This is what I have attempted to do in this work. I have drawn upon all the available authorities from the Vedas down to the latest digest-writers. I have let them speak for themselves. I do not think I have consciously added a single line of my own comment, because it has been my experience during my studies that people who begin to add their own comments become prone to fasten on the originals their own pre-conceived notions; so that by the time that the work is completed the reader gets an idea, not of the original, but of what the writer of the book thinks should have been the content of the original. This is not my intention. My intention is to present before the reader exactly what the old writers have said. The one defect of my work therefore which will be manifest is that it is crude and undigested. All that I can say in defence in that it is intentionally so, because almost every branch of our ancient literature, specially Philosophy and Law, has suffered by the process of digesting and 1 have therefore studiously avoided it. It will be seen that I have not tried to slur over or conceal anything, not even those things that may be considered by the wiser present-day Hindu to be a blot on his glorious culture. It is for the reader to judge if I have succeeded in giving him a true and intelligible account of the content of our law-books, The first four chapters deal with Procedure and Evidence. The interest of readers in these subjects will be purely academicals, or, at best, historic). It has therefore not been thought necessary to add the original Sanskrit texts. Chapter V and the rest deal with the Laws relating to Debt and the other titles of law, incorporating the whole of our Civil and Criminal Law. As portions of these may still have some bearing on the practical administration of law in this country, it was considered advisable,-particularly at the instance of my friend and neighbour Pandit Narmadeshwar Prasad Upadhyaya of the High Court Bar-to add the original Sanskrit texts.
The present volume deals with Seventeen out of the Eighteen Heads of Dispute under which Hindu Law has been classified; the eighteenth Head of 'Inheritance' will be dealt with in the second volume which is ready and in the Press.
Book's Contents and Sample Pages
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Vedas (1377)
Upanishads (666)
Puranas (831)
Ramayana (893)
Mahabharata (328)
Dharmasastras (164)
Goddess (474)
Bhakti (243)
Saints (1276)
Gods (1291)
Shiva (331)
Journal (132)
Fiction (44)
Vedanta (323)
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