Abstract: This is a translation of a twelfth-century Sanskrit legal text, with the original text. The Dāyabhāga was one of the most important texts in the history of Indian law. It is important because the British elevated it to such prominence in their new colony in the early nineteenth century. The text was taken as the authority on property inheritance and significant aspects of family law for the eastern Indian region. The case law and scholarship that surround it have shaped Indian personal law right up to the present day, although, since the Hindu Succession Act of 1956, it is no longer used in courts of law in India. Until now, there has been only one very inadequate English translation of the text (now 190 years old), which is virtually without reference to the Sanskrit. This new translation, which is accompanied by the original Sanskrit text, will make this crucial work genuinely available to those without the Sanskrit for the first time. Its goal is academic: to present not only to Sanskritists and Indologists but also to legal historians, a translation of a text that for about a century and a half has regulated all questions of partition and inheritance for Hindus living in Bengal. The book has an introduction, and the translation is accompanied by extensive footnotes.

Keywords: Dāyabhāga, family law, Hindu law, Indian law, inheritance, legal history, property inheritance, Sanskrit, translations