Page:The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy Vol 2.djvu/250

238 owner of his own share, (either divided or undivided) as a propritorproprietor [sic] of an entire estate; and consequently a sale or gift executed by the former, of his own share, should, with reason, be considered equally valid, as a contract by the latter for his sole estate. Hence prohibition of such transfer being clearly opposed to common sense and ordinary usage, should be understood as only forbidding a dereliction of moral duty, committed by those who infringe it, and not as invalidating the transfer.

27. In adapting this mode of exposition of the law, the author of the Dayubhagu has pursued the course frequently inculcated by Munoo and others; a few instances of which I beg to bring briefly to the consideration of the reader, for the full justification of this author. Munoo, the first of all Hindoo legislators, prohibits donation to an unworthy Brahmun in the following terms—“Let no man, apprised of this law, present, even water to a priest, who acts like a cat, nor to him who acts like a bittern, nor to him who is unlearned in the Ved.” (Ch. IV. v. 192). Let us suppose that in disregard to this prohibition a gift has been actually made to one of those priests; a question then naturally arises, whether this injunction of Munoo’s invalidates the gift, or whether such infringment of the law only renders the donor guilty of a moral offence. The same legislator, in continuation, thus answers; “Since property, though legally gained, if it be given to either of those three, becomes prejudicial in the next world both to the giver and receiver.” (v. 193). The same authority forbids marrying girls of certain descriptions, saying, “Let him not marry a girl with reddish hair, nor with any deformed limb, nor one troubled with habitual sickness, nor one