Page:The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy Vol 2.djvu/227

Rh interpretations giving to  passages  of the  Bible  by the commentators they respectively follow.

5. For farther elucidation I here quote a few remarks from the preface to the translation of the Dayubhagu and of a part of the Mitakshura, by Mr. Colebrooke, well known in the literary world, which are as follows. “It (the present volume) comprehends the celebrated treatise of Jeemootvahun on succession, which is constantly cited by the lawyers of Bengal, under the emphatic title of Dayubhagu, or ‘inheritance’; and an extract from the still more celebrated Mitakshura, comprising so much of this work as relates to inheritance. The range of its authority and influence is far more extensive than that of Jeemootvahun’s treatise, for it is received in all the schools of Hindoo law, from Benares to the Southern, extremety of the peninsulah of India, as the chief groundwork of the doctrines which they follow, and as an authority from which they follow, and as an authority from which they rarely dissent.” (p. 4.) “The Bengal school alone, having taken for its guide Jeemootvahun’s treatise, which is, on almost every disputed point, opposite in doctrine to the Mitakshura, has no deference for its authority.” (p. 4.) “But (between the Dayubhagu and the abridgments of its doctrines) the preference appeared to be decidedly due to the treatise of Jeemootvahun himself, as well because he was the founder of this school, being the author of the doctrine which it has adopted, as because the subjects which he discusses, are treated by him with eminent ability and great precision.” (p. 5.) The following is a saying current among the learned of Bengal, confirming the opinion offered by Mr. Colebrooke: