Dhavle, J.This is an appeal by the plaintiff. The dispute relates to a one-third share in two annas in tauzi No, 14914, mauza Berai, thana Mahua, District Muzafiarpur and some kasht lands. The whole property once belonged to one Bidyapat Singh, who in 1921 made a gift of it to Mt. Mahokha Kuer and Mt. Mahabati Kuer, widows of his deceased sons Ami (or Amar Prasad) Singh and Deolal Singh, and Mt. Shambarat Kuer, his daughter, in three equal shares. Mahokha Kuer died on 3rd February 1929, after her father-in-law; and Bundi Lal, the original plaintiff, her husbands paternal great-grandfathers grandson, sued for the property as her next heir. During the pendency of the appeal in the lower Court, he died and was replaced by his dumb son Naubat under the guardianship of his son Singheshwar Singh. The suit was contested by Mt. Shambarat Kuer, defendant 1, sister of Mahokhas husband and one of the codonees with her, and her son Mulukraj, defendant 2. The trial Court dismissed the suit, accepting the contention of these defendants that the parties are governed by the Mithila School of Hindu Law and that the plaintiff is not entitled to inherit to Mt. Mahokha Kuer in preference to her husbands sisters son.

2. The plaintiff appealed, and the learned Subordinate Judge who heard the appeal below has said that the only question pressed before him was whether the plaintiff had title to the disputed properties. He has in dismissing the appeal, nevertheless, gone into certain other questions which were apparently raised before him half-heartedly. The same has been the case in this Court. The genealogy is not in dispute. There was a dispute in the lower Courts about whether the parties were governed by the Mithila law, but Mr. De who appeared for the appellant in this Court did not contest their concurrent finding that the parties are governed by he school of Hindu law. The respondents very halfheartedly suggested before me that Bidyapatis deed of gift only gave a life interest in the property to the ladies; but it expressly empowers them to deal with the properties gifted to them in whatever way they may think proper, and it is not a real qualification of the estate given to them that the previous sentence in the deed requires (or rather, authorizes) the donees to take possession of the property, appropriate the produce thereof and get their names recorded in the Land Registration Department whenever they might consider ft necessary to do so and obtain receipts and acquaintances in their own names. The learned advocate for the respondents did point out at one stage of his. arguments that while their case was that Mahokha had died two years later, the finding of the trial Court that she died in 1929 (a few days) before the coming into force of the Hindu Law of Inheritance (Amendment) Act (2 of 1929) had not been endorsed by the lower appellate Court. As it does not however appear that any question was raised in the last Court of fact by the party concerned regarding the year of Mahokha Kuers death, the finding of fact can hardly be re-opened in second appeal, nor did the learned advocate proceed to argue that succession to Mahokha Kuer would be affected by the Act of 1929 if she died in 1931. The only question really urged before me thus was whether Bundilal was not entitled to the property of Mahokha Kuer in preference to either of the eon-testing defendants.

