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The is a ' (legal commentary) on the Yajnavalkya Smriti best known for its theory of "inheritance by birth." It was written by
Vijñāneśvara Vijnaneshwara was a prominent jurist of the first millennium CE India. His treatise, the ''Mitakshara,'' dealt with inheritance, and is one of the most influential legal treatises in Hindu law. Mitakshara is the treatise on Yājñavalkya Smṛti ...
, a scholar in the Kalyani Chalukya court in the late eleventh century in the modern day state of
Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...
. Along with the
Dāyabhāga The ''Dāyabhāga'' is a Hindu law treatise written by Jīmūtavāhana which primarily focuses on inheritance procedure. The ''Dāyabhāga'' was the strongest authority in Modern British Indian courts in the Bengal region of India, although this h ...
, it was considered one of the main authorities on
Hindu Law Hindu law, as a historical term, refers to the code of laws applied to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in British India. Hindu law, in modern scholarship, also refers to the legal theory, jurisprudence and philosophical reflections on the na ...
from the time the British began administering laws in India. The entire , along with the text of the ', is approximately 492 closely printed pages.


Author

Vijñāneśvara lived at Marthur near Kalaburagi (in the modern-day state of
Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...
), near the end of the eleventh century during the reign of Vikramaditya VI of the Cālukya dynasty of Kalyāni, one of the great rulers of the Deccan. He was a "profound student of the Mimamsa system," a system of exegetical thought focused on the interpretation of the Vedas. Contrary to Derrett's opinion based on Yajnavalkya 2.4 and 2.305 that Vijñāneśvara was a judge, Kane holds that these passages about characteristics of judges do not reflect a social or historical reality, but rather an interpretation based upon Mimamsa.


Date and historical context

Kane places the between 974 CE and 1000 CE, but he says, "there is no evidence to establish the exact time when the work was undertaken." He places it after 1050 CE because it names Viśvarūpa,
Medhātithi Medhātithi is one of the oldest and most famous commentators on the , more commonly known as the Laws of Manu. The text is a part of the Hindu Dharmaśāstra tradition, which attempts to record the laws of dharma. Location There is some debat ...
, and Dhāreśvara, other commentators, as authoritative sources. Derrett places the text between 1121 CE and 1125 CE, a much shorter time frame than Kane, but Kane claims that this time frame is purely arbitrary, and Derrett does not provide the evidence to support his claim. Lingat, however, is content to place the simply at the end of the eleventh century. Historically, Vijñāneśvara was attempting to clarify and explain parts of the , and he was criticizing and discussing earlier commentaries on the same text in an attempt to reconcile differences and further explain the meaning and the significance of the text.


Sources and topics

Vijñāneśvara's commentary "brings together numerous passages, explains away contradictions among them by following the rules of interpretation laid down in the Mimamsa system, brings about order by assigning to various dicta their proper scope and province...and effects a synthesis of apparently unconnected
injunctions An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...
." In this sense, the commentary is similar to a digest (nibandha) in that it attempts to draw into the commentary outside opinions about the same passages of the text which he is commenting on. Although he is commenting on the , he cites numerous earlier commentators as well, including Viśvarūpa, Mēdhātithi, and Dhāreśvara. The 's most important topics include property rights, property distribution, and inheritance. This text has become the authority, especially on inheritance, throughout most of India after the British began to move in.


Effect on British India

The , along with the
Dāyabhāga The ''Dāyabhāga'' is a Hindu law treatise written by Jīmūtavāhana which primarily focuses on inheritance procedure. The ''Dāyabhāga'' was the strongest authority in Modern British Indian courts in the Bengal region of India, although this h ...
, became an influential source for British Courts in India. The was influential throughout the majority of India, except in
Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...
,
Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...
and some of the parts in
Odisha Odisha (), formerly Orissa (List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2011), is a States and union territories of India, state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by ar ...
and
Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...
, where the
Dāyabhāga The ''Dāyabhāga'' is a Hindu law treatise written by Jīmūtavāhana which primarily focuses on inheritance procedure. The ''Dāyabhāga'' was the strongest authority in Modern British Indian courts in the Bengal region of India, although this h ...
prevailed as an authority for law. The British were interested in administering law in India, but they wanted to administer the law that already existed to the people. Thus, they searched for a text that could be used to help solve disputes among the people of India in manners which were already customary in the sub continent. These disputes often involved property rights or inheritance issues. Thus, the first translation of the was by Colebrooke in 1810, and it was only this section of the text that gave the British insight on how to deal with inheritance issues. At that point, the held the status of a legislative text because it was used as a direct resource regarding inheritance in the courts of law in most of India.


Translations

Colebrooke did the first translation of the in 1810 because there was an immediate need in the British courts for the "law" (or as close as they could get to the law) regarding inheritance that already existed among the people of India. W. Macnaghten did the second translation, dealing with procedure, in 1829. Finally, J. R. Gharpure provided us with a complete translation of the .


Sub-commentaries

Several sub-commentaries have been written on the , including the ''Subodhinī'' of Viśveśvara (c.1375), the ' of Bālaṃbhaṭṭa Payagunde (c.1770). and the ' of . The ' is notable for having greatly informed Colebrooke's translation of the , and also for possibly having been written by a woman, Lakṣmīdevī. The 13th-century
Telugu language Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. Spoken by about 96 million people (2022), Telugu is the most widely spoken member of ...
text ''
Vijnaneshvaramu ''Vijnaneshvaramu'' (IAST: Vijñāneśvaramu) is a 13th-century Telugu language '' dharma-shastra'' (Hindu law) text composed by Ketana in present-day southern India. It is based on the Sanskrit-language '' Mitakshara'', a legal commentary on the ...
'' is based on ''Mitākṣarā''.


Notes


References

* Suryanath U. Kamat, A Concise history of Karnataka from pre-historic times to the present, Jupiter books, MCC, Bangalore, 2001 (Reprinted 2002) OCLC: 7796041 * K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, History of South India, From Prehistoric times to fall of Vijayanagar, 1955, OUP, New Delhi (Reprinted 2002), * Charles Li
"Lakṣmīdevī’s 'intellectual petticoats' and the flamewar they inspired."''Texts Surrounding Texts: Satellite Stanzas, Prefaces and Colophons in South-Indian Manuscripts.''
11 June 2021.


External links



{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitaksara Hindu law Ancient Indian law 11th-century Sanskrit literature