CHAPTER XI.

FABRICATED LAW-BOOKS.

My twelfth False Principle is that: 'The Aliyasantānada Kaṭṭu Kaṭṭale is a work of authority on the law of South Kannada.'

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1 pointed out in my View that Burnell had denounced this book at large as being an impudent and quite recent fabrication, and about as much worthy of notice in a law court as "Jack the GiantKiller." I also gave Burnell's reasons for so doing.

Mr. Innes (at p. 81) observes that the book, now it is translated, is palpably not worthy to be relied on as an authority, and probably is a forgery. I do not know how this gentleman, after a look at a translation of the work in question, can venture, on his own mere authority, to reject the unqualified opinion of the original expressed by an Orientalist like Burnell. I had thought that the book was dead and buried; I now see reason to fear that after all it may revive.

In his Introduction to Manu Burnell has occasion to denounce again a ridiculous forgery of this century, which pretends to do the same for Canara' (as the unnoticed Anācāranirṇaya does for Malabar), 'is taken for what it pretends to be, and is quoted by judges with a serious face! (Madras High Court

Reports). We shall soon see "Jack the Giant-Killer" received as an authority on the law of homicide.'

If the Madras High Court cares no more than Mr. Innes for Burnell's opinion upon a point of pure Oriental scholarship, I would suggest the propriety of forthwith subjecting the Aliyasantānada Kattu Kattale to approved professional criticism. An instructed public will hardly be satisfied with Mr. Innes' verdict upon the book, 'now it is translated.'

In the case of Koraga against the Queen, reported at 6 I. L. R., Madras, 374, the District Magistrate observed in his judgment on appeal that 'the Kottari caste was governed by the Alyasultana law,' and that Bhutāla Pandya's treatise,' though obviously not what it professes to be,is admittedly the best existing authority on the Aliyasultana law prevailing in Canara, and has again and again been recognised as such by the courts.' Turner, C.J., subsequently observed: The authority of the treatise attributed to Bhūtāla Pāndya has been seriously impugned.' But this is not saying enough. An Orientalist of the very highest rank has pronounced the treatise to be an impudent, quite recent, and ridiculous fabrication, on a par with 'Jack the Giant-Killer'; and unless and until another Orientalist shows him to be wrong, we ought never again to hear of it.

CHAPTER XII.

ADOPTION BY A WIDOW.

My fourteenth False Principle is that: A widow can adopt a son without the consent of her husband, according to Hindū law.'

In my View I gave the best reasons I could find for holding that in Madras a widow who undertakes to adopt, not to herself, but to her deceased husband, must perform the act within a certain time, and must have her husband's authority for it, express or implied. To those reasons I have nothing new to add.

Mr. Innes appears not to have thought highly of them. But, a thing much more important to me, he makes the following significant admission (at p. 83): The law in regard to adoption, it is generally agreed, requires legislative interference.' And again (at p. 81) he says: 'I am free to admit that the law of adoption is in a very unsatisfactory condition; and this has often been insisted upon by the High Court.'

The only law of adoption to be found at Madras, other than the unascertained usage of the people, is the law privately made by the judges of the High Court, and promulged from time to time as occasion may seem to require, e.g., in the Ramnad case. And, now it appears that this law is admitted, even by the

High Court itself, to be in such a state as to 'require legislative interference.' What better proof than this, I wonder, can I adduce of the existence of the pressing need upon which I insist, of appointing Commission to ascertain and report on the living usage of the tribes and castes of the Madras Province?

CHAPTER XIII.

A SUMMARY.

HAVING added to what I had already written about the fifteen False Principles, it will be convenient for me to point out briefly the present position of each of them, as compared with its position in 1877. Nearly all, or most, of them have been more or less directly affected by subsequent legal decisions. The majority, I hope and believe, have been finally abandoned in my favour. Some have been declared to be fit for legislative interference. As regards others, the arguments of opponents, I hope and believe, have been successfully combated.

(1) Schools of Hindu Law.-As regards this question, I have shown that what I object to is not the inane expression, 'Schools of Hindu Law'-for, if any choose to speak of' schools of lawyers,' as others choose to speak of 'schools of whales,' it is only a matter of taste-but to the preposterous and most mischievous fancy that different unascertained systems of positive law have, during unspecified spaces of time, been taught in wholly imaginary, and as yet undetermined areas, each as the law of and for the particular area in which it may be supposed to have been taught.