So far the line of succession is confined either strictly to male
agnates, or to persons who may restore the broken line of male agnate
relationship. But at this point, under the Dayabhaga, instead of
exhausting the male agnates still further, as we might expect, we turn
now to the cognates, i.e. the relatives of the deceased through the
mother. It is said that these are also in some way sapindas. They are
generally called bandhus. There is some difficulty in finding out the
order in which they succeed, and since it is rare that an heir has to be
sought outside the father's family, the question has not been much
discussed. The question would have to be decided by the religious
doctrine of spiritual benefit, and it is not improbable that Hindus who
are accustomed to keep up sacrifices which confer the benefit would be
able to say whose sacrifice was most efficacious. When all the sapindas
both on the father's and mother's side are exhausted, we then go to the
sakulyas, and practically these are found by continuing the enumeration
of agnates upon the same principle as that already indicated through
three generations lower and three generations higher. On failure of the
sakulyas we should have to fall back upon the samonadacas, but probably
all that can be said with certainty is that the sakulyas and samonadacas
between them exhaust entirely the male agnates of the deceased. Where
there are several persons whose offerings are equally efficacious, i.e.
who stand in the same relationship to the deceased, they all take: the
male descendants _per stirpes_, and the other relatives of the deceased
_per capita_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account