Jaina Law Bhadrabahu Samhita

Author(s): J L Jaini
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 40

INHERITANCE AND PARTITION.
23
Held also that a Jaina widow can adopt without husband's permission; and, being childless, she acquires an absolute right in her husband's separate property.
But a glaring half-truth stares one in the face in an obiter dictum, at page 394: "It may be conceded that their ceremonies in many respects approximate pretty closely to those of the orthodox Hindus, although this is not confined to Arrah itself. The reason is pretty obvious. The Jainas have no written Shastras and no priests of their own. Brahmans are called in to officiate at their ceremonies, and it is only natural that they should perform the ceremonies with which they are best acquainted.” (The italics are mine to indicate the plausible error).
In the same year, the Bombay High Court, in Anabai v. Gobind, 23 B. 257, repeated the error that Jainas are Hindu dissenters and governed by Hindu Law.
In 1907, in Manohar Lal v, Banarsi Das, 29 A. 495, the High Court at Allahabad have again repeated the same stereotyped error in an adoption case from Meerut. It was not necessary for purposes of that case, but the learned Judges (Stanley, O.J., and Burkitt, J.) thought fit to go into the origin and history of the Jaina sect. One cannot help pointing out a few of the more glaring