As an introduction to this brief survey of the law of inheritance, the part of Hindu law “of most frequent use and extensive application,” and, in comparison with other parts of Hindu law, “the most peculiar and distinct” (Colebrooke 1810 : i), a few general points may usefully be made.
First, Hindu inheritance law is linked to “religious” aspects of Hindu life (Rocher 1972b ), particularly to the heir’s duty and capacity to perform the śrāddhas , the ritual acts required for the welfare of the deceased. 1 Second, Hindu inheritance is comprehensive. Since the purpose of “inheriting” is to insure comfort in afterlife for the person from whom one inherits, acquiring his assets entails the “pious obligation” to pay his debts (Rocher 1992 ). On this principle, most smṛtis agree, 2 at least as far as sons and grandsons are concerned. Beyond that, the texts present a wide variety of options. 3 Third, Hindu inheritance law is intestate. Even though modern scholars have occasionally tried to stretch the meaning of some smṛti texts to prove the contrary, wills were unknown in Dharmaśāstra texts (Kane III: 816). While, at a later stage, Hindus occasionally did make wills (Mukherjee and Wright 1979)—as Indian Muslims did—it was not until about 1800 ce that Hindu wills were recognized in Anglo-Indian courts. 4 Official regulation of wills followed in the Hindu Wills Act (Act XXI of 1870). 5
This essay cannot provide a complete survey of the Hindu law of inheritance, which, right from the earliest documents and throughout its history, is extremely complex and divergent. It can only identify some of the peculiar and distinctive features of Hindu inheritance in three periods of Indian history: first, the period of the smṛtis, that is, the Sanskrit Dharmasūtras and Dharmaśāstras; 6 second, the time of the commentaries on singular smṛtis and of encyclopedic works (nibandhas ) on specific topics of Hindu law across all smṛtis ; 7 and third, the period when disputes on inheritance among Hindus were settled by British—and, gradually by a larger number of British-educated Indian—judges, in the courts in India and, in highest appeal, in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. 8 This will be followed by a brief appendix on the abrogation, in independent India, of the traditional Sanskritic Hindu law of inheritance by a modern Hindu Succession Act , written in English.
The Dharmasūtras contain many rules on inheritance, which are dispersed, however, rather than presented coherently under a single rubric. 9 Only in the Dharmaśāstras, from the Manusmṛti onward, is inheritance dealt with in a distinct section, dāya(vi)bhāga “division of dāya ,” 10 one of eighteen vivādapadas “areas of litigation.” 11 With only minor variants, this eighteen-fold division is preserved in the later smṛtis and the commentarial literature.
A Hindu offers śrāddhas to three generations of direct ascendants, and three generations of direct descendants offer śrāddhas to him; from the fourth generation on, this sapiṇḍa (“having common piṇḍas ”) relationship ends. 12 The smṛtis agree that a man’s estate devolves on his descendants, first on his sons, then on his grandsons, and, failing both, on his great-grandsons. The smṛtis lavish praise on the three descending generations 13 and on sons in particular: according to a popular etymology, a son is called putra , because he saves (-tra , from trāyate “he protects, saves”) his father from the hell called put . 14
Sons being the primary heirs, the smṛtis go into great detail on the parts of the estate to which each individual son is entitled. Various solutions are proposed, not only in different smṛtis , but even within the same texts. The Manusmṛti records three different ways of dividing a father’s estate: (i) it is divided into equal parts; 15 (ii) by right of primogeniture, the eldest son gets everything, and the others continue to live with him as they did with their father; 16 (iii) shares are unequal, that of the eldest son being larger (or consisting of more valuable parts) than that of the middle ones, and the latter’s is larger than that of the youngest. 17 It is understood that sons of a deceased son are entitled, among them, to the share their father would have received.
The smṛtis allow for two different times at which a father’s property may be divided among his sons. After their father’s and mother’s death, sons may divide the property according to one of the rules mentioned above. However, provided the mother is past menopause, a father can take the initiative of partitioning his estate during his lifetime. In that case, he can divide the estate more or less as he wishes (icchayā vibhajet ). 18 The question whether sons can initiate a partition while their father is alive is not clearly answered in the smṛtis , but is much discussed in the commentaries.
