Mitakshara

A voluminous commentary on the
Yajnavalkya Smrti, written early in the
twelfth century by the scholar
Vijnaneshvara. This particular commentary played a pivotal role in the
British colonial administration of India.
The British were content to have their
Indian subjects governed by their traditional religious laws, but to do so they
needed to know what these laws were.
For large sections of British India, the
Mitakshara was given the status of traditional law, functioning as a legal code.
The only major part of India in which
the Mitakshara did not hold sway was in
Bengal, where the legal authority was
the Dayabhaga. One of the major differences between the two was in matters of
inheritance. The Mitakshara stresses
inheritance by survivorship, in which
only living males can inherit property,
whereas the Dayabhaga stresses inheritance by succession, in which a dead
man’s heirs can inherit in his name.