xxiii another. Translations of those works cannot therefore be of great use to those who cannot devote much time to a diligent study of their contents. Besides, now-a-days the judges for the most part consider it safe and convenient to follow the decisions of their learned predecessors, instead of taking much trouble to ascertain for themselves the law on the point or points at issue.” Hence, the principles laid down in the previous decisions and the opinions of the law officers followed in those decisions and admitted by the courts of justice, form in a great degree the practical part of the law. Consequently in the present state of legal practice it will not be enough if a digest include only the principles contained in the law tracts and the authorities on which they rest; but to be practically useful; such a work is needed as will comprise all the principles laid down in the current law tracts, unreversed or final decisions, and the admitted law opinions, illustrated by precedents. Moreover it is required to be not only in the vernacular but also in English, inagmuch as all the desiderata are not to be found in any single English bogk, and it is very difficult for a person to procure a large number of the English books op the subjects in question, and still more so, if he be in possession of them, to find out what he requires without losing much time in the attempt. To compile a work of the above description requires, I confess, more time and talent than I possess. But as no one more talented and experienced has undertaken this arduous task, and the want of such a work continues to be felt by both Mofussil and metropolitan practitioners and others, I commenced the work in the hope of providing for the defect as far as my humble abilities would allow, and the following pages constitute the result of my labours. I thought at first that it would be sufficient to supply the vyavasthās or principles in Bengalee and . English, with authoritics and precedents bearing thereupon. But it occurred to me that if L did not. give the Sanscrit passages cxpressive of those principlcs and the texts of the holy sages and other great authors on the authority whereof those principles were laid down, there would still be left for the ingenious portion of the Pandits a field to work upon. And the little experience that I have had in this department of jurisprudence suggested to me that it was necessary to publish separate books for Bengal and the other schools, as it is very difficult to preserve all along the distinction between the laws as current in Bengal and those in the other schools, so much so that even Sir William Macnaghten, who seems to have taken much care about it, has sometimes forgotten it, and blended the special doctrines of, one school with those of another. But even were I careful in making the distinction throughout, still the reader who would not make himself master of them, would very probably overlook them and fall into errorf. Add to this the vernacular language of the different schools not being onc and the same, the principles, precedents, &c. having
- They ought, however, to be warned that, amongst the decisions passed in accordance with the Hondu law, there are some which are not correct and accurate with reference to that law ; and as decrees are in themselves not law but merely the application of the law to particular cases, and as the judges are by their oaths bound to decide each case upon its own merits in conformity with law; usage, and principles of justice, they should not (and cannot conscientiously) follow a precedent without being satisfied that that precedent is in conformity with the law they are to administer. Precedents therefore ought to be applied after great consideration and with
duc circumspection. + “In a general compilation,” says Mr. Colebrooke, “where the authorities are greatly multiplied, and the doctrines of many different schools and of numerous authors are contrasted and compared, the reader is at a loss to collect the doctrinos of a particnlar school and follovv thơ train of reasoning by which they are maintained. He is confounded by the perpetual conflict of discordant opinions and jarring deductions and by the frequent transition from the positions of one sect to the principles of another.”—Dą. bhā. pre. p. iii.