Once the paternal estate has been partitioned, any or all sons are free either to continue living together as a joint family or to establish separate households of their own, an alternative which some texts prefer, given the increase of ritual performances it entails. 19 Nothing prevents sons from reuniting after they have separated, but, should reunited brothers (saṃsṛṣṭin or saṃsṛṣṭa ) decide to separate again, different rules apply. In that event, according to some sources, the property should be divided into equal parts. 20
The importance of having at least one son is underscored by the various means the smṛtis provide a sonless man to acquire a substitute (pratinidhi ) for a natural son. One such means, adoption (Sarkar 1891 ; Derrett 1957b), is mentioned in most smṛtis , but the texts vary widely on the status of an adopted son (dattaka or dattrima ) vis-à-vis other kinds of sons. Of the smṛtis that divide sons into two groups, six being “relatives who inherit” (dāyādabāndhavas ) and six “relatives who do not inherit” (adāyādabāndhavas ), only four rank an adopted son in the first, against eight in the second category. 21 Yet, it is also said that all types of sons may inherit, if no one ranked higher is available. 22 By being “given away,” the adopted son severs all ties, including the offering of śrāddhas and the right to inherit, with his natural family, and becomes an integral part of his adopting family (MDh 9.142); hence, the warning to fathers not to cede a single son for adoption, lest, by doing so, they themselves become sonless (VaDh 15.3–15.4). The dattaka ’s right to inherit in his adoptive family is restricted only if, subsequent to his adoption, a higher ranking son is born; if that son happens to be an aurasa son, that is, the son of a man and his duly wedded wife, the adoptee cannot claim more than one quarter (VaDh 15.9). Given the paucity of details on adoption in the smṛtis , save for the Vāsiṣṭhadharmasūtra , it looks as if adoption was practiced, be it with restrictions on who can adopt, who can be adopted, the time of adoption, and the like; but some smṛtis did little to encourage it. By contrast, in the period of the commentaries, and, even more so, when the British administered Hindu law, adoption became a major issue in the law of inheritance. 23
Another way for a sonless man to acquire a son is by a levirate process, in Sanskrit called niyoga , generally translated as “appointment.” 24 A man who is unable to father a son may assign his wife (niyuktā ) to be impregnated by a younger brother or other close relative of his. 25 A kṣetraja son, 26 as he is called, invariably ranks high among the twelve kinds of sons. 27 Yet, his right to inherit is subject to many restrictions, and his share varies in different texts. Two successive passages in the Manusmṛti 28 show that, in classical India, the custom of niyoga was highly regarded and practiced in some communities, but strictly forbidden in others.
Alternatively, a sonless man may appoint one of his daughters, called putrikā , to have a son for him. Either he gives the daughter in marriage, addressing her husband with the explicit formula “I give you this daughter; her son will be my son.” 29 Or he may use the legal fiction that his daughter is his son. 30 Even more than a kṣetraja , a putrikāputra is highly regarded, to the point of being considered equal to an aurasa son. 31 Since he performs the funeral rites for his mother, mother’s father, and mother’s grandfather, 32 the smṛtis warn a man against marrying a woman who has no brothers, lest his son be alienated from his family. 33 A putrikāputra becomes the single heir of his mother’s father, unless, after his birth, her father also has a natural son, in which case both sons share the inheritance equally (MDh 9.134).
Substitute sons are generally considered members of only one family. Yet, some smṛtis treat them as members of two families and as heirs of two fathers (dvipitṛ or dvyāmuṣyāyaṇa ). 34
If the smṛtis unanimously recognize that sapiṇḍas of three descending generations are entitled to inherit, they are far less consistent on the rights of ascending sapiṇḍas . By extending the meaning of the term sapiṇḍa to include other closely related family members of equal or lower generations (BDh 1.11.9.), they greatly restrict the right of direct ascendants. This is true even for a father’s right to inherit from his sons, especially when there are brothers. According to one source (MDh 9.185), the estate of a man who leaves no male issue goes to his father or to his brothers. 35 But the same smṛti (MDh 9.217) also says that his estate goes to his mother if she is alive, and otherwise to his paternal grandmother. Elsewhere the father is mentioned as an heir, but after his deceased son’s wife and daughters, and before his mother, brothers, and brothers’ sons. 36 Inheritance among brothers is very complicated, since the smṛtis make brothers’ shares depend on whether they are full or half-brothers and, for each, whether they are united or not (Rocher 2007b ).
Even as the smṛtis consider the sapiṇḍas as a distinct class of close relatives who inherit to the exclusion of others, they also deal with the right to inherit of less close relatives, dividing them into groups with separate names but ranking the groups in different order, thereby indicating that the identities and boundaries of these groups were ill defined. According to one view, in the absence of sapiṇḍas , the inheritance devolves on sakulyas , in order of their proximity to the last sapiṇḍa (MDh 9.187). But elsewhere sakulyas inherit only after another class of heirs, the bandhus (ViDh 17.10–17.11). In the context of ritual purity, it is said that the sapiṇḍa relationship spans seven generations, whereas “a samānodaka relationship ends when it can no longer be determined whether a person is related to another by birth or name” (MDh 5.60).
In the absence of anyone related to the owner by blood, the inheritance goes to individuals who are related to him in spirit, such as his ācārya (teacher), a sabrahmacārin (fellow student), or a student of his own. 37 Failing these, the property passes on to any deserving Brahmin learned in the Vedas. 38
The long line of possible heirs ends with the king, that is, the state treasury, with a significant exception: the king may not claim the property of Brahmins. A Brahmin’s property goes to pure and disciplined Brahmins who are learned in the three Vedas. 39
In nearly all cases of inheritance discussed thus far, the participants were male. The impression that only males can inherit property, own property, and leave that property to heirs, is underscored by sweeping statements in the smṛtis such as “wives shall not own property; whatever they acquire becomes the property of the man to whom they belong” (MDh 8.416). Such statements, however, were not meant to be taken literally. 40 The smṛtis themselves contain ample evidence that Hindu women acquired and owned property, which, at their death, became the object of inheritance. 41
Women’s property (strīdhana ) is an important part of the Hindu law of inheritance. From the smṛtis onward, it features so many different views that it is impossible in this survey to follow all its intricacies. 42 A brief overview of how women acquire property, what it consists of, and what happens to it after their death must suffice here.
The smṛtis list gifts that come to constitute a woman’s property (strīdhana ): what is given to her at the nuptial fire (adhyagni ), what she receives on the way from her father’s to her husband’s home (adhyāvāhanika ), and what is given to her as a token of love by her husband and by her brothers, mother, or father. 43 To this basic list, some smṛtis add other kinds of gifts, so that strīdhana ultimately comes to encompass any kind of gift a woman receives—before, during, and after her wedding—from members of her own family and from her husband and members of his family.
Notwithstanding a statement to the contrary, 44 women do acquire property by inheritance. Some texts emphasize the right of widows to inherit by saying one half of the body of a deceased husband remains alive in the person of his wife, so that, in the absence of male issue, no one has a higher claim to the inheritance than she (BṛSm 26.92–26.94). Elsewhere, in the order of succession to a sonless man, the three women who are closest to him rank high on the list of heirs: first, his wife; next, his daughters; and, after his father, his mother (ViDh 17.4–17.7). It is said that, while sons divide their father’s property, daughters divide their mother’s possessions (YDh 2.117). Some smṛtis go as far as to make daughters inherit even their father’s property in the absence of sons (NSm 13.47).
As for the inheritance of women’s property, there are two contrary approaches: to keep it within the female line and to make male ownership primary. Although an early text states that a mother’s property goes to her unmarried or indigent daughters (GDh 28.24), elsewhere male heirs intervene; daughters, for example, share their mother’s property equally with their brothers (MDh 9.192). Or, while accepting that a woman’s property goes to her daughters, it is said that, failing daughters, it does not go to another female heir, but to her husband if her marriage was one of the higher types, and to her father, if her marriage was one of the lower types. 45
The smṛtis go into great detail about individuals who are barred from inheriting. 46 The common grounds are defects—physical (blindness, incurable diseases), mental (lunacy, madness), or social (excommunication from one’s caste)—defects that prevent a prospective heir from performing the required śrāddhas . There is, however, general agreement that excluded persons should be provided with food and clothing.
