[173] the ocean god.
[174] the inferior Brahmá, the immediate cause or creator of the universe.
[175] It is only of self-acquired property that unequal partition can be made. Of that which is inherited or ancestral, there is co-ownership: it cannot therefore be apportioned at the father's pleasure. (M.) Infra sl. 121.
[176] Jagannát'ha, in his Digest, quotes the Dipakaliká and other authorities interpreting this injunction to refer to such wives only as have not male issue. (Colebrooke, vol. 3, p. 97.)
[177] Something, however valueless; in order that the heirs of the separated son may have no claim to a share of the family inheritance, (M.) Manu, ch. 9, sl. 207.
[178] For instance, if one son have a large family, or be disqualified to earn a livelihood, the father may give him a portion larger than the others. But an unequal partition from angry impulse, or weak-mindedness, has no validity. (M.)
[179] Manu, ch. 9, sl. 104. Whenever the father wishes, is one of the ordained periods for partition; the second is, when the father has renounced worldly enjoyment and the mother is past child-bearing; and this partition may be enforced (according to Nárada) at the son's desire, though the father object. Partition should also be made, the son desiring it, if the father lead a vicious life, or be suffering under incurable disease; even though the mother's menstruation have not ceased. The third period for partition is, the father's decease. (M.) Manu divides,—to the eldest two aliquot parts, to the second son one and a half, and to each succeeding son a single part. The Commentator asks, why that division was not adhered to; and he solves his own question by the remark, that it was disliked by the people, and therefore rightly abandoned. This position he supports by several quotations, and by allusion to the abolition or non-observance of other ancient ordinances, e.g. the raising up of male heirs by the brother of the husband or others.
It is an obvious reflection, that the altered law of distribution is one of the few instances in the Hindu economy where an innate feeling of natural equality has overcome or superseded arbitrary rule—and further, that the change has been brought about by the pressure of the old law upon the privileged casts, who, in common with others, were affected by it.
[180] Manu, ch. 9, sl. 206, 208.
[181] When the recovered properly is land, he who obtained it shall take a fourth part, the remainder to be equally divided. (M.) The Commentator supports this view by the authority of Śankha. Manu, ch. 9, sl. 209.