Dissertations on Early Law and Custom
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780217464765
Paperback|9780217464765
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. ANCESTOR-WORSHIP. I Have said that the rules of life contained in the most ancient of the sacred law-books of the Hindus are strongly affected by two systems of religious belief which were probably at one time independent of one another. Although welded together by the Hindu sacerdotal lawyers, the purgation of sin by posthumous punishment in a series of hells, and the purgation of sin by transmigration from body to body, are distinct solutions of the same problem. The breach of the rules set forth in the law-books afflicts the lawbreaker with a special taint, which, unless he be cleansed from it by proper penances in his lifetime, will cling to his spirit after death, and can only then be purged away by far severer expiations. Two separate views of the life after death would appear to have contributed the theory of successive special Purgatories, and the theory of Transmigration, to the inaturer Hindu system which has joined them together. But besides the traces of this two-fold religious speculation, there is plain evidence of yet athird, and perhaps a still older religion, standing quite by itself, in these treatises. This is the Worship of Ancestors, which has shaped the entire Hindu law of Inheritance. The connection between Ancestor- Worship and Inheritance is not, however, peculiar to the Hindus. The most ancient law of a considerable number of the communities which have contributed most to civilisation shows us the performance of some part of this worship as a duty incumbent on expectant heirs and as the condition of their succession. This rude and primitive belief has thus very strongly influenced the branch of jurisprudence which, as linking the generations each to each, is of the greatest importance to all advancing societies. Ancestor-worship is n...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217464765 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217464769 |
| Weight | 0.78 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.54 In |
| List Price | $19.99 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 238 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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