The smṛtis also list objects that are not subject to partition. 47 These include items that are indivisible by nature, such as a well, a house, objects needed to perform sacrifices, clothes, ornaments, vehicles, a female slave, and the like; only occasionally do the smṛtis specify how undivided items are to be used by the heirs. 48 Also exempt from partition is any property that a family member acquires by his own exertions, without using paternal property. 49 This principle applies to personal gifts, lost ancestral property a father recovers after having effected a partition, 50 rewards for courageous acts (śauryadhana ), and, especially, property a brother acquires by his personal expertise (vidyādhana ). 51
In some cases, 52 the smṛtis explicitly say that a rule “applies to all castes.” 53 But there are other rules where caste does affect inheritance. As mentioned above, the property of a Brahmin is the only one that never reverts to the state treasury. Often inheritance depends on the rank several heirs occupy in the order of varṇas . For example, when a man was married to wives of his own and of lower castes, the shares of his sons by wives of a superior caste are larger than those of the other sons are. 54
If belonging to a lower varṇa entails restrictions on the right to inherit, being excommunicated from one’s caste (patita ) is far worse: patitas are excluded from any share of an inheritance. According to some smṛtis , this exclusion extends to a patita ’s sons; according to others, the sons of a patita inherit if they were born prior to the offense that caused their father’s loss of caste. 55
Just like other branches of classical Sanskrit literature, the smṛtis were commented on, either in verse-by-verse explanations of single texts or in encyclopedic nibandhas . Some texts of this genre date back to ca. 700 ce. 56
Whereas the smṛtis were held to be revealed texts that proclaimed a single and coherent system of eternal truths, the commentaries are texts with exegetical purpose and pedagogical intent. The commentators view it as their task to show that, properly understood, the smṛtis are not at variance with each other, as they may appear to be. Unlike the smṛtis ’ inspired sages, the commentators are humans who try to improve on earlier efforts and are entitled to disagree with, and occasionally even sharply controvert, interpretations proposed by their predecessors. 57 What the vast commentarial literature, even on single topics such as inheritance, presents us with is a multitude of internally coherent, but widely different, interpretations of the revealed texts.
To achieve their goal of interpreting smṛti texts on inheritance, commentators call on an array of respected extra-legal disciplines, such as grammar (vyākaraṇa ), logic (nyāya ), and, especially, rules of textual exegesis (mīmāṃsā ) that, in turn, rely heavily on ritual texts. Jīmūtavāhana, for example, says that in a passage from the Śaṅkha-Likhita dharmasūtra 58 the compound eka-putra means “the son of one (father),” namely, that the compound should be interpreted as a genitive tatpuruṣa rather than as a bahuvrīhi (a father “having one son”). To obtain this meaning, Jīmūtavāhana relies on the grammatical rule that interpreting a compound as a tatpuruṣa , which indicates one of the parts of the compound (the son), is preferable to a bahuvrīhi , in which case the compound indicates something not explicitly mentioned in it (the father). 59 Commentators did not need to explain the background underlying their conclusions; Jīmūtavāhana could assume that the grammatical rule he had in mind 60 was known to his fellow pandits who read his text. 61
The commentaries and nibandhas , rather than the smṛtis , were to play an important role in the following period.
After the British East India Company acquired territories and undertook to administer justice in India, 62 the first governor-general, Warren Hastings, operating according to a policy of minimal interference and disruption in the personal lives of native subjects, set up a system of civil justice that would apply Hindu law to Hindus, as also Islamic law to Muslims. Local “court pandits” were appointed to assist British judges in determining applicable Hindu laws in each case. Hastings also commissioned a group of pandits to redact a code of Hindu law. The Sanskrit text, translated into English from a truncated Persian version, became famous in the West as A Code of Gentoo laws , 63 but proved too flawed and unwieldy to be of use to British judges. In addition to translating the Manusmṛti (Jones 1794 ), Sir William Jones persuaded Governor-General Cornwallis to fund a new project, a digest of Hindu—and one of Islamic—law on contracts and successions, in the mode of Justinian’s Pandects, the Hindu part to be entrusted to two pandits, one for Bengal—to whom more were added—the other for Bihar, working under Jones’s supervision. Jones having died before the work was completed, the task of translating the Sanskrit text into English, in four hefty volumes, nearly half of which deal with inheritance, fell to Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1797–8 ). 