The Dāyabhāga is a Hindu law treatise written by Jīmūtavāhana which primarily focuses on inheritance procedure. The Dāyabhāga was the strongest authority in Modern British Indian courts in the Bengal region of India, although this has changed due to the passage of the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 and subsequent revisions to the act. Based on Jīmūtavāhana's criticisms of the Mitākṣarā, it is thought that his work is preceded by the . This has led many scholars to conclude that the represents the orthodox doctrine of Hindu law, while the Dāyabhāga represents the reformed version. The central difference between the texts is based upon when one becomes the owner of property. The Dāyabhāga does not give the sons a right to their father's ancestral property until after his death, unlike , which gives the sons the right to ancestral property upon their birth. The digest has been commented on more than a dozen times.

Translation

Henry Thomas Colebrooke

Henry Thomas Colebrooke translated the Dāyabhāga in 1810 through the use of manuscripts and pandits. Colebrooke, a Calcutta Supreme Court judge, broke the text into chapters and verses which were not in the original text and is often criticized for numerous errors in translation. Rocher believes the mistakes were due to three factors: Colebrooke created the division of two schools of thought in India, separating the majority of India, thought to follow the Mitākṣarā and the Bengal region, which followed the Dāyabhāga system.

Topics covered in the digest

Sages mentioned in the Dāyabhāga

Central differences between the Dāyabhāga and the

Son's inheritance

The rights of the widow

Ancestral property

Dāyabhāga states that the father is the sole ruler of all property, both ancestral and personal. Unlike the Mitākṣarā, ancestral property is not seen as communal, therefore the father does not require the consent of his sons to act over the ancestral property. The essential difference between the Dāyabhāga and the family is that the Dāyabhāga sees no difference between the father's total control over ancestral and personal property.

Personal property

Inheritance

Succession

Dharmaratna

The other surviving parts include:

Vyavahāra-Mātrkā

Focuses on the Vyavahāra, or judicial procedure. Covers the four traditional areas of jurisprudence:

Kāla-Viveka

Focuses on the appropriate times for the performance of religious duties and sacrifices.

Commentaries

More than a dozen commentaries have been written on the Dāyabhāga. Pandurang Vaman Kane lists the most important commentators as:

Śrīnātha Ācāryacūda

Rāmabhadra Nyāylankāra

Acyutānanda Cakraviartin

Raghunandana

Raghunandana (c. 16th century) was the author of the Dāya-Tattva. Dayabhaga tika (or Dayabhaga vyakhya), a commentary on Dayabhaga, is also attributed to him. Whether this commentary was actually done by Raghunandana, or another scholar using his name, is a topic of debate. Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1810) and Julius Eggeling (1891) suspected that it was not authored by him. Monmohan Chakravarti (1915), Rajendra Chandra Hazra (1950) and Pandurang Vaman Kane (1972), on the other hand, ascribed the work to Raghunandana. The commentary retained high standing and was used in court to answer disputed questions of Dāyabhāga. The Calcutta High Court declared that Raghunandana's commentary of the Dāyabhāga is the best of all commentaries.

Dating

The time of the writing is a topic of debate in the Hindu Law field. Many of the previous authors to which Jīmūtavāhana refers have been lost. Scholars such as Rājkumār Sarvādhikārī estimate his writing to have occurred in the fifteenth century, yet Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kāne believes he wrote between 1090 and 1130. Commentaries and names mentioned in the Dāyabhāga prove that Jīmūtavāhana cannot be placed earlier than 1125 AD. The vast differences between scholars appear on later dates.

Location

The provisions relating to property rights are followed in West Bengal, Bihar, Purvanchal, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam.

Hindu Succession Act