SHRI SADASHIVA said:

O Primordial One! I am speaking to Thee again of the everlasting laws; the wise King may easily rule his subjects if he follows them (1).

If Kings did not establish rules, men in their covetousness would quarrel among themselves, even with their friends, relatives, and their superiors (2).

These self-seeking men, O Devi! would for the sake of wealth kill one another, and be full of sin by reason of their maliciousness and desire to thieve (3).

It is therefore for their good that I am laying down the rule in accordance with Dharma, by following which men will not swerve from the right (path) (4).

As the King should punish the wicked for the removal of their sins, so should he also divide the inheritance according to the relationship (5).

Relationship is of two kinds: by marriage and by birth; of these, relationship by birth is stronger than relationship by marriage (6).

In inheritance, O Shiva! descendants have a stronger claim than ascendants, and in this order of descendants and ascendants the males are better qualified for inheritance than females (7).

But among these, again, the proximate relation is entitled to the inheritance; the wise ones should divide the property according to this rule and in this order (8):

If the deceased leaves son, grandson, daughters, father, wife, and other relations, then the son is entitled to the whole of the inheritance, and not the others (9).

If there are several sons, they are all entitled to equal shares. (In the case of a King) the kingdom goes to the eldest son, but that is in accordance to the custom of the family (10).

If there be any paternal debt which should be paid out of the paternal property, such property should not be divided (11).

If men should divide and take paternal property, then the King should take it from them, and discharge the paternal debt (12).

As men go to hell by reason of their own sins, so they are bound by their individually incurred debts, and others are not (13).

Whatever general property there may be, either immovable or of other kinds, sharers shall get the same according to their respective shares (14).

The division is complete on the co-partners agreeing to it. If they do not agree, then the King should divide it impartially (15).

The King should divide the value or profits of property which is incapable of division, whether the same be immovable or movable (16).

If a man proves his right to a share after the property is divided, then the King should divide the property over again, and give the person entitled his share (17).

O Shiva! the King should punish the man who, after property is once divided by the consent of the co-partners, quarrels again with respect to it (18).

If the deceased dies leaving behind him grandson, wife, and father, then the grandson is entitled to the property by reason of his being a descendant (19).

If the childless man leaves (surviving him) father, brother, and grandfather, then the father inherits the property by reason of the closeness of consanguinity (20).

Beloved! if the deceased leaves daughters (surviving him), although they are closer to him, yet the grandsons (sons. sons) are entitled to his property, because man is prior (21).

From the grandfather the property goes to the grandson by the deceased son, and thus it is that men proclaim that the father's self is in the image of the son (22).

In marital relationship the Brahmi wife is the superior, and the sonless man's property should go to the wife, who is half his body (23).

The sonless widow, however, is not competent to sell or give away property inherited from her husband, except what is her own by her own right (24).

Anything given by the fathers and fathers-in-law approved by Dharma, whatever is earned by her personal efforts, is to be recognized as "Woman's property" (25).

On her death it goes to the husband, and to his heirs according to the grades of descendants and ancestors (26).

If the woman remains faithful to her Dharma, and lives under the control of the relations of her husband, and in their absence under the control of her father's relations, then only is she entitled to inherit (27).

The woman who is even likely to go astray is not entitled to inherit the husband's property. She is merely entitled to a living allowance from the heirs of her husband (28).

If the man who has died has many wives, all of whom are pious, then, O Thou of pure Smiles! they are entitled to the husband's property in equal shares (29).

If the woman who inherits her husband's property dies leaving daughters, then the property is taken to have gone back from the husband and from him to the daughter (30).

In this way, if there is a daughter and the property goes to the son's widow, then, on the death of the latter, it would go back to the husband, and from the father-in-law descend to the daughter of the latter (31).

Similarly, O Shiva! if property goes to the mother in the lifetime of the paternal grandfather, then, on her death, it goes to her father-in-law through her son and husband (32).

As the property of the deceased ascends to the father, so it also ascends to the mother if she is a widow (33).

But the stepmother shall not inherit if the mother is living, but on the death of the mother it goes to the stepmother through the father (34).

Where, in the absence of descendants, the inheritance cannot descend, it would ascend the same way by which it would descend (35).

Therefore, even when the father's brother is alive, the daughter inherits the property, and if she dies childless then such property goes to the father's brother (36).

As inheritance descends in the male line, the stepbrother inherits even when there is a uterine sister (37).

And when there is a uterine sister and sons of stepbrother, it is the latter who inherit the property (38).

If the deceased leaves (surviving him) both uterine and stepbrother, then, by reason of the property descending through the father, they are entitled to inherit in equal shares (39).

In the lifetime of their daughters their sons are not entitled to inherit until the obstruction is removed by the death of the daughters (40).

In the absence of sons, the daughters divide among themselves the paternal property, after deducting the marriage expenses of an unmarried daughter (if any) out of the general estate (41).

On the death of a childless woman the stri-dhana goes to her husband, and the property which she inherited from anyone else goes back to the line of the person from whom she inherited (42).

The woman may spend property inherited by her on her own maintenance, and she may spend profits of it on acts of religious merit, but she is not able to sell or make gifts of it (43).

Where the daughter-in-law of the grandfather (father's father) is living, or the stepmother of the father is living, the inheritance goes to the grandfather, and through his son to the (grandfather's) daughter-in-law (44).

Where the grandfather, the father's brother, and the brother are living, the brother succeeds by reason of the priority in claim of the descendant (45).

If a man dies leaving him surviving his grandfather, brother, and uncle, both of the former are nearer in degree, than the last, and the property descends through the father to the deceased's brother (46).

If the deceased leaves a daughter's son and father (surviving him), then the daughter's son inherits, because property in the first place descends (47).

If both the father and the mother of the deceased be living (at his death), then, O Kalika! by reason of the superior claim of the male, the father takes his property (48).

If the mother's brother is living, the sapindas of the father take the property of the deceased by reason of the superior claim of the paternal relationship (49).

Property failing to go downwards has (here) gone upwards, but, O Shiva! by reason of the superior claim of the male line it has gone to the father's family. The mother's brother, in spite of the nearness of his relationship, does not inherit (50).

The grandson by a deceased son inherits from his grandfather's estate the share which his father would have inherited along with his (the father's) brothers (51).

Similarly, the granddaughter who has no brother and whose parents are dead, inherits, if she be well conducted, her grandfather's (father's father) property with her father's brothers (52).

On the death of the grandfather leaving him surviving his wife, his daughter, and granddaughter, the last, O Devi! is the heiress of the property, since she takes it through her father (53).

In property which descends the male among the descendants, and in property which ascends, the male among the ascendants, are pre-eminently qualified (to inherit) (54).

Therefore, O Beloved! if the deceased has daughter-in-law, granddaughter, and daughter surviving him, then his father cannot take the property (55).

If there is no one in the family of the father of the deceased entitled to inherit his property, then in manner above indicated it goes to the family of his mother's father (56).

Property which has gone to the maternal grandfather shall ascend and descend, and go both to males and females through the maternal uncle and his sons and others (57).

If the line of Brahmi marriage, or if the sapindas of the father or of the mother, be in existence, then the issue of the Shaiva marriage are not entitled to inherit the father's property (58).

The wife and children of the Shaiva marriage, O Gentle One! are entitled to receive, from the person who inherits the property of the deceased, their food and clothes in proportion to the property left (59).Beloved! the Shaiva wife, if well conducted, is entitled to be maintained by the Shaiva husband alone. She has no claim to the property of her father and others (60).