64 Colebrooke, however, was promptly disappointed with this digest, which consisted essentially of a series of smṛti quotations arranged topically, each followed by lengthy extracts from differing commentaries and nibandhas , juxtaposed without a conclusion, which he felt would be of little use in the courts. As a remedy, Colebrooke (1810 ) translated in a single volume Jīmūtavāhana’s Dāyabhāga , a nibandha , and the chapter on inheritance of the Mitākṣarā , Vijñāneśvara’s commentary on the Yājñavalkyasmṛti . The fact that he chose these two texts stemmed from his view that there were two distinct forms, “schools” as he called them, 65 of Hindu inheritance law. Throughout the British period—and beyond—Colebrooke’s Two Treatises became the uncontested guide in decisions on Hindu inheritance: the law reports often start with words to the effect that “This is a case of Dāyabhāga law” or “This is a case of Mitākṣarā law.” 66 The Dāyabhāga School, with Jīmūtavāhana’s digest as the highest authority, 67 was held to be applicable in Bengal. The Mitākṣarā School became the law in the rest of India, divided, however, into four geographically defined sub-Schools, each with their own supplementary digest or digests, which agree with the Mitākṣarā on the main issues but deviate from it and from one another on minor points. 68
A fundamental difference between Dāyabhāga law and Mitākṣarā law concerns the time at which heirs acquire ownership in the family estate. Apropos of the definition of inheritance , both texts quote a verse from the Nāradasmṛti : “the wise call one of the eighteen grounds of litigation dāyabhāga , when sons proceed to the partition arthasya pitryasya ” (NSm 13.1). The Mitākṣarā confines itself to adding that the words “father” and “son” in this text are synecdochic (upalakṣaṇa ) for any owner of the property and for any heir, respectively; it does not comment on the word pitryasya , indicating thereby that it takes the word in the ordinary sense of “paternal property.” The Dāyabhāga , however, invokes a grammatical rule 69 to argue that pitrya means “coming from the father” (pitṛta āgataṃ pitryam ), and concludes that, in this case, pitrya implies that the sons can claim their shares only after their father’s death. 70 Thus, according to the Dāyabhāga , that is, “the Bengal School of Hindu law,” ownership of sons, and, by extension, of all heirs, originates at the time of the prior owner’s death or his being incapacitated in his lifetime.
The Mitākṣarā comes to a different conclusion. In a long and tightly argued passage at the beginning of the chapter on inheritance, 71 Vijñāneśvara argues that, ownership not being a “śāstric,” but a “wordly” (laukika ) concept, an individual’s right to acquire property is not limited to the ways enumerated in the śāstras , such as: “Ownership is established by inheritance, purchase, partition, possession, and discovery,” 72 and concludes that family members acquire ownership in the family property by birth.
The two Schools of Hindu Law, therefore, differ in that, in the Dāyabhāga School, the head of the family remains the sole owner of, and the single person who has the power to make decisions for, the entire family property as long as he lives, whereas in the Mitākṣarā School the role of the head of the family is limited to that of a manager, his power being restricted by other family members who, just by virtue of being born into a family, acquire the right of ownership in the family estate.
The view of the Mitākṣarā entails a distinction between two kinds of heirs: the right of ownership of sons and grandsons is “unobstructed” (apratibandha ), whereas that of brothers, nephews, and so forth is “obstructed” (sapratibandha ) by the existence of direct descendants. As long as a direct descendant is alive, other family members have no right whatsoever. The distinction between sapratibandha and apratibandha is absent in the Dāyabhāga , where all heirs are “obstructed” by the head of the family as long as he lives.
A second point on which the Dāyabhāga and Mitākṣarā Schools disagree results in a significant difference in the order of succession. Both Schools abide by the smṛti rule that sapiṇḍas inherit first, but they interpret the term piṇḍa differently. In the texts of the Mitākṣarā School, piṇḍas are some kind of “bodily particles,” that is, elements indicative of the biological propinquity of the owner and a prospective heir. In the Dāyabhāga School, on the other hand, piṇḍas are the material “rice balls” a survivor is supposed to offer in the śrāddha rituals. The rule in the Mitākṣarā School is that the inheritance goes to family members in the order of biological closeness to the owner, whereas in the Dāyabhāga School it goes to those who offer more śrāddhas , not only to the deceased but also to those to whom the deceased would have had to offer them. 73 Although the resulting differences in the order of succession are relatively easy to establish between close relatives, they become intricate and less certain between less closely related relatives of the deceased. 74
Even though the Sanskrit commentaries and digests—and, through them, the smṛtis— remained the fundamental sources of the Hindu law of inheritance during the British period, the picture became more complex as time progressed.
