Hindu Law Essay

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The importance of Mitakshara in the 21st century" Mitakshara has hardly got any importance today except with regard to coparcenary property rights of Hindus. most of the old Hindu laws were replaced by parliamentary statutes in 1955 and 1956 viz. the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, etc. These Acts have substituted the Mitakshara and the Dayabhaga law except with regard to succession to ancestral property, which continues to be covered by the Mitakshara vide Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. This is a practical age. Lawyers are interested in knowing the law which will help them in their cases, and they are hardly interested in purely academic matters which have little practical application. Hence, hardly anyone reads the Mitakshara or Dayabhaga today, as they have largely been superseded by the statutes made by Parliament. As is well known, the Mitakshara prevailed all over India except in Bengal and Assam where the Dayabhaga prevailed. The Mitakshara is a commentary on only one Smriti called Yajnavalkya Smriti, whereas Dayabhaga is a digest of all the Smritis. Although Hindu law is regarded as having emanated from the Vedas (Shruti) the truth is that there is scarcely any law in the Veda (Shruti) and the Hindu law that has really emanated from the Smritis. The Mitakshara is a commentary only on the Yajnavalkya Smriti. The question therefore which arises is as to why Vijnaneshwara chose only the Yajnavalkya Smriti for his commentary. There was Manu Smriti which was held in even greater respect than Yajnavalkya Smriti, but Vijnaneshwara preferred to write his commentary on the Yajnavalkya Smriti rather than on Manu Smriti. We can get the answer to this question if we compare Manu Smriti with Yajnavalkya Smriti. Manu Smriti is not a
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