime of their progenitors. But, except for extraordinary reasons, property, as a whole, was divided equally among sons. Idiots, lunatics, lepers and the blind were debarred from inheritance. Property, for which no claimant was found, escheated to the state except when it happened to belong to learned men, in which case it went to their professional brethren. To the general rule of equal division, there are a few curious exceptions in Kautalya. Eldest sons receive as their special share, among Brâhmaṇas, goats; among Kṣatriyas, horses; among Vaiśyas, cows; among Śûdras, sheep. Blind animals fell to middlemost sons and parti-coloured ones to the youngest. If there were no cattle for division, the eldest son was entitled to an additional tenth of the whole property, barring the precious stones. The eldest son, it must be remembered, performed certain particular ceremonies to the memory and heavenly peace of ancestors, which entailed some expenditure. The father's carriage and jewellery went to the eldest son; his bed, seat, and bronze plate to the middlemost; and his black grams, iron and domestic utensils, cows and carts to the youngest. In certain contingencies, such as the negligence of religious observances, the sons forfeited part of the inheritance. Daughters received the bronze plate and the jewellery of their mother after her death.¹