First, the British decided that it was their obligation to administer law to the Hindus, not religion. Hence, ignoring what had been an integral part of traditional Hindu law, they recognized adoptions that were not accompanied by the traditional dattahoma ritual.
Second, there were aspects of the Hindu law of inheritance which the British found objectionable, and which they did not hesitate to overrule, first in occasional decisions in the courts and later in parliamentary Acts. Thus, they vacated the rule that heirs had to pay the deceased’s debts even when they exceeded the value of the estate. 75 Nor did they feel bound by the traditional Hindu list of people barred from inheriting: when a murderer sued to be recognized as his victim’s heir so that the inheritance would devolve on his heirs, the Privy Council rejected his plea on the basis of justice, equity, and good conscience (Rocher 1987 ).
Third, the extra-legal arguments, especially those drawn from Indian logic and mīmāṃsā , which the commentators used or alluded to in order to justify their conclusions, caused significant problems for the translators of those texts. Even when a rare Western translator had familiarized himself with Indian panditic learning and was able to interpret the extra-legal arguments correctly, his translations proved to be of little use in the courts of law. 76
It is not surprising, then, that in their deliberations on questions of inheritance among Hindus the Anglo-Indian courts more and more avoided going back to Sanskrit texts and based their decisions on Western principles, such as stare decisis and communis error facit ius . The Hindu law of inheritance became a law of precedent, a British-style case law.
Some Englishmen concerned with legal administration in India became dissatisfied with the Sanskrit commentaries as sources of law. Judges and lawyers, especially in South India, where the rules by which people lived were different from the law of inheritance Calcutta ordered them to apply, raised questions about some basic issues: first, were Sanskrit books such as the Mitākṣarā truly law books, and, second, were single law books adequate to settle the disputes of all the people in large parts of India? They asked, “Has there ever been a Mitākṣarā law of inheritance,” and, more generally, “Has such a thing as ‘Hindu law’ at any time existed in India, or was it a mere phantom of the brain, imagined by Sanskritists without law and lawyers without Sanskrit?” 77
Although we know little about legal practice among Hindus in earlier days (Michaels 2010b ), it appears that at the time when the smṛtis were composed various rules on inheritance were practiced in—that is, were part of the dharma of—various localities and different segments of society, such as castes, professions, and so forth. 78 The smṛtis are repertories of different legal practices, but they were not used as law books in tribunals (Rocher 1993 ); even without having written smṛtis in hand, judges knew—and only needed to know—which rules were traditionally applied in the courts over which they presided.
Commentaries such as the Mitākṣarā and nibandhas such as the Dāyabhāga were different. Their authors were interpreting “texts” on dharma ; motivated, as Hindus, by the belief that all smṛti rules were parts of a single, encompassing revelation, they drew upon their vast panditic learning to prove it. The commentators on ancient smṛtis and authors of nibandhas were not jurists writing books to be used in courts of law; they were engaged in a scholastic exercise they applied equally to legal and non-legal chapters of the smṛtis and to all sections of the nibandhas . 79
When the British turned to the commentaries and nibandhas to settle disputes on inheritance, they did not continue—as they hoped—to give Indians their own laws. These were to be found in the numerous unwritten rules applied in a variety of differently organized local judicial councils. In Derrett’s words, by assigning commentaries and nibandhas the role of law books, “Hastings and his contemporaries, in particular Colebrooke, Jones and their successors, were gravely misled.” 80
After 1947, Hindu law of inheritance continued to be practiced as it had been before Independence. 81 In 1950, one of the “Directive Principles of State Policy” of the Indian Constitution had a direct bearing on the law of inheritance: “The State shall endeavour to secure a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India” (Art. 44). Owing to inevitable objections to such an endeavor, and since the “Directive Principles” were “not enforceable by any court” (Art. 37), India did not get a uniform civil code. Yet, shortly thereafter India witnessed “the death of a marriage law” (Derrett 1978 ), traditional Hindu law of inheritance, too, ended. On June 17, 1956, The Hindu Succession Act received the assent of the President of India, Rajendra Prasad. Article 4 of the Act firmly establishes its overriding effect:
Save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act,‒
For the first time in history, all Hindus were governed by a single, uniform system of inheritance law, a system, however, that, from every point of view, broke away from traditional Hindu law, and whose implementation required much adaptation.