3. The trial Court held on the authority in Mohun Pershad Narain Singh v. Kishen Kishore Narain singh (94) 21 Cal. 344 , that under the Mithila School of Hindu Law the husbands sisters son (that is, defendant 2) is a preferential heir to a womans stridhan than the husbands paternal great grandfathers grandson (the original plaintiff). In the lower appellate Court this was contested on behalf of the appellant on the authority in Bachha Jha v. Jugmon Jha (86) 12 Cal. 348 and Kamala Prasad Vs. Murli Manohar, . The learned Subordinate Judge considered that these cases did not settle the matter, and that though the view which he thought had been taken in Mohun Pershad Narain Singh v. Kishen kishore Narain Singh (94) 21 Cal. 344 , that the heirs mentioned by Brihaspati take in the order stated in his well-known verses was overruled by the Privy Council in Bai Kesserbai v. Hunsraj Morarji (06) 30 Bom. 431, defendant 1 and defendant 2 were more nearly related to Ami Singh than the plaintiff. He therefore took them to be the preferential heirs "as held in Mohun Pershad Narain Singh v. Kishen Kishore Narain Singh (94) 21 Cal. 344 ." The learned Subordinate Judge has apparently fallen into some confusion as regards this decision from Mohun Pershad Narain Singh v. Kishen Kishore Narain Singh (94) 21 Cal. 344 . it was a decision in favour of the husbands sisters sons and against the husbands paternal great grandfathers great grandsons on the footing that Brihaspatis verses about the mothers sister and five other relations who are (all six) pronounced similar to mothers and the succession to them, in default of issue, of the corresponding relatives the sisters son and the rest" govern the succession to stridhan in Mithila. In Bachha Jhas case in (86) 12 Cal. 348 the Mithila authorities then available had been considered, and the conclusion reached on the state of these authorities that the Mitakshara (which does not give Brihaspatis heirs) must govern the matter. This case was however distinguished in Mohun Pershad Narain Singh v. Kishore Narain Singh (94) 21 Cal. 344 , the ground that what was decided in it was not whether the class of sisters sons came before or after the sapindas but whether the husbands brothers son took prior to the sisters son, both being of the same class. The Mithila texts were not examined in Mohun Pershad Narain Singh v. Kishen Kishore Narain Singh (94) 21 Cal. 344 . The point was examined in detail in Kamala Prasad Vs. Murli Manohar, , where I had occasion to observe that their Lordships of the Judicial Committee had said enough in Bai Kesserbais case, in (06) 30 Bom. 431 to show that as little effect can be given to Brihaspatis text (against the clear Mitakshara rule in favour of the husbands nearest sapindas) under the Mayukha as under the Ratnakara; and as in. Bachha Jha v. Jugmon Jha (86) 12 Cal. 348 , Wort, J., and myself again followed the Mitakshara rule and declined to prefer a sisters son (one of Brihaspatis heirs) to the husbands fathers brothers son. The learned Subordinate Judge says at one point in his judgment that the answer to the question who was to succeed would depend upon the determination of the question who was more nearly related to the husband. This is perfectly correct, because according to the Mitakshara (Colebrooke Chap. II, Section 11, para. 11),

of a woman dying without issue as before stated and who had become a wife by any of the four modes of marriage denominated, Brahma, Daiva, Arsha and Prajapatya, the (whole) property as before described belongs in the first place to her husband. On failure of him it goes to his nearest kinsmen (sapindas)....

4. (Colebrooke added "allied by funeral oblations" as an explanation of the word sapindas, but this is now recognised to be a mistake). The husbands sisters sons were preferred to the agnates in Mohun Pershad Narain Singh v. Kishen Kishore Narain Singh (94) 21 Cal. 344 , but not on the ground that they were more nearly related to the husband of the deceased woman; the case was, as I have already said, decided on the supposed authority of Brihaspatis verses in Mithila, and not on any consideration of propinquity. These verses are not to be found in the Mitakshara or in the Vivada Chintamani. They are found in some other Mithila books which, however, do not indicate when exactly and in what order Brihaspatis six secondary sons are to take. In Bai Kesserbai v. Hunsraj Morarji (06) 30 Bom. 431, their Lordships of the Judicial Committee dealt with these verses in a case governed by the Vyavahara Mayukha which places Brihaspatis heirs after the husband in the approved and after the father in the disapproved forms of marriage. They referred to Bachha Jha v. Jugmon Jha (86) 12 Cal. 348 , apparently with approval, and they held that Brihaspati does not prescribe any new order of succession that could prevail over the Mayukha rule that if there is no husband, then the nearest to her in his family takes the womans property. It was, therefore, held in Kamla Prasads case, in Kamla Prasad v. Morarji (06) 30 Bom. 431 that as in Bachha Jha v. Jugmon Jha (86) 12 Cal. 348 , Mithila cases of succession to stridhan must be decided not on Brihaspatis verses but on the Mitakshara. This decision was arrived at notwithstanding Mohun Kishore which can, therefore, be no longer regarded as an authority on the Mithila law of stridhan.

