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INTRODUCTION.
XV
in MSS., in which law, properly so-called, is treated by itself, without any reference to rules of penance, diet, and other religious subjects; and it throws a new and an important light on the political and social institutions of ancient India at the time of its composition. Several of the doctrines propounded by Nârada are decidedly opposed to, and cannot be viewed in the light of developments from, the teaching of Manu. Thus e. g. Nârada advocates the practice of Niyoga, or appointment of a widow to raise offspring to her deceased husband; he declares gambling to be a lawful amusement, when carried on in public gaming-houses; he allows the remarriage of widows; he virtually abrogates the right of primogeniture by declaring that even the youngest son may undertake the management of the family property, if specially qualified for the task; he ordains that, in a partition of the family property, the father may reserve two shares for himself, and that, in the case of a partition after his death, the mother shall divide equally with the sons, and an unmarried sister take the same share as a younger son; he lays down a different gradation of fines from those laid down by Manu, &c.1
It may be argued that Nârada would not have ventured Their probable to differ from the Code of Manu on such origin. essential points as these, unless he had found good authority for doing so in other early works or dicta attributed to the primeval legislator of India, and that this fact furnishes another reason for attaching some credit to what Nârada relates of the original Code in 100,000 verses, and of its successive abridgment. Thus much is certain, that a great many floating proverbs and authoritative enunciations of Manu and of Vriddha or Brihan-Manu must have existed by the side of the Code of Manu in the times of Nårada as well as before and after his period, when they were quoted in the Mahabharata and in the Com
1 See the foot-notes, passim.
Nârada XVII, 1-8, and 162; Nârada XIII, 5,
See Nârada XII, 80-88, and Manu IX, 65-68; Manu IX, 221-228; Nârada XII, 97, and Manu V, and Manu IX, 105-109; Nârada XIII, 13, 14, and Manu IX, 104, 131; Nârada, Appendix 30, 31, and Manu VIII, 138.
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