XV1 reposited in the proper offices of the Sudder Dewanny Adawlut and the Supreme Court, that they might occasionally be consulted as a standard of justice, we should rarely be at a loss for principles at least and rules of law applicable to the cases before us, and should never perhaps be led astray by the Pandits or Moulavis, who would hardly venture to impose on us when their imposition might be so easily detected. It would not be unworthy of a British Government to give the natives of these Indian provinces a permanent security for the due administration of justice among them, similar to that which Justinian gave to his Greek and Roman subjects; but our compilation would require sar less labour and might be completed with far greater exactness in as short a time; since it would be confined to the laws of contracts and inheritances, which are of the most extensive use in private life, and to which the legislature has limited the decisions of the Supreme Court in causes between native parties.” The letter from which this extract is taken, is dated 19th of March 1788. On the same date, the then Governor General, Marquis Cornwallis, with the concurrence of the Members of Council, accepted the offer in terms honorable to the proposer and expressive of the most liberal sentiments. ** The objeét of your proposition (they say) being to promote due administration of justice, it becomes interesting to humanity; and it is deserving of our peculiar attention, as being intended to increase and secure the happiness of the numerous subjects of the Company's provinces.” And the result of this proposition, so glady accepted by the Governor General in Council, was the composition of the Vivódasárárnava, and the Vivódabhangórnava: the former was written by Sarvoru Trivedi, a lawyer of Mithilá, and the latter by Jagannātha Tarkapanchénana, and both by the direction of Sir William Jones, who himself had undertaken a translation of the latter work, together with an introductory discourse, for which he had prepared ample materials,” when the ‘hand of death arrested his labours. Although it must be a matter of regret that the public has lost, by his premature death, a translation from his pen of a digest compiled under his direction, yet it must be acknowledged that the scholar selected by Sir John Shore, the succeeding Governor General, sor completingf a translation of this digest was one who seems to have devoted much more time and attention to the study of our literature and law, and than whom no one has as yet been able to make a more faithful and complete translation of a law tract in Sanscrit, or to give a better The translation of the Vivádabhangárnava or Jagannātha's Digest This digest treats in full of the topics of The author of the work was exposition of our law. is commonly known as “Colebrooke's Digest.” contracts and inheritance as required by Sir William Jones. one of the greatest Pandits and also one of the most ingenious logicians of the age. Instead of reconciling contradictions or making - anomalies consistent, he has in many instances attempted to display his proficiency in logic and promptitude in subtle ingenuity, and has thus rendered the work an unsafe guide for a reader not already well versed in the law. Such reader will often find in it several discordant doctrines on one and the same point, and will be at a loss to know which to follow ; and if he follow whatever doctrine he finds at the first sight, without knowing what doctrine is recorded on the same point at another page, he will parliaps do wrong, for there may be in 黨 place of the same book another doctrine, perhaps the just one, and the soriner mayofiave been
- See his last anniversary discourse as President of the Asiatic Society, vol. iv. p. 176.
+ For the version of rnany texts cited in the work come from the pen of Sir William Jones, most of the laws quoted from Manu being found in his translation of the Monava dharma shastra, and other texts having been already translated by him when p3.rusing the preceding digest, the Vivódárnava-setu. Wide Coleb. Dig., pre. p. xviii