5. Now, under the Mitakshara, Mahokha Kuers stridhan must go to her husbands nearest sapinda. The sisters son is undoubtedly, like the plaintiff himself, a sapinda (though unlike the plaintiff of a different gotra) within the definition given by Vijnanesvara, who, however, has not dealt with pratyasatti (nearness of relationship or propinquity) as systematically as with the sapinda relationship. But in commenting on various groups of heirs mentioned in Yajnavalkys verses (II. 135 36=136 and 137 in Colebrooke II. 1. 2: "The wife, and the daughters also...") on succession to a man who leaves no male issue Vijnanesvara has more than once referred to the point. Thus, in placing the mother before the father in the group of parents (pitarau), he says

...since her propinquity (pratyasatti) is consequently greatest, it is fit that she should take the estate in the first instance, conformably with the text to the nearest sapinda the inheritance next belongs. Nor is the claim in virtue of propinquity restricted to sapindas...: but, on the contrary, it appears from this very text that the rule of propinquity is effectual, without any exception, in the case of samanodakas...as well as other relatives when they appear to have a claim to the succession. Therefore, since the mother is the nearest of the two parents, it is most fit that she should take the estate." (Colebrooke II. 3. 3-5).

6. In dealing with brothers, the author of the Mitakshara again refers to the same verse of Manu (IX 187) about the inheritance going to the nearest sapinda in support of the conclusion that brothers of the whole blood come before those of the half blood "since those of the half blood are remote through the difference of the mothers." (Colebrooke II. 4.5.). Having already said that the rule of propinquity from Manus verse (IX187) is not confined to sapindas but also extends to samanodakas as well as other relatives, Vijnaneshvara again, when he comes to deal with bandhus (cognates), first quotes an old text dividing them into three classes according as they are related to the deceased himself, to his father, or to his mother, and then says:

Here by reason of near, affinity, the cognate kin&red of the deceased himself are his successors in first instance; on failure of them his fathers cognate kindred; or, if there be none, his mothers kindred" (Colebrooke II. 6. 2).

