five (Ramnad) kalams of rice, or about two pounds per diem; whilst a captain of a hundred men got land yielding fifty such kalams, and others had grants proportionate to their services. Amongst these clans, and the many Kalla and other clans more or less. closely connected with them, I should not expect to discover anything of the nature of the Joint Undivided Family.'

Another family, very different from the ordinary agricultural family of Madura, and of which the characteristics are as yet quite unknown, is that of the Kalla clans, that practise polyandry, circumcision, and various things altogether inconsistent with modern Hinduism. See my Madura Country.

The Coorg family, as described by Cole, appears to be of an archaic type. The whole community is divided into Houses, each of which constitutes a separate corporation, presided over by the Yajamān (master), who is the Father, or upon his death the eldest son, as trustee and manager. There is no division of the landed property of the House, and no alienation of it except with the consent of all. Inheritance does not in any degree depend upon ability to perform rites, but upon propinquity by blood. The sons by different mothers take equal shares per capita. Marriage must be with a woman of another House, who leaves her own, and enters her husband's House. Where there are no sons or direct male descendants in the House, the daughter is retained in it in order to represent the House-name, and a husband is found for her, who comes to the House and

marries her by the Makkaparje form of marriage, in order to beget children for the House. Such husband may also take a wife to keep up his own House. Though the fear of 'Put' is unknown, adoption is practised for the sake of the House, but never to the prejudice of male relations. The only essential in adoption is the adopter giving a piece of money to the adopted, in a bag, and saying: 'I give unto him the right to the whole inheritance of this family.' Daughters are not adopted.

Similarly, the Nambudri Brahmans of Malabar (see Ramachandra Aiyar's Manual) are said to be divided into a number of Manas or Illoms (Houses), each of which is managed by its senior male member. And any one who demands partition forfeits his caste.

The Nairs of the same country are divided into Tarawads, which correspond with the Nambūdri illoms, and, like them, are managed by the senior male members; but, curiously enough, property descends among them in the female line only. The Nambūdris, too, have their marriage for the House, called the sarvaswadhanom.

On the West Coast 'agnation,' or relationship through the male line only, would appear to be almost unknown. And we find instead institutions such as those of the Nairs, amongst whom descent goes in the female line alone, and literally (it is said) no man knows his own father. Yet, curiously enough, the people of the Western Coast live in communistic families, presided over and managed, each by the most capable member, who (I understand) is

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invariably a male, and strongly resembling in externals the ordinary Indian Family.

I have never yet had an opportunity of gaining an insight into the constitution of the Family of the peculiar tribe known as the Nattukōṭṭei Settis. Inasmuch as they live entirely by financial operations, and always decline to cultivate the numerous mortgaged estates that fall into their hands, it would seem to be highly improbable that their Family can in any degree resemble the typical' Joint Undivided Family.' It would be easy to go on giving instances of families that certainly must differ from this form of family, but I have given enough. I have, I trust, made it plain that, whilst on the one hand it is so highly improbable as to be almost impossible that the Brahman Family can have gone back to the corporate form of Aryan times, after giving up all connection with the land before the time of Manu; on the other hand the great majority of the non-Brahman tribes follow occupations, and govern themselves by usages, apparently inconsistent with the existence amongst them of the 'Joint Undivided Family.' But, next to nothing is known about the constitution of the Family in South India; and, until proper inquiry is made about it, no real progress in amending the so-called Hindu law can be achieved.

PART II.

OLD JUDGE-MADE LAW.

CHAPTER I.

SCHOOLS OF HINDU LAW.

SOME writers on the so-called Hindu law appear to have been made unnecessarily angry by my calling attention to the erroneous use of the phrase, Schools of Hindu Law,' and to certain mischievous doctrines connected therewith; and I think it advisable to attempt to remove some obvious misunderstandings with reference to what I have said, and not said, upon this subject in my View. Before doing so, it will be necessary to give the ipsissima verba of my first False Principle, which runs as follows, namely: That there exist, or formerly existed, in India, certain" Schools of Hindu Law"; and that such schools have authority in certain imaginary parts of India, such as the Karnāṭaka kingdom, the Andhra country, the Drāviḍa country, &c., &c.'

By these words I have denied generally the existence of schools of law in India; and particularly (and specially) the authority of certain schools of law in imaginary parts of India, fancifully and erroneously called the Karnāṭaka kingdom, the Andhra country,

the Dravida country, &c., &c. I have not also denied by these words, or by other words, the existence in ancient times of caranas, or schools, in which a number of young Aryans used to gather round an Acarya, or professor, and learn from him the sacred texts of his çakha, or recension of the Veda, and his sūtra works; or the existence in modern times of schools such as those seen at Benares by Bernier, and the University of Madura, in which 'law' may possibly have been taught, together with numerous other subjects. Nor have I denied the obvious fact that in India, from the very earliest times, differences of opinion about matters of dharma have led to companies of teachers and students identifying themselves more or less closely with special teachings, often to such an extert as to involve their being regarded in the light of schismatic or heretical schools.

I can have no objection to offer to the use of such expressions as 'writers of the Mitākṣarā school,' 'Jimūta Vāhana and his school,' and the like. What alone I have objected to in this connection is the (to me) preposterous notion, that there have existed at any time in India schools of positive law, in which positive law, pure and simple, was taught as such to students by professors or experts, who recognised special systems as having currency and validity only within certain known territorial limits.

Whilst ready to admit, for argument's sake, that possibly something remotely akin to positive law may have been taught sometimes in Indian schools, I must strenuously deny (until convinced by proof which