Ownership and Inheritance in Sanskrit Jurisprudence

Description

Ownership and Inheritance in Sanskrit Jurisprudence provides an account of various theories of ownership (svatva) and inheritance (dāya) in Sanskrit jurisprudential literature (Dharmaśāstra). It examines the evolution of different juridical models of inheritance--in which families held property in trusts or in tenancies-in-common--against the backdrop of related developments in the philosophical understanding of ownership in the Sanskrit text-traditions of hermeneutics (Mīmāṃsā) and logic (Nyāya) respectively. Christopher T. Fleming reconstructs medieval Sanskrit theories of property and traces the emergence of various competing schools of Sanskrit jurisprudence during the early modern period (roughly fifteenth-nineteenth centuries) in Bihar, Bengal, and Varanasi. Fleming attends to the ways in which ideas from these schools of jurisprudence shaped the codification of Anglo-Hindu personal law by administrators of the British East India Company during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While acknowledging the limitations of colonial conceptions of Dharmaśāstra as positive law, this study argues for far greater continuity between pre-colonial and colonial Sanskrit jurisprudence than accepted previously. It charts the transformation of the Hindu law of inheritance--through precedent and statute--over the late nineteenth, twentieth, and early twenty-first centuries. Cover Ownership and Inheritance in Sanskrit Jurisprudence Copyright Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures and Tables Glossary of Sanskrit Terms Introduction Ownership, Property, and Svatva Dharma, Dharmaśāstra, and Śāstra Law, Legalism, and Schools of Hindu Law Intellectual History, the Scale of Texts, and Schools of Thought Outline of the Chapters 1: Mīmā m: sā and the Mitāk:sarā School of Jurisprudence Consolidating Earlier Dharmaśāstra The Definition of Inheritance (Dāya) Does Ownership Precede Partition? The (Extra)Śāstric Nature of Ownership Consolidating Mīmā m: sā Theories of Ownership Ownership in Śabara’s Bhās:ya Theories of Ownership in Prābhākara-Mīmām: sā Writings Mīmā m: sā in Pre-Mitāk:sarā Dharmaśāstra Commentary Vijñāneśvara’s Consolidation of Prābhākara-Mīmām: sā Theories The Medieval Mitāks:arā School Bhavanātha’s Mīmām: sānayaviveka: Mīmām: sā’s First Metaphysics of Ownership Vijñāneśvara’s Successors Conclusion 2: Navya-Nyāya and the Maithila and Gau: da Schools of Jurisprudence Maithila and Gau: da Scales of Dharmaśāstra Texts Inheritance and Ownership in Maithila Dharmaśāstra and Navya-Nyāya A Walled Garden in Mithilā and Bengal Śrīnāthācāryacū: dāma: ni: The Founder of the Bengal School Raghunandana and Acyuta: Jīmūtavāhana as an Opponent of Mithilā and the Mitāk:sarā Avacchedakas, Nirūpakas, and Padārthas in Dāyabhāga Commentaries Delimiting Dādhātvarthatā: Navya-Nyāya Techniques in Dāyabhāga Commentaries Svatva as Padārtha: Navya-Nyāya Theories of Ownership in Dāyabhāga Commentaries Gau: da Navya-Nyāya Theories of Ownership Theories of Ownership in the Dāyabhāga and Dāyabhāga Commentaries The Dāyabhāga-Commentators’ Influence on Navya-Nyāya Uparamasvatva in Post-Raghunātha Navya-Nyāya Two Theories from the Dāyabhāga in Navya-Nyāya Literature Conclusion: Schools of Dharmaśāstra in Late Navya-Nyāya 3: The Bhā: t:ta School of Benares: Vārā : nasī, 1657 The Bha: t :tas, a Social History Early Modernity and the Brāhma: na Ecumene Enter the Bha: t :tas Speaking from Śiva’s Temple Back to the Motherland—The Bha: t:tas in the Court of Śivājī A Family Affair—Knowledge Production in the Scholar Family The Textual Structure of the Bhā: t:ta School: Topics and Colophons Bhā: t:ta Intertextuality: Citations and Arguments Ownership and Inheritance in the Bhā: t:ta Corpus The Mitāksarā as a Bhā: t:ta text: Rāmakr: s : nabha: t :ta’s Vibhāgatattvavicāra Kamalākarabha: t:ta: The Founder of the Bhā: t:ta School of Inheritance Ownership and Inheritance According to Gāgābha: t:ta Conclusion 4: Anglo-Indian Schools of Hindu Law First Steps (1765–87) Warren Hastings’ Judicial Plan of 1772, A Rule of Property in Bengal Gau: das and Maithilas in the Vivādār : navasetu The Search for Certainty (1787–94) William Jones, Rādhākānta Tarkavāgīśa, and Jagannātha Tarkapañcānana The Vivādabhaṅgār : nava, an Ocean of Navya-Nyāya Jurisprudence From Two Digests to Two Treatises (1794–1825) Henry Colebrooke and the Making of Western Indology Bālambha: t:ta, the Mitāk:sarā, and the Vīramitrodaya The Limits and Limitations of Schools of Hindu Law Conclusion: Market Governance, (Neo)Liberalism, and the Future of Dharmaśāstra in the Twenty-First Century From Pa: nd: itas to Precedents (1816–64) Between the Hands Invisible and Dead (1864–1956) A Neo-Liberal Epitaph for the Rishis Out of the Waiting Room of History: Dharmaśāstra and Legal Pluralism Summary of Chapters Bibliography Sanskrit Manuscripts Primary Texts in Sanskrit Secondary Texts in English Index