व्यवहारमयूख (नीलकण्ठ भट्ट - पश्चिमी भारत की हिन्दू न्याय-संहिता एवं व्यवहार कोष)

S. IV. 5. 34-36 ]
M. p. 63 ll. 22-37 ] ADOPTION 131
one (adopted), whose (upanayana and other) saṁskāras are performed with
the gotra of the adoptive father has sapiṇḍa relationship only with the adoptive
father and the rest for seven and five generations', we do not know on what
authority (or source) this dictum is based$^1$ And moreover, if the adoptive
father has not the position of a pitṛ (father) on account of the absence of
being the procreator and being the initiator into Vedic study (in the case of
an adopted son whose upanayana was performed in the natural family),
how is it that (it is said that) the dattaka has sapiṇḍa relationship (with
the adoptive father) for three generations or how is it that he is to perform
the śrāddhas of the adoptive father and the rest? Nor can it be said that
being the pitṛ (in the primary sense) is necessarily co-existent with (or in-
variably concomitant with) sapiṇḍa relationship$^2$, so that when there is ab-
sence of pitṛtva (in the primary sense of being the procreator or the initia-
tor into Vedic study), there would result the absence of sapiṇḍa relation-
ship. As a matter of fact the sapiṇḍa relationship (of the adopted boy)
with the adopter and the rest has already been declared by such texts of
Gautama and the rest as 'beyond the seventh out of the father's relations'
(Gautama Dh S 4 3) This is the direction (i e this will suffice to
elucidate this topic)$^3$
Now (begin) the rites of the gift and acceptance of a son All (men)
that have several sons have the power to give (in adoption) only that son

1. The Sāpiṇḍyanirṇaya is a work of Śrīdharabhaṭṭa, a paternal grand-uncle of Nīla-
   kaṇṭha One ms. of it in the Deccan College collection was copied in 1591 A D At the end
   of another ms (No 200 of 1882-83) it is called Sāpiṇḍya-dīpikā also On account of this
   relationship Nīlakaṇṭha uses the plural and the word 'mānya' (worthy of respect) with
   reference to the author. Vide notes to V M p 206 for quotations from the work.
   2 This sentence is quoted in 36 Bom 339 at p 350.
2. In the words from 'if the adoptive father' 'Nīl argues against the dictum of the
   Sāpiṇḍyanirṇaya The argument of the latter work is that a man is called a pitā either be-
   cause he procreates the son or because he performs his upanayana (which is as if a second
   birth) If a boy is adopted after upanayana the adoptive father cannot claim to be a pitṛ
   of that boy in any one of these two senses, then Nīl asks, why should the Sāpiṇḍyanirṇaya
   yet say that there is sapiṇḍa relationship for three generations? The Sāpiṇḍyanirṇaya might
   reply that where the adoption takes place after upanayana, there is pitṛtva in both ways in
   the natural father and so there is sāpiṇḍya with the natural father for seven generations and
   with the adoptive father only for three, as a piṇḍa is to be offered only to three paternal
   ancestors Nīl replies by saying that we cannot assert as an invariable proposition that where
   there is pitṛtva there is also sāpiṇḍya That proposition fails in the case of the kevala dattaka,
   who, according to Manu, has no sāpiṇḍya with the natural father Nīl further says that
   conceding for argument's sake that when a boy is adopted after upanayana is performed in
   the family of birth, the adopter is not his pitā in any of the two ways mentioned above, it
   would not necessarily follow that there is no sāpiṇḍya between them, since as shown above
   pitṛtva and sāpiṇḍya are not invariably co existent He says that on adoption there is the
   same sapiṇḍa relationship between the adopter and the adoptee, whether it takes place before
   or after upanayana is performed in the natural family.