Page:Elements of Hindu Law.djvu/20

X facilitate to all, having occasion to become acquainted with it, a connected knowledge of the law in question, to the extent of its use in the British courts established in India, whether under the direct authority of the king, or that of the East India Company. Thus, what had been at first, not the principal only, but the sole intention, namely, to give publicity to what he so possessed, became in the end a subordinate one,, as connected with the more extended idea, subsequently adopted. With this view, he proceeded, at his earliest convenience, to resume for the purpose his study of the Institutes of Menu, in the translation of Sir William Jones; that of the two treatises on Inheritance, translated and illustrated by Mr. Colebrooke; in addition to which, he was fortunate enough to obtain in time the more recent tracts on Adoption, prepared, after the manner of Mr. Colebrooke, by his nephew, Mr. Sutherland; with a compedium of the law of inheritance, of some celebrity, translated by Mr. Wyneh, also of the Bengal service. To these were added the wcnrk id every British Hinda jurist's band,; known familiadrly hf the name of Mr. Coiebrodke's Digest ; f ogel^r witk the ReportSy through a succession of years, commencing pre- vious to 1805, in the Sudder Dewanny Adawlut of Besigal*

The sources then of the following pages are, ia general. First, The printed works on Hindu law, aceeasible to the EngUslt reader^ compared with, — SecoBdly^ The MS'. papers, of which some account has been giveau It ^vill be the business of this Pre&ce to eolapgj^ a little u|m>& what has beetk already stated ; intermixiag briiefly such