The most important offering is that of the pinda, or rice cake, and the persons who are entitled to make this offering to the deceased are called his sapindas. The offering next in importance is that of the lepa, or fragments of the cake, the crumbs as we might call them, and the persons who make this offering are called sakulyas. The offering of least importance is the simple libation of water, and persons connected by this offering are called samonadacas. But who are sapindas, sakulyas and samonadacas respectively, and of each class whose offering is most efficacious? Practically we shall find that this question is solved by rules of consanguinity not unlike those which we meet with elsewhere. First of all come the sons; their offering is most efficacious, so that they are the nearest heirs and all take equally. Then come the sons' sons; then the sons' sons' sons. Here we break off. The line of inheritance is not continued beyond the great-grandsons. There are other cases in which, as we shall see, there is a similar break when we get three degrees away from the propositus: nor is this peculiarity confined to the Hindu law. We find traces of a similar break in the Roman and in the Teutonic law. After the great-grandson comes the widow. It is difficult to establish her claim on the ground of spiritual benefit, and it rests upon authority rather than principle. The opinions of ancient writers on the subject are very conflicting. They are set forth at great length in the Dayabhaga, with a conclusion in favour of the widow. Probably the intrusion of the widow is connected with the fact that she could in early times by cohabitation with a brother, and in later times by adoption, procure an heir to her sonless husband. Next to the widow come the daughters and then the daughters' sons. Their position, again, may be referred to the notion which prevailed in early times, that a Hindu who had no son of his own might take one of his daughters' sons and make him his own. Then comes the father, then the mother, then the brothers, then the brothers' sons, and then the brothers' sons' sons. The sisters are excluded, but their sons succeed after the brothers' sons' sons; then come the brothers' daughters' sons. Then, leaving this generation, we go a step backward, and proceed to exhaust the previous generation in precisely the same way. It is only necessary to enumerate these in their order: father's father, father's mother, father's brothers, father's brothers' sons, father's brothers' sons' sons, father's sisters' sons, father's brothers' daughters' sons. Then going another step backwards we get father's father's father, father's father's mother, father's father's brothers, father's father's brothers' sons, father's father's sisters' sons, father's father's brothers' daughters' sons.