7. The preference given to the paternal over the maternal bandhus is doubtless based on the same ground of propinquity as led to the preference of of the bandhus of the deceased himself over either parental group of such relatives. Vijnanesvaras insistence on propinquity is unmistakable, but his application of that principle does not, it is clear, rest on a mere arithmetical count of degrees, though the sapinda relationship is based by him not on community of pindas in the sense of funeral oblations but on community of corporal particles, i.e., community of blood. He took the mother to be nearer than the father on the ground that unlike the father she is not a common parent to other sons (viz., her step-sons) a ground which has met with a good deal of criticism from such authorities as the Vyavahara-Mayukha and the Smriti Chandrika, J to say nothing of the fact that as the Subodhini itself points out, the son derives more from the father than from the mother. Be that as it may, the maternal bandhus are postponed to the paternal in spite of the priority given to the mother herself. Again, as the word sons is used in a generic sense to include grandsons and also great-grandsons, Buddhah Singh v. Laltu Singh (15) 2 AIR 1915 P.C. 70, the paternal uncles sons son will come before the fathers paternal uncle, the simple rule of deciding propinquity by counting degrees giving place here to the principle that the nearer line excludes the more remote. A nearer paternal or maternal cognate also may thus be excluded by a more distant cognate of the deceased himself. A complete exposition of nearness of relationship, as Vijnanesvara understood it, is wanting in the Mitakshara because he was merely commenting on Yajnavalkyas Smriti, which made it unnecessary t for him to explain why on the principle of propinquity bandhus (as the term was interpreted by him) were placed after gotrajas (gentiles) in Yajnavalkas verse, or the daughters son, for whom a place was found on the texts of Vishnu and Manu (IX. 136), preferred to the parents and the brothers. But does it follow from this that as he understood propinquity, bandhus were not really as a class further removed than gotrajas Propinquity is after all a natural ground for inheritance, though the manner in which it is understood and applied may depend on social conditions, religious considerations and other factors. The rule of the nearest sapinda was by no means first formulated in our Manu, for, Apastamba had also laid down "In default of the son, the nearest sapinda." From the earliest times however, the gotra seems to have been bound up with the pinda for purposes of inheritance. Gautama, one of the earliest authorities, confined inheritance to findagotrarshisambandhah (persons related to pinda, gotra and rishi)(besides the widow), and Vasistha (XVII. 79) did much the same by speaking of the sumanarthajanmapindodakagotras (persons of common pinda, gotra, etc.). In IX. 142 Manu said that the pinda follows the gotra and the inheritance. This may well have been the reason why bandhus as Vijnanesvara interpreted the term, viz., sapindas of a different gotra, obtained recognition as heirs so late however close their tie of blood relationship with the deceased might appear from a more modern point of view which would make pratyasatti a matter of counting degrees of descent or ascent merely. The late recognition would itself indicate that such heirs were from the beginning felt to be more remote for purposes of inheritance. In this view Vijnanesvara may well have taken the whole order of succession from the widow to the cognates to be determined by pratyasatti as it was understood down to his own time. He has indeed not said so, since express texts assigning places to specific individual relatives or groups sufficed in many cases without requiring to be supported by reference to the principle of propinquity. But commentators are not wanting who clearly took this to have been Vijnanesvaras view. Thus, we find it stated in the Sarasvati Vilasa not only that the order of devolution...is based "only on logic and not upon express texts," but also that

it has been stated by Vijnanayogi: As for the text, the wife, the daughters, etc., that regulates the order of succession depending upon relative proximity of ownership, in order to remove any doubts which may arise where there are rival claimants related to the owner" (Setlurs Hindu Law books on Inheritance, Part 1 pp. 171-72 paras. 477-8).

8. The Balambhatti also says on Mitakshara 11.3.4 that throughout the verses "the wife, and the daughters also, etc.," the order of succession is determined solely by the greatest pratyasatti to the deceased (Setlurs Mitakshara p. 774). If this be correct, Vijnanesvaras "nearest sapindas in 11. XI. 11 on the stridhan verse of Yajnavalkya would be no other than the heirs determined on what may be called the general verses on succession (Yajnavalkya 11.135-6); and this in fact is the conclusion of Kamalakara, who says in his Vivada-Tandava that according to Vijnanesvara, in default of the husband, the husbands nearest relations, the widow, and the daughters also and the rest inherit, husbands widow (i.e.), the co-widow (husbands) daughter, i.e., daughter by a co-widow. (Chatterjea, J. in Dwarka Nath v. Sarat Chandra (12) 39 Cal. 319 . Ghosh at p. 1155 of Vol. 11 of his Principles of Hindu Law gives the passage slightly differently and renders it into English somewhat inaccurately at p. 1142).

9. West and Buhler wore inclined to interpret Vijnanesvaras nearest sapindas in: the sense of nearest by relationship irrespective of the order developed by the great commentator on Yajnavalkya (11.135-6) and of the preference shown therein to samana gotra (or sagotra) sapindas (agnates) over bhinna gotra sapindas (cognates). In Edn. 4 of their valuable Digest, the preference for this interpretation seems to have been given up in part (see p. 485 where there seems to have been a change, unlike p. 141.) Upon this, Sir Gooroodas Banerjee observed in his Tagore Law Lectures on Hindu Marriage and Stridhan, 1878:

In this conflict of authority, it is not easy to say which view is correct. But Kamalakaras opinion is entitled to be followed as authority in the Benares School, when it is not in conflict with that of any higher authority; and in the present instance the rule based upon his opinion has the further recommendation of being simple, as it makes the order of succession to stridhana correspond, after a certain point, to that applicable to a mans property. It may also be urged that if this were not Vijnaneswaras meaning, and if he had not referred to this known order of succession after the husband, he would in all probability have expressed himself more explicitly (see pp. 427-8 of Edn. 5 of his well-known book.)

