18 



HINDU LAW IN 



was complete. It is observable that in this description of 

 the ceremony of adoption not a word is said about spiritual 

 benefit, or deliverance from the " Hell called Put," or as to 

 ceremonies performed by attendant Brahmans. So far as 

 appears, the act was done solely for temporal purposes, and 

 the consent of kinsmen was necessary because their interests 

 were (or might be) affected by it. 



If the adoptive father and mother subsequently had chil- 

 dren born to them, the natural children would be subordinate 

 to the adopted one, since " les loixne mettentnulle difference 

 entre l'enfant adopte et les veritables enfans." That is not 

 the case under the British Government. 



Another kind of adoption, that known as the " oppari 

 pirieradou" was practised by parents who, having lost a child, 

 happened to find another which in their eyes exactly resembled 

 the lost one. In such case they would pray the child to 

 regard them as his parents, and the prayer always was granted. 

 It was allowable for a Sudra to adopt a Brahman in this 

 fashion, and a Brahman so adopted would pay great respect 

 to his adoptive father, though he might not eat with him. A 

 man who lost a brother, or a woman who lost a sister, often 

 would adopt a person as brother or sister by ' oppari. 9 This 

 adoption was determined by the death of the adoptor, and its 

 effects did not pass to his children. 



The 5th maxim is : " Les orphelins doivent estre traittez 

 comme les enfans de ceux a qui on les confie." It is ex- 

 plained that a father's brothers were considered by law to be 

 the fathers of his children, and a mother's sisters to be her 

 children's mothers; and hence an Indian widower always does 

 his best to marry his deceased wife's sister, in order that his 

 children may have a proper mother to look after them. 

 Possibly it was this feeling that often led an Indian in 

 Rogerius' day (see La Porte ouverte, Amsterdam translation, 

 1670) to marry two or three sisters at a time : by so doing 



