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

$\left.\begin{matrix}S. V. 4. 20-21
N. p. 116 ll. 9-21\end{matrix}\right]$ RECOVERY OF DEBTS 221
should pay my debts ' should be made to pay (the debts of her husband).
The woman should pay the assets that came to her.¹
Nārada ( p. 47 v. 20 ) says :
If a woman who has a son forsakes her son and goes to live with
another man, her son alone should pay all her debts if she has no
property.²
This verse refers to a son who has taken the assets ( of his father ). Nārada
( p. 42 v 3 ) says :
That debt which was contracted for the family by an undivided uncle,
brother or mother must be discharged by all the sharers in the assets ( of
the family ).³
In regard to the discharge of debts when the creditor or his sons and
the like do not exist Nārada ( p 69 vv. 112-113 ) declares the mode :
Whatever is to be paid to a brāhmaṇa creditor, who is no more
together with his family ( i. e. neither he nor his children are alive )
should be given to his kinsmen and in default of them to his bandhus.⁴
Where there are neither kinsmen, nor relatives nor bandhus, it should
be paid to (other) brāhmaṇas ; on failure of even these ( other brāhmaṇas)
he must cast it into the waters.
* Prajāpati also says :
On failure of the bandhus, ( the debts owed to a brāhmaṇa ) should
be given to brāhmaṇas or thrown into the water ; for, whatever wealth
has been thrown into the water or fire is of benefit in the next world.
When, however, after the ( amount of a ) debt has been thrown into the
water or the like the creditor returns, he shall surely obtain it.
Here ends the section on recovery of debts.

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1. The reading in the text is rather difficult to construe. The reading of the Vīr.
   ' dhanam yadyās'ritam striyā ' is better and means ' if the husband's assets came to the
   woman '.
2. Vide notes to V. M. p. 349 for various explanations of this verse. The son who
   has property should pay his mother's debts, even though she forsakes him, if she is poor.
3. Compare Yāj. II. 45, Manu VIII. 166. Vide Bhala v. Parbhu, 2 Bom. 67 at p. 72
   and 43 All 604 at p. 606 ( where when a woman succeeded as mother to her deceased son
   and alienated certain property to pay off her husband's time-barred debts it was held that
   she had no authority to do so ).
   4 ' Sakulyas ' are members of the same gotra as himself ( i. e uncles and their
   sons, grand-uncles &c ) and bandhus are cognates like the maternal uncle and his son.
   If the creditor was a kṣatriya, vais'ya or s'ūdra, then instead of throwing the debt into
   water, it was to be paid to the king. The king was the ultimate heir except to the
   wealth of a brāhmaṇa.
   * P. 130 ( text )