10. It may perhaps be added that if Vijnanesvara had really meant to allow anything so sub stantially different in the succession to stridhan after the husband from what he had said on Yajnavalkya II. 135-6 as would mix up cognates with agnates, his failure to give the order of succession explicitly would have been all the more remarkable, in view of the thorough and methodical manner in which he endeavoured to clarify and systematize the general law of succession by redefining the term sapinda on new lines, restrict the sapindas included in Yajnavalkyas gotrajas to members of the same gotra, putting his bandhus into the newly defined class of bhinna gotra sapindas, and applying the prinoiple of pratyasatti within Yajnavalkyas groups. If Kamalakara is to be followed, the plaintiff-appellant will, as an agnate of the husband of Mahokha Kuer, clearly take precedence over the husbands sister defendant 1, and her son, defendant 2, both of whom J belong to a different gotra from him. Prior to the Hindu Law of Inheritance (Amendment) Act, 1929, the sister was no heir at all in these parts and marriage still means her passing into, another gotra.

11. The question of the nearest sapindas according to Vijnanesvara has arisen in many cases relating to stridhan. Where the woman was married in a disapproved form, or where she was unmarried, the only difference that arose was that it was the fathers nearest sapindas (and not the husbands) that had to be determined. In case after case, the nearest sapinda has been found by the High Courts without any exception, substantially by tracing from the man (the husband or father, as the case may be) as the stock of descent. The only cases of competition between the agnates and cognates that, I am aware of are Dwarka Nath v. Sarat Chandra (12) 39 cal. 319 and Kumar Raghava Surendra Sahi and Others Vs. Babui Lachmi Koer and Others, and in both of them the preference was determined in accordance with the Mitakshara on Yajnavalkya II.135-6 and not on a principle of pratyasatti which would mix up cognates with agnates. In Dwarka Nath v. Sarat Chandra (12)39 Cal. 319 the competition was between the fathers brothers son and the fathers married daughters (i.e., sisters of the deceased, a maiden) besides the son of one of them; the agnates failed really because the daughters and the daughters son come long before the agnates on Yajnavalkyas general verses as interpreted by Vijnanesvara, and not so much because the agnates were found to be more remote on an arithmetical computation of the degrees, though Chitty, J. does in one place speak of the former being nearer in relationship. Kumar Raghava Surendra Sahi and Others Vs. Babui Lachmi Koer and Others, was also a case of succession to a maidens stridhan, and the decision was that a party fifth in. male descent from an ancestor who was six degrees removed from her father was to be preferred to the fathers grandfathers sons daughters son. It was urged in this case that Kamalakaras final conclusion is that in default of husband or father the heir is to be found by applying the doctrine of religious efficacy to the sapindas generally without reference to the particular class of sapindas to which they may belong. The argument was rejected as contrary to the view taken by the many eminent Sanskrit scholars, jurists (and Judges) who have dealt with the matter. Their Lordships of the Judicial Committee have recently endorsed Mr. Maynes oft-quoted proposition that the Mitakshara never once alludes to the test applied by the Dayabhaga at every step for the claims of rival heirs, on the doctrine of religious efficacy, by considering the numbers and nature of their respective offerings: AIR 1938 34 (Privy Council) . It is true that in fixing the place of the daughters son Vijnanesvara cites a text of Vishnu and another of Manu (IX. 136) which speak of the obsequies of ancestors and the offering of the funeral oblation, but even so, he does not apply the test of religious efficacy to this heir as Jimutavahana does at more than one place in the Dayabhaga (e.g. XI 11. 2. 17 and 25) or Mitramisra in the Viramitrodaya (111, 3. 1). Mr. M.N. Pal for the respondents has, in support of the contention that Kamalakaras final conclusion is in favour of the test of religious efficacy, referred to two later passages from the Vivada-Tandava. One is the last sentence on p. 1155 of Ghoshs book (the only Vivada Tandava before me), which says that the issue of the husbands sister (takes the wealth) of the maternal uncles wife ; but this seems to be no more than Kamalakaras exposition of Brihaspatis verses as quoted in the Madhaviya and by Apararka, and cannot be taken as a modification of what Kamalakara has already expressed as the view of the Mitakshara, by which and not by Brihaspatis verses, this case must (as I have already shown) be governed. The other passage occurs on the next four lines from the end of the extracts that Ghosh has printed:

failing her (viz. the daughter-in-law) the sisters son takes the wealth of the mothers sister because of his right to offer pindas. Failing him, the husbands sisters son takes the wealth of the maternal uncles wife.

12. (Ghosh here somewhat loosely speaks of the maternal aunt) "because he offers the pinda of the three ancestors and of the husband" (Ghoshs rendering of a Sanskrit original which is obviously not in order but clearly speaks of the three ancestors being matamahadi i.e. headed by the maternal grandfather). This, however, is not Kamalakaras view at all, but is, I find, only an abridged quotation from Dayabhaga IV. 3. 36-37, though Ghoshs printing and rendering rather obscure its real character. In determining the relatives that Vijnanesvara intended by the expression nearest sapindas, the Dayabhaga can be no guide, and Kamalakara has already expressed his view of what was intended by Vijnanesvara. His summary of what Jimutavahana says on the devolution of stridhan in such cases is not in point at all, and would not, I feel, have been appealed to by the learned advocate if he had realised what it was.

13. It has also been urged by Mr. Pal that the Mithila Law of stridhan differs from the Mitakshara. Now, it is true that the Vivada Chintamani does not quote Yajnavalkya II. 143 at all, and that the Vivada Ratnakara (XI. 3) and the Vivada Chandra quote it with the reading adhivedanikamchapi (i.e. and supersession fee also) instead of the adhivedanikadyam cha (i.e. and supersession fee as also any other (separate acquisition) as Colebrooke puts it) of the Mitakshara. There may, therefore, be no room in Mithila for the unlimited interpretation put upon the word stridhan by Vijnanesvara. Bat the property left by Mahokha Kuer was a gift to her from her father-in-law and thus constituted stridhan of the anvadheva (or gift subsequent) kind. This is one of the ten classes of stridhan mentioned in the Vivada Chintamani and is also found in the other two Mithila books already referred to. It is not affected by the Mithila peculiarity urged by the well-known writer Sastri Golap Chandra Sarkar (see p. 558 of his Hindu Law, Edn. 8) as regards bhartri-daya (immovable property gifted by or inherited from the husband). The stridhan in suit belonged to a woman who was presumably married in the Brahma form and who left no issue. We are, therefore, not concerned with the differences between the Mitakshara and the Mithila books as regards devolution upon the issue of a woman. Unlike the Mitakshara some of the Mithila books do cite Brihaspatis verses about secondary mothers and sons, but as I have already shown, it was settled in Kamala Prasad Vs. Murli Manohar, that succession to stridhan in Mithila cannot be governed by them and must be governed by Mitakshara with its "nearest sapindas." The learned advocate points out that the Madana Parijata (at p. 666 of the book in the Bibliotheca Indica series) speaks of stridhan being taken in default of the husband by the nearest in his family and in default of them by the nearest in the fathers family; but, in the circumstances of the present case, this makes no difference as the plaintiff is an agnate of the husband unlike the contesting defendants.

14. The learned advocate has referred to Dr. Jollys criticism of Vijnanesvaras treatment of the old texts used in connexion with the devolution of sridhan (Lecture 11 of the Tagore Law Lectures). But it is not open to the Courts to draw fresh conclusions from those texts, Collector of Madura v. Moottoo Ramalinga (67-69) 12 M.I.A. 397, and the Mitakshara, it is settled, applies to Mithila except in a few matters in respect of which the Mithila school has departed from it, while succession to the stridhan of a woman who leaves no issue (down to the daughters daughter and son) is not among the excepted matters because Brihaspatis verses cannot be taken to constitute a definite departure from the Mitakshara. The learned advocate has also urged that the Mithila scheme of succession to a male who dies without leaving sons lays more stress on sraddhas than the Mitakshara and that Vijnanesvaras differentiation of samanagotra sapindas and bhinnagotra sapindas is out of keeping with the spirit of the Mithila writers. Notwithstanding the references to sraddhas in the Vivada Ratnakara (XXXIV-4, 11, 16, 29-32) however, Yajnavalkyas verses on this point, II. 135-36, are found in the Mithila books, and the Vivada Chintamani, after citing Baudhayana (placitum 276 at p. 238 of Pandit Lakshmikanta Jhas recent edition) "in default of a sapinda, a sakulya, in default of him, the preceptor, etc.," adds "in default of a sagotra, a bandhu according to Yajnavalkyas text. And he may be ones own bandhu or pitri bandhu or matri bandhu," following this up with the same definitions that are found in the Mitakshara at II. 6.1. Mithila, is thus no stranger to the distinction between sagotras and bhinna gotras and in the context referred to above, the word sagotra plainly includes the Mithila writers sapindas and sakulyas. If we refer to such texts, as, for instance, Baudhayana quoted in the Vivada Ratnakara at XXXIV-18 and Brihan-Manu quoted in the Vivada Chintamani (placitum 244), the Mithila sagotra sapindas and sakulyas appear to be no less extensive than Vijnanesvaras samanagotra sapindas while samanodakas will come as sagotras after sakulyas and the comment on Baudhayana in the Vivada Chintamani quoted above places the bandhus (whose gotra is necessarily different from that of the deceased) after the sagotras. There are, it is true, but few references to the Mitakshara to be found in the Vivada Rantakara, the Vivada Chandra and the Vivada Chintamani, and none in the portions relating to succession. But Yajnavalkya was a Smriti author from Mithila, and the Mitakshara is a thoroughly systematic, if also concise, commentary on that Smriti unlike the Mithila books which mostly seem merely to bring together old texts with occasional explanations but without any apparent endeavour to offer a very systematic exposition of the law (Vyavahara). And, in any event, it is now far too late to assail the Mitakshara in cases from Mithila except on points on which the Mithila books can be shown to have made a definite departure from Vijananesvaras conclusions. The learned advocate has also suggested a preference for female heirs in stridhan cases. But it is to the Mitakshara and not to the Mithila books that we must look for interpreting Manu IX. 192 in favour of the daughters to the exclusion of the sons (see the verse discussed at p. 413 of Sir Gooroodas Banerjees book, and Dr. Jollys criticism of Mitakshara IUXI. 20 at p. 264 of his Tagore Law Lectures). The three Mithila books seem to confine only the comparatively unimportant yautuka and parinayya varieties of stridhan to daughters without any share to the sons as under Manus verse. And in any case, even if there should be any preference for female over male offspring in the devolution of stridhan, there is no reason (as Telang, J. showed in Manilal Rewadat v. Bai Rewa (39) 17 Bom. 758 to extend it to collateral relations. In my opinion, the decision of the lower appellate Court that the defendants are more nearly, related to Mahokha Kuers husband is erroneous. I hold that the plaintiff is a nearer sapinda (as an agnate) than the defendants and is, therefore, entitled to Mahokha Kuers stridhan. The appeal must therefore be allowed, the decrees of the lower Courts reversed and the suit decreed with costs of